Mickey Goes Both Ways
Our nation is divided...and it's not the only one. Meet Mickey Kaus.
Mickey's often seen in the company of Arianna, but he brought Ann Coulter to Cathy Seipp's daughter Maia's graduation party.
The Big Question: If they had to mudwrestle for Mickey, which one would you put money on to win?
Luke Thompson has the details on the party here:
Mickey is ostensibly a centrist Democrat, but has long seemed to have a fetish for blonde Republican pundits. This is not to imply that they are or are not dating -- I have no idea.So anyway, while talking to Christian Johnson and Donna Barstow, I see Mickey arrive with the Ann-tichrist herself. Donna says I have to talk to her; that she would if she were more familiar with Ann's work. Christian is anxious to get a picture with Ann. It's funny how there are people here who have probably used all kinds of invective to describe her, yet immediately wanted to talk to her. Liberal blogger Joseph Mailander, for one, was seen conversing pleasantly with her, and I hope he blogs about what was said, cuz I'd like to know.
I ask Matt Welch if he'd met her. He responds "Have you met Eichmann?"
Here's another voice of Reason.
If we stop talking about that girl on the right side of the photo, she might disappear sooner.
Lena at June 22, 2006 12:54 AM
Wow. That's pretty neat, in a weird sort of way. Mickey Kaus looks like Philip Roth's even angrier younger brother.
kevin_m at June 22, 2006 6:18 AM
Yeah, what with him and Donna Barstow the air must have been positively thick with anger.
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at June 22, 2006 6:43 AM
I'd take Arianna and her Zsa-Zsa Gabor accent a million times over Anne Coulter, who is beginning to resemble the Crypt Keeper.
Eric at June 22, 2006 7:21 AM
"I'd take Arianna and her Zsa-Zsa Gabor"
And I'll suck on her martini-glass titties.
Lena at June 22, 2006 8:03 AM
Pierced olive nipples?
eric at June 22, 2006 8:38 AM
Make mine Coulter. Her principles may be repellent, but at least she HAS some. Arianna is all about running for office without paying your taxes. And making people feel good at parties.
Whose photoshop?
Crid at June 22, 2006 9:29 AM
The photoshopper would rather not say, although credit was offered!
Amy Alkon at June 22, 2006 10:11 AM
Arianna, without doubt. Ann's too lanky, she'd snap like a twig.
Oligonicella at June 22, 2006 10:21 AM
From what I've heard, Ann Coulter presents very well in public. You can't go far in blogdom without finding some first-person account of meeting her at a party somewhere, and how charming and nice and fun she was. Not like her public-bitch persona at all. This is always reported with a sense of wonder and relief.
I'd respect her more if she were a huge bitch 24-7, in all venues. As it is now, it's reasonable to conclude that her whole act is...an act, that she doesn't believe the preposterous and cruel things she says, that she does the whole thing to goose book sales and pay for her exciting life and expertly applied blonde highlights.
I was a columnist for a while, and I never wrote anything I didn't believe. I never threw bombs just to enjoy the commotion, or to stir the pot and get the puppets dancing. I changed my mind about a lot of things I'd written, I wrote with ambivalence sometimes, I did a certain amount of on-the-one-hand/on-the-other-hand equivocating, which doesn't make for great columns. But I never lied. The world has plenty of liars already, and a journalist -- even a cartoon "commentator" like Ann -- who lies isn't even worthy of contempt.
Nance at June 22, 2006 10:46 AM
Banal evil no. Buxom evil maybe.
Paul Hrissikopoulos at June 22, 2006 2:37 PM
Congratulations! All three of these people now matter a little bit more because we are talking about them. Like Tom and Katie - two more people I am supposed to care about like they know more than I do about something.
I wonder: does Arianna or Ann tell people with cell phones to shut up and refer to others as "assclown"? People take offense where they can find it... so there you go!
Radwaste at June 22, 2006 3:06 PM
> I never wrote anything I didn't believe.
Sincerity is overrated in people just as authenticity is overrated in things. When judging thinkers and performers and others who compete to distract us, I'm not concerned with the feelings and interior states of their own lives; I'm concerned about the amusement or insight they bring to *mine*.
Polemicists try to align your thinking along particular lines. It's a fundamental part of civilization. Many who hate Coulter seem to think it's an inherently dirty enterprise by definition, instead of a morally neutral one. "She just CANNOT say that!" I don't blame her harshly for exploiting you, because you make it so easy. You seek her out, listen carefully, and quiver with delight as she 'offends' you. Coulter knows you feed off your own hatred. Besides, it's another reflection of the cowardice that benefited Sheehan for so long, as when Dowd said "the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute." Americans can't judge rhetoric on anything but emotions and social strokes, otherwise Dowd and Arriana would be unemployed.
I don't even know what people are so angry about in this instance. I can't bring myself to care enough to follow Amy's links. Are these Jersey widows really in need of defending? When each has received six figures of go-away money from my government after a sneak attack in which their fellow citizens had no particular responsibility, shouldn't we expect them to take a punch on the chin now and then if they offer themselves as moral exemplars? They coulda taken the money and gone home. Anybody who offers thoughts in the public arena needs to be ready for scuffles. Paglia paraphrases: 'This is not cotillion; if you can't handle it, stay home and do your nails.'
> did a certain amount of on-the-
> one-hand/on-the-other-hand
> equivocating, which doesn't make
> for great columns.
Don't understate your offence. Newspapers are dying because they're filled with people who think it's OK to take money for 'not great' columns. Turns out it's not. There's a lot of frogwash on the web, but there are also people who're very badly want to have their thoughts considered, and who will never abuse the privilege of someone's attention.
Last week I went to my first conference in several years up in silicon valley... And was reminded why I never go to conferences. About 38% of what was said was pure bullshit... Boing-boingy speakers with unusual deployments of hair spray and coloring mumbling about the future but never finding a theme, or reciting Cliff Notes from their communications classes of decades past. It's embarrassing when people dance for money; it offends me because WE BOTH KNOW I PAID TO LISTEN, and will politely applaud their theft of my time as the last powerpoint slide fades from the screen.
Coulter is not a dangerous leader. If you ignore her, she goes away. If she represents evil, you'll find it in your own heart, not in the manifestoes of her fascist throngs in suburban America. But it's pleasing to know that Kaus gets to hang out with attractive blondes whose hearts don't break if he says something challenging.
Crid at June 22, 2006 3:13 PM
Why would we want Ann to disappear? It's much more fun trying to get so-called compassionate conservatives to explain why they have no problem with her representing their side. Her existence is ultimately counterproductive to her own side, though it sells plenty of books for her.
LYT at June 22, 2006 7:58 PM
I don't pay any attention to Ann Coulter at all, actually, even now that I've seen her photoshopped. Arianna Stassinopolis is very bright and quick-witted, and that's sexy. Camille Paglia was referring to sex in that misquote, and she's the brightest and sexiest of all.</opinion>
Stu "El Inglés" Harris at June 23, 2006 7:10 AM
I would think getting familiar with Coulter's work would be more of a reason NOT to talk to her.
Patrick at June 23, 2006 7:16 AM
> I never wrote anything I didn't believe.
"Sincerity is overrated in people just as authenticity is overrated in things."
You're sounding quite post-modern now, Crid. I agree with you that, AS A STYLE, "sincerity" is really tiresome. But I don't think that "believing what you write" necessarily entails that kind of heartfelt bullshit. I write professionally and present my work at conferences sometimes. If I didn't believe what I write, I'd have no conviction or focus in my work. I would simply go through the motions, write and say only the obligatory things, and move on. I take your time much too seriously to do that. I remember an interview with Patti Smith that I read as a teenager where she said something like, "When I perform, I look at it like I'm taking an hour away from someone's life, so I've got to make that hour a motherfucker." Life's way too short not to believe what you write (and write what you believe).
Lena at June 23, 2006 9:53 AM
It feels strange to disagree with Cathy Young (Amy's link) about this... She's one of the best columnists in America. But Young's complaints with Coulter have that same prissy vibe as everyone else's... 'She's MEAN!' Consider her ultimate complaint:
> As author Bernard Goldberg has
> remarked, "Coulter always has
> that twinkle in her eye when she
> calls some liberal 'pond scum.' "
That's about as bad as it gets with Coulter. She never pokes puppies in the eye with a stick, she never steals money from grandmothers on the street, she doesn't start forest fires. She just crosses a line of couth that's apparently very dear to the American soul. Here in the good ol' USA, down in our hearts-of-heart, we're supposed to secretly like and admire everybody else. (This also happens in finance: People who short stocks are thought to carry bad karma, as if buying low and selling high were not the same thing.)
Especially if they've faced some kind of hardship. Consider the LAT editorial that Drudge linked a few days ago.
http://tinyurl.com/ocacn
The main point was to excuse financial misconduct in the wake of Katrina. Federal relief agencies are whipped with a wet noodle and a clucking sound, but for the individual citizens who benefitted?
"...it's wrong to blame victims for spending irresponsibly."
Got that? Irresponsibility is blameless. Hmmmm... Are you, the reader, having a tough time with this concept? Do you want to know why this would be?
"[O]bsessing about the spending habits of refugees comes perilously close to blaming the victim."
Not just close, "perilously close"! As if nothing could be worse then blaming victim. All their moral calculations flow from this fear of being called "mean".
Everything people say about Coulter has this high-school-popularity-contest jostling to it. Americans like to think of themselves as courageous and bold. But no, we're pussies and it fucks up our judgment. If Welch thinks Coulter is Eichmann, what name will he give to a truly hazardous thinker? Will anyone be listening?
There's a line about how nasty a thing you should say about someone. Coulter draws it in a different place than you or I would. But when she taunts a war vet or something, she's at least doing so in light of another judgment she's made about their thinking.
Calling her names doesn't make Coulter look worse; it makes evil seem less threatening.
Crid, Full-windbag mode at June 23, 2006 12:26 PM
And yes, Lena, loving what you do makes things go better. But not loving what you do is no excuse for doing it badly, not even for newspaper columnists.
Crid at June 23, 2006 12:27 PM
I was not a bad newspaper columnist. I had some columns I liked better than others. Evidently Crid never has a bad day, and when he does, he goes straight to his boss's office and asks to be docked in pay an appropriate amount.
I wrote four a week for 19 years, and II earned the crappy salary I made, even on my bad days.
Nance at June 23, 2006 12:38 PM
Crid -- Speaking of loving what you do, are you getting psyched for this upcoming book by Hitch, "God is Not Great"? Sounds like required summer reading for those of us who loiter around www.advicegoddess.com.
Lena at June 23, 2006 1:21 PM
You and Amy may be disappointed. There was a recent World interview (now fallen behind the subscriber wall) that had all his usual aphorisms and arguments about this stuff, but in the end passages he acknowledged that he wouldn't want to live in a world where history hadn't been forged by religion.
Crid at June 23, 2006 1:53 PM
Also, HOW DARE YOU call this loitering. You're right, but still. How dare you!
Crid at June 23, 2006 1:54 PM
I suspect, Crid, that a left-winger said similarly hateful things in the Coulter vein, you'd be lecturing us on how the voting public hates that kind of snark and Bush-bashing, and it's only gonna lose elections for the Dems.
So I'm happy to see if she can't maybe lose an election or two for the Reps.
Also, I really don't give a shit if Katrina refugees spent irresponsibly. If everything I had got washed away, I might be in the mood for booze and hookers too.
Not that I'm not most days.
LYT at June 23, 2006 2:10 PM
> lecturing us on how the voting
> public hates that kind of
> snark
Point taken. But when Coulter steps out on one of her rampages, we don't see Dems sharing high-fives, do we? They (and many consergvatives) see it as an opportunity to stick their noses in the air and tsk-tsk, like Charles Nelson Reilly during his menses: 'This time she's gone TOO FAR! That woman is dead to me now, I tell you, dead to me!'
Listen, this is not a big election year. I really think certain types of Bush-bashing cost Dems some votes in '04. Coulter seems not to have done much damage to Republicans yet, Cathy Young's girly heart notwithstanding. If they get trounced in 2008 I'll buy you a beer and you can explain how much impact she had. My comments about Bush-bashing may have been faulty gloating; to date, yours about "ultimately counterproductive" effects sound like wishful thinking.
> I might be in the mood for
> booze and hookers too.
Would the rest of us be expected to pay for them?
Crid, Moderate-windbag mode at June 23, 2006 2:42 PM
"in the end passages he acknowledged that he wouldn't want to live in a world where history hadn't been forged by religion."
Well, in the end, it doesn't really matter what he wants, does it? The fact is that history has been forged by religion and a hell of a lot of bloodshed. I'm particularly reminded of that whenever I visit Mexico.
Lena at June 23, 2006 3:29 PM
Well, cause and effect. People who aren't religious cause bloodshed too... (North Korea comes to mind this week.) You might as well argue that if the majority had been left-handed, things wouldn't have been so bloody. For all we know, the relative peace of our lifetime couldn't have happened without religion.
Why Mexico? The Catholicism? Paglia talks all the time about how faith outside the American mainstream retains its sexual and natural color.
Crid at June 23, 2006 3:45 PM
Yep, religious imagery in Mexican churches is very violent and sexy. This isn't true at all of churches in England and Ireland, however (also "outside the American mainstream").
Lena at June 23, 2006 4:51 PM
By the way, Crid, I wasn't suggesting that the bloodshed was caused by religion. It's just all mixed in there together.
Mexico just seems like a great example of a fascinating, contemporary culture whose charm was forged, to a large extent, by its history of slaughter and exploitation. And it's because of the beauty of a place like Mexico City (or any other number of towns in the heartland) that I, like Hitch, would not want to live in a world whose history hadn't been forged by religion.
No regrets! Know what I mean?
Lena at June 23, 2006 9:58 PM
Personally? No, life is all about regret over here...
That's the other point that Paglia makes, that Catholicism used to be less twitchy about blood and suffering. Now it's as bloodless as a visit to McDonald's for a serving of cattle flesh, at least in the States. They say that in her ancestral Italy, icons of Christ still bleed red from wounds at nipple and knuckle. Wouldenknow, neverbeenthere.
Folks here in the Heaven of contemporary America think of nature as something that's been supplanted by clever technology.
They are fucking so going to be disappointed.
Crid at June 24, 2006 2:05 AM
Anybuddy still here?
Via Tim Blair, here's a Krauthammer piece on the value of an unpleasant demeanor in public life.
http://tinyurl.com/msmbu
Crid at June 24, 2006 8:24 AM
Well, it's the sound of one ear listening...have to go write, but I'm liking the sound of that Krauthammer piece!
Amy Alkon at June 24, 2006 8:59 AM
Make that LOVING the K-hammer piece, which starts like so:
Amy Alkon at June 24, 2006 9:00 AM
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