The Small Penis Doctrine

One of the worst things about being a "grown up" (the fact that I'm married, own a house, two cars and a 401k makes this a sad reality) is having to be reasonable, bite our tongues and save most of our vicious name-calling for bits of road rage-induced fury or our self-important blogs. Even politicians, often devoid of both principles and common sense, know that they can't make personal attacks without definitive proof, and some have suffered from being too closely linked with groups that employ "swift boat" warfare against their enemies. And yet, who knew that a mainstream medium not only accepted, but encouraged this kind of maliciousness, and who knew the doctrine by which this is allowed would have such a catchy name?

It all started in March, when TNR's Michael Crowley wrote an article about popular novelist Michael Crichton and examined his 2004 best-seller, State of Fear:

The thriller presented global warming theory as the work of a fiendish cabal of liberal environmentalists, celebrities, journalists, academics, and politicians. Crichton's populist disdain for these "experts" dovetailed neatly, I argued, with the Bush administration's anti-intellectual streak…

OK, not even Dick Cheney wants to be associated with the Interloper these days, so it's no surprise that Crichton would be upset with this characterization. That a popular writer would lake a pot shot at a critic in his art is also perfectly reasonable; but just HOW Crichton struck back was a lesson in juvenile maliciousness that could teach the girls in my high school a lesson. Take this passage from Crichton's 2006 book, Next:

Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers. Crowley was a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune. ...


…[Crowley's lawyer] tried the case vigorously in the press months before the trial, repeatedly characterizing Alex and the child's mother as "fantasizing feminist fundamentalists" who had made up the whole thing from "their sick, twisted imaginations." This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child. (Crowley's penis was small, but he had still caused significant tears to the toddler's rectum.)

Oh, snap! Did you get all that? The fictitious *Mick* Crowley was a Washington political journalist who attended Yale. Real-life Michael Crowley is a Washington political journalist who attended Yale. As the real Crowley recognized, "in lieu of a letter to the editor, Crichton had fictionalized me as a child rapist."

Nice. Stay classy, Michael Crichton.

Oh, there's a bit about the "small penis doctrine", an apparently well known publishing industry trick employed by enthusiastic defamers to discourage their targets from filing lawsuits. Basically, no man will ever step forward to complain "that character with the small penis – that's me!"

You have to admit, the logic is brilliant. And in an unrelated matter, I'm proud to unveil today a few of the major players in my debut novel, Patience and the Reign of Witches, set to be published in mid-2007:

· Cal Rove – pudgy presidential advisor by day, kiddy porn aficionado by night. And he's got a small penis.

· Will O'Reilly – obnoxious media pundit who spews hatred and lies because of self-loathing due to his small penis.

· Dick Charmy – what's the opposite of onomatopoeia? This politician-turned-business man-turned politician is a smarmy asshole hung like a young boy's pinky finger (spoiler alert! That metaphor may be tested in Chapter 6).

· Matthew S. Myth – our hero, this truth-seeking crusader must topple a corrupt government using only his rapier wit and ridiculously giant cock.

I'll stop there, because I really do want to keep some of the surprises for the book. Let's just say that a certain President John W. Bish will cause some kind of global crisis through his gross mismanagement of resources, third-grade reading level and overwhelming shame about his poorly-endowed member.

Damn, being a writer is fun. Bring on the Pulitzer!