The Washington Post ran a passage from the draft’s opening chapter on the front page, and Dowd featured it in her Sunday magazine column. It’s not difficult to see why. Gingrich’s last book, ““Window of Opportunity,’’ was a ponderous exercise in techno-babble. This was an unabashed potboiler. A ““pouting sex kitten . . . rolled onto him and somehow was sitting athwart his chest . . . “Tell me or I will make you do terrible things,’ she hissed.’’ The hero, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer, later likened his feelings while watching a Nazi parade to ““being aroused by a woman one despised.''
Inevitably, gossip gave way to policy implications. Gingrich aides did a little spinning: the sex would be toned down to better fit Newt’s family-values profile; and yes, he had House ethics committee approval for the project. His publisher, Baen Publishing Enterprises, apologized for a description it had added of young navy flier George Bush (““Quite a guy, in his goofy way’’).
The book’s mocking reception has done little to dampen Gingrich’s literary aspirations. His spokesman noted that he’s working on a second novel, too: about a high-tech Japanese company that can drop bombs from outer space. But so far, no mention of sex kittens.
