Man, I love James Wolcott. He's like a well trained pitbull, who knows how to lunge right for the jugular. And I don't mean those pitbulls that have been starved and abused and indiscriminantly distrust any living thing that approaches it. You know, the GOP type. Rather, he's a pitbull with a moral compass who guards all that is good with a sneering pen.
Today at his blog, in a passage titled Nookie Drought Hits DC, Wolcott destroys those journalists who have let themselves become obsolete in the face of real scandals and resort back to the cheap tawdry "scandals" of the Clinton's sex life:
As Firedoglake and other psychic healers diagnosed earlier this week, David Broder ain't nuthin but a horndog, a'pantin' all the time.
He may fool Gwen Ifill, but he ain't no friend of mine. I can picture him and Chris Matthews poised at the edge of the marsh, nostrils twitching, ready to plash in and retrieve a pair of Clinton undies; meanwhile Jacob Weisberg waits back at the station wagon, preparing a tasty picnic lunch and wishing he were in the hunt instead of filling thermoses. Given how most of the Beltway elite have bowed and scraped like eunuchs for most of Bush's presidency, this aphrodisiac attack of Clinton arousal (prurience topped with prissy indignation) must be giving them a nice nostalgic nineties feeling; such days those were, when they could roll around in the gutter with Laura Ingraham and Barbara Olsen and mount their moral high horse at the same time, no easy trick. Yet even I am surprised to spot James Warren of the Chicago Tribune among the panty raiders. He acts so deadpan and dyspeptic on TV--who knew that he too had a yodeling libido yearning for release?
Man, I wish I knew how to slice and dice the way Mr. Wolcott does. He's the Julia Child of journalist julienning.
I am not worthy! I am not worthy!
What I am glad to see is his taking on those who trash Hillary, not for her policy positions, but because she's an easy target of sexist, even misogynistic treatment:
Hillary gets the same treatment in the New York Observer, a paper so humid and tumid with Hillary-voyeurism that I have to drywipe the inside of my mailbox once a week. Not an issue goes by in which they don't give Hillary the full Evita going-over, absence of new material being no handicap to keeping the obsession bubbling. This week, above the fold, is a photo of FDR with the hed "F.D.R.: The UnHillary of 1932." Peek inside, and it turns that it's simply a review of Jonathan Alter's new book about Roosevelt's first 100 days by Michael Janeway, who doesn't even mention Hillary Clinton! So why drag her into it? What's the point of calling FDR the "UnHillary," apart from some spurious timeliness? To imply that Hillary, born in 1947, wouldn't have had the fortitude and vision to pull America out of the Great Depression? Hell, if the New York Observer had existed in 1932, it would have devoted endless column inches to sniffing around Eleanor Roosevelt's linen closet, and urging her to see an orthodontist.
I know many here don't like Hillary, especially for the Presidency. But as I've pointed in an earlier diary, bringing down Hillary through sexual and marital gossip innuendo is unhealthy, dare I say dangerous for two very important reasons:
1) When time and energy is focused on matters that have little, if anything, to do with the act of governing, the issues that are truly of consequence -- whether healthcare, national security, fiscal responsibility -- are neglected and any real scrutiny of candidates falls to the wayside. Only when candidates are pressured to answer questions about what they will and will not do for the American people can citizens vote in an informed way and politicians can come into office with a mandate. This panty sniffing is similar to what Thomas Frank talks about in What's the Matter with Kansas. It distracts voters from issues that effect their own self-interest and the welfare of their fellow citizens by appealing to a prurient moral outrage.
2) These sort of attacks could actually work in Hillary's favor. She rode her "wronged wife" victimhood right into her Senate seat. Just as the flag of patriotism shielded this adminstration for quite awhile from examination because it appealed to its yahoo base, many people, especially women, with a deep sense of decency will see these attacks as unfair and rally to Hillary's side, even though her policies and votes would otherwise not appeal to them.
By calling these lousy journalists on their shit, Wolcott is approaching this matter correctly. These journalists need to be shamed into not returning to these irrelevant issues. Will these journalists actually feel shame? It's a long shot. Many still have not grown a set to challenge this adminstration. But if we are not part of the solution in trying to stop this journalistic peeping tomism, we are part of the problem.
