{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5400",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 5400,
    "subject": "AEG - White House visit",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2009-04-07T15:22:29+00:00",
    "last": "2009-04-07T15:22:29+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<NGECKNKNFCCKJFJGAFLHAEICDMAA.stephenhoy@yahoo.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Stephen Hoy",
        "address": "stephenhoy at yahoo.com"
      },
      "date": "2009-04-07T15:22:29+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) AEG - White House visit",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In the opening chapter of An Evil Guest, Wolfe takes us inside\nthe White House for a few moments where we get a brief look at\nthe inside game of a cowboy president and his wily assistant. I\nwondered for a bit whether these two figures might have\nhistorical analogs. Not that everything on a printed page will\nhave its cunning duplicate in the natural world, but it does seem\nlikely that Wolfe's imagination might draw on something he lived\nthrough or something that in some way connected to his personal\nhistory. Hypothetically, this scene draws on Wolfe's memory of\nTexas in the early 50s, when a certain senator was politicking\nhis way to national prominence.\n\nTo be sure, there's a dash of a several administrations seasoning\nthis presidential chili, but the conversation reminded me most of\nthe way LBJ might handle an interview, which would make the aide\n\"John\" into an analog of Johnson's close associate, Jack Valenti.\nRecent bios of LBJ by Dallek and Caro show Johnson as a man\ndriven by a conviction that 'knowledge is power', and the flip\nside of that conviction is a touch of paranoia about a man like\nReyes who similarly wields knowledge to build power--all of which\nwould fit in with a scene of the cowboy president attempting to\nmanipulate an academic wizard like Gideon Chase so the president\ncan eliminate a competitor.\n\nThe scene reminded me of something we might find in a\ntranscription of the Johnson tapes. Caro's bios haven't caught up\nwith Johnson's presidency yet, but maybe Dallek's 'Flawed Giant'\nhas a similar scene. No matter. The cognitive link to what\nfollows in AEG is not through the president but through the\nValenti analog. The 'real-life' figure was intimately entwined\nwith the world of actors and acting, one of the larger threads\nfrom which AEG is woven."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}