Of course, it was not all fun and games and frivolity for THE SCRAPBOOK in Philadelphia. When we read in Tuesday's Philadelphia Inquirer that porn star Nina Hartley would appear at Scorpio Adult Bookstore, we knew some shoe-leather reporting was in order. What we didn't know was that the Inquirer had neglected to mention a crucial detail. Hartley would be talking politics . . . completely naked.
Well, not completely. She did have on stiletto heels and tasteful nail polish. Reassured, we chose to stay (we sacrifice, so that you, Reader, needn't). Navigating a slalom of sweaty men who we don't think were playing hooky from the Utah delegation, we picked Ms. Hartley's brain while standing amidst racks of porno videos (multiculturally diverse, too: from "White Trash Whore 3" to "Black Knockers Volume 60").
Hartley, it turns out, is a "sex-positive feminist," a Red Diaper baby, and a political observer with surprisingly conventional views. The GOP convention, she said, was a snore (but so did Al Hunt). She worried that George W. will be indebted to the dreaded Religious Right (but so does Frank Rich). She opined that Bush's Supreme Court nominations alone will be worth "the price of Gore." (That's what Richard Cohen thinks, too.) But on the subject of Bill Clinton, she brings a professional expertise. The president, she said, is a "highly sexed man. I like that in my leaders. I want a lot of mojo there." But she does disagree with him, explaining that, pace the commander in chief, "oral sex is sex."
Unaccountably, given her political fluency and other assets, Hartley has yet to land a contract with MSNBC.