About the Texas Race for State Comptroller

[rolanni]

The Democratic candidate for State Comptroller of Texas, a person named Fred Head, is running a heated campaign against his Republican opponent, one Susan Combs. It seems Ms. Combs had, a decade ago, published a romance novel with Kismet, said book entitled A Perfect Match. It pleases Mr. Head to characterize this novel as "pornography," and to label his opponent a "pornographer." He also indulges in other name-calling, such as "two faced, hypocrite" (original punctuation), and identifies a copy of the cover of Ms. Combs book as "Republican Opponent Pornographic Book Writer Susan Combs."

Mr. Head is quite het up on the whole subject, and seems particularly offended that Ms. Combs novel features her "name at the top of every other page."

One wonders what planet Mr. Head hails from and whether they have novels there.

A sample of Mr. Head's rhetoric on this Important Issue:

Meet Fred Head’s Republican Opponent Pornographic Book writer Susan Combs.
Susan Combs is not who she says she is.

(S)usan Combs claims to be a person of high moral standards. Her record of writing, having published and selling a pornographic book clearly shows that Susan Combs is a two faced, hypocrite who was obviously more concerned with her literary career and seeing her name in print than the morals of the young People of Texas who are exposed to her 222 page book, A Perfect Match, which has her name at the top of every other page - - - a clear testament to Susan Combs’ insatiable ego and desire to see her name in print...........

and, for those with strong stomachs, here's the rest of it.

Comments

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

What I wonder about, is... does using a page from an old book to call your political opponent a pornographer fall under fair use, or is it a copyright violation?

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

One page might, I suppose, be fair use, but they must have put up scans of at least 2 double-page spreads, and maybe more, I didn't look into it that closely (ick!)

Or, as the lines from Bored of the Rings went (attributed, IIRC, to the Merry-and-Pippin variants) "Icky!" "Double-Icky!"