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November 13, 2003
Preemptive Self-Parody
Sadly, Neal Pollack has retired from lampooning Andrew Sullivan on a daily basis. Luckily, Andrew Sullivan seems determined to pick up the slack. Here's a passage from a piece he wrote for The Sunday Times: First, has anyone other than Sullivan ever uttered the phrase "the Starbucks Metrosexual elite"? If he invented the term, he should take credit for it. If he stole it from some talk-radio host or RNC flack, he should give credit where credit is due. But why employ the empty abstractions of phrases like "what is being called" to suggest that the term "Starbucks Metrosexual elite" is in common usage when there's no evidence that it is? Second, "Jean Wyclef"? Maybe this is a dig at Dean for getting Wyclef Jean's name wrong somewhere, but I wasn't able to find any articles that confirmed that Dean did this. And if, in an effort to establish his Starbucks hip-hop bonafides, Dean had messed up Jean's name, you can bet there would have been plenty of stories about it, right? So I'm assuming it's Sullivan who's so out of touch with mainstream popular culture that he completely remixed Jean's name. Also, what's with the "no, don't ask me" coda? Is Sullivan saying, "No, don't ask me who Jean Wyclef (aka Wyclef Jean) is, because my idea of a good record is Orrin Hatch's ode to U.S. foreign policy, Put Your Arms Around The World." Or is he saying, "No, don't ask me, I have absolutely no idea how an educated, middle-aged white man like Howard Dean could possibly enjoy hip-hop and reggae-flavored pop, because I know I sure don't!" As much as Pollack's daily gusts of overwrought Sullivanity will be missed, I'm not sure even he could pack such windy bumbling into a mere three sentences. Posted by Greg Beato at 09:39 AM
November 12, 2003
Cite Club
Betsy Hart, today in the National Review: The New York Times editorial in question, from March 24th, 2003: Thanks to changes in the law in 1994, women, who make up 15 percent of the military, are eligible for about 90 percent of all service positions. Those gains were a recognition of the performance of the 41,000 women deployed as part of Desert Storm three years earlier. Despite legal limits on combat participation, 13 women died and many more were wounded in that conflict. But while the law opened the door for women a little wider, glass ceilings have held firm and women have made gains in just a small fraction of the jobs supposedly open to them. Helping to hold them back are the remaining taboos and the misperceptions of physical and mental inadequacies that they perpetuate. Servicewomen remain barred from the roles that Hollywood would cast with Tom Hanks or Bruce Willis -- Navy Seals, special forces, short-range artillery or tank operators and infantry. The present war with Iraq, which will engage the greatest-yet number of American women, could change much of that by debunking the arguments against fully employing them... 1. The Times doesn't "praise" Johnson for breaking the "glass ceiling." 2. The Times doesn't even say the "glass ceiling" has been broken. 3. The Times didn't conclude that Johnson's capture proved that women could and should be put into even more dangerous combat positions. The Times concluded that the performance of 41,000 women in the Gulf War led to a change in the law, which in turn allows women to pursue more opportunities for advancement in the Army (and, in turn, assume more risks). 4. Can Betsy Hart read? Posted by Greg Beato at 09:20 AM
November 11, 2003
GIs Gone Wild!
Larry Flynt does a quick reversal on Jessica Lynch's alleged GIs Gone Wild! photos... First, there's this in the Daily News: "[Flynt] claimed they show Lynch topless and cavorting with two men stationed with her at Fort Bliss, Tex., before she shipped off to Iraq last spring. According to two people who have seen them, the person they identify as Lynch is wearing just jeans in one photo and a blue thong in another. Flynt said the pictures - which he claimed to have gotten from two former soldiers who served with Lynch - would prove 'she's not Joan of Arc.'" Then, he issues this statement: "I was offered photos of Jessica Lynch. I purchased them in order to keep them out of circulation, not to publish them." So was Flynt just trying to stir things up with his first statement, or was the backlash so strong that he changed his mind against publishing the photos in less than 24 hours? While Flynt will no doubt be criticized for his sleazy opportunism, who really deserves such criticism in this case? The two soldiers who sold out their comrade in arms for a reported $200,000, even after she was nice enough to cavort half-naked with them... Posted by Greg Beato at 09:10 AM
November 10, 2003
Excellence in Pill-Popping
A month ago today, Rush Limbaugh confessed that he was the unwitting un-victim of highly addictive prescription painkillers that he had absolutely no idea were highly addictive. In the wake of this revelation, many conservative pundits were aghast at the amount of media coverage it generated. "It's Brokhaw's first story?" queried incredulous speed-misspeller Kathryn Jean Lopez. "Rush Limbaugh is off the air. But his critics are only just now getting on his back," intoned Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "As he tries to kick his prescription drug habit, those who hate him are just kicking him." "As you know, Rush Limbaugh crashed and burned in a very public way last week. And very predictably, the elite media have piled on," observed workingman GOPagandist Joe Scarborough. And yet, for all its lead-story, kick-him-when-he's-down, pile-on appeal, very little investigative effort has been made to advance this saga. And, ultimately, it makes you wonder: if the elite media is really so bent on destroying Limbaugh, how come, more than six weeks after the National Enquirer broke this story, we still know so little about the following aspects of the case? Limbaugh's back surgery 92 Pills A Day!?! No Excuses "Unaware of any investigation" Posted by Greg Beato at 02:20 AM
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