James Carville - The E! True Washington Story

a preview of
James Carville - The E! True Washington Story
by Steve Gallagher (dagalagas@yahoo.com)

E! Narrator: He was the baddest boy in an administration full of bad boys. He refined the walk, the talk, and the look of the Clinton Presidency. A Ragin' Cajun with a limited resume and unlimited anger, James Carville could be as mean as a pit bull. But nobody expected James' verbal violence to lead to physical violence. When it did, it secured James Carville's place in the annals of criminal horror.

(Scene: A short bearded man, seated in a quaint kitchen. Title - Wolf Blitzer, pastry chef, former journalist.)

Blitzer: We all new he was a little nuts, but we thought he was harmless. And then, a crime of that magnitude...well, sometimes you don't know somebody as well as you think you do.

E! Narrator: Over the next hour, we'll look at the runaway train that was the career of James Carville - and the inevitable train wreck that ensued. It is a tale of political warfare and betrayals, career success and personal destruction, and finally it is a tale of unspeakable evil. You'll see it all, on tonight's E! True Washington Story.

James Carville was born on October 25, 1944. He grew up the oldest of eight children in Carville, Louisiana, a brackish backwater bend on the Mississippi River. The small town of Carville was named after James' grandfather, who was the town's postmaster and owner of the general store. After the conviction of James Carville, the town changed its name to honor its first mayor, William Hitler. Shortly thereafter, the town changed its name to Town.

His father was a determined, but by all accounts inept, human fly. He died very young. His mother, known to all as Miss Nippy, sold ski equipment door-to-door, while trying to keep her eight children out of trouble. Money was very tight.

(Scene: A sad old woman, sitting in a sundress, under a canopy of hackberry and magnolia trees. Title - Eva Daigrepont - Carville family friend.)

Daigrepont: Miss Nippy was always taking in stray dogs and the like. She loved all the Lord's creatures, but that boy a hers - he were different. In a scary way... like he were not of this place. I caught him eating a muskrat one day, he didn't even have the sense to kill it first. They were rolling around the grass biting each other. That James, he won. I seen him later...he got fur in his teeth and blood all down his shirt. He sayed "Good morning" to me like he ain't got a care in the world. A real strange one - that James.

E! Narrator: Childhood was not easy for James. His family was poor, as were most of the townsfolk, but it was the taunting of the other children that hurt him most.

(Scene: Skinny, old, toothless man on a sagging porch. Sunny day. Leans back on ratty couch, with a Pabst Blue Ribbon in his hand. Title - Chester Ludlow - Neighbor.)

Ludlow: The kids was oft times mean to him. Ya know, chasing him with sticks, hollarin' "Lizard Face!". It were even worser when the adults joined in. Even did it myself, I'm 'shamed to say. I was drunk, and I couldn't help it...ya know, I'd see that lizard face a his and git all riled. Heh...heh...I throwed him down an outhouse once...I guess that were wrong. Funny as hell, though...he liked it down there, wouldn't come out for days.

E! Narrator: Even his siblings were less than kind.

(Scene: Dirty, fat woman in her fifties. Smoking a pipe and sitting on a green padded bench, once part of a school bus. Title - Murnel Boudreaux - James Carville's sister.)

Boudreaux: I rememba taking Jimmy down the bayou. We tied 'em up and toll him we was fixing to feed him to the gators. Done it, too. Throwed him in, but the gators swam away. Not a lot a meat on him...couple days later we went back and fished him out...He stunk sumpin' fierce...Raymond!! Git off yer sista! You know she got her visitor dis week!...