Careful with that Kitty!

Orwell once said that the future is summed up by the image of a boot smashing into a human face -- forever. In American politics, that image should be a television tuned into Jerry Springer -- forever. Such is the new lowbrow reality of the vote-getter's art.

Many Democrats still don't get this. One who refuses to understand the new paradigm is Kerry's campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill, who -- silly girl! -- seems to be under the impression that a campaign is a debate over issues. One who DOES get it is Kitty Kelley, author of the hot new book on the Bush family -- a book which, I am told, contains many lovely tales about cocaine use, gay sex, pedophilia, murder and more.

I cannot judge a book I have not yet read, of course. But from the advance word, I foresee a huge problem. Democrats should not cry "Viva Kitty!" just yet.

That aforementioned advance word holds that Kitty resurrects the Paul Bonacci story, which figured in the "Franklin case," a scandal arising out of Lincoln, Nebraska more than a decade ago. I cannot recount all the details of that scandal here; a little googling should pick out a few relevant web pages. The tale, now largely forgotten, was once very much beloved of conspiracy buffs on both the right and left.

Bonacci (now 31) was part of an underground phenomenon of people who claimed that, during their childhood, they were kidnapped and raped by the rich and powerful. In his case, the rich and the powerful included George Bush the elder. In 1999, Bonacci won a large judgment against one of his alleged abusers, a local Republican named Larry King (no relation to the guy on TV).

The problem: Outside that one courtroom in 1999, very few people credit Bonacci's veracity. Many observers feel that he cannot distinguish between what he has read, what he has been told, and what he recalls directly. While still young, he fell under the care of a religious zealot (with whom I once briefly spoke) who was much given to wild conspiratorial tales.

This country does NOT want to revisit the SRA debacle. Democrats, who tend to be moderate on the subject of religion, will find the subject particularly distasteful. Even if Bonacci has always told the absolute truth (and I doubt that he has), I would counsel any politically-minded person to steer clear of this whole controversy, which has attracted any number of wackos and con artists.

Among those consters were a pair of sharpies named Mark Phillips and Cathy O'Brien, who have peddled unbelievable tales of Satanic Ritual Abuse and mind control for quite a few years now -- always promising, but never delivering, hard and fast proof. Photocopies of Cathy's written testimony were swirling around the Lincoln case during its heyday, and Bonacci duly "remembered" details of his own experience that were congruent with Cathy's riffs. Among those "memories": The dreaded MONARCH project, an alleged mind control program.

Alas, Mark Phillips later privately admitted (to two individuals known to me) that he concocted the term MONARCH. In other words, Bonacci "remembered" instances in which his abusers used a term that we now know is fictional.

Despite such problems, Kelley's dirt-digging efforts may yet prove of some use to the anti-Bush forces. Even though most of the world long ago learned to ignore SRA allegations, those bizarre old allegations still circulate among the fundamentalists who form the backbone of the modern Republican party. And the Bush family has often popped up within the more outlandish of those yarns. Re-opening that can of worms may peel away some of W's sillier supporters among the Jesus Christers.

For all that, I hope that the advance word is untrue, and that Kelley's book avoids the Bonnacci imbroglio. That case is radioactive. Any connection with it will undermine the credibility of whatever better-sourced claims her book may contain.