Tina Brown has always been a liberal for social reasons. It would be a little much to ask her to articulate an actual politics, since she shows no sign of having one, or even wanting to have one. But you cannot go to the right parties or throw the right parties in Manhattan without cosying up to the left, in its various social guises, so the left is what Tina kowtows to when it matters. But even the politics of posturing has always been subservient to fashion in the Brown universe. What’s true or right or good has never been as important as what’s hot. So no-one should be surprised by Brown’s use of models posing as the Bush girls in jail in a fashion spread. It is, in so many ways, an almost perfect representation of what Brown’s journalism represents. Thanks, Tina, for clarifying everything.
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL IN THE SCOUTS: The Associated Press is reporting that one of Massachusetts’ biggest Boy Scouts Councils will allow gay scoutmasters, as long as they remain completely mute about their orientation. “Discussions about sexual orientation do not have a place in Scouts,” said Brock Bigsby, Scout executive for the Massachusetts Minuteman Council. “The Scouts will not inquire into a person’s sexual history, and that person will not expose their sexual orientation one way or the other.” Good idea. Now let’s make sure no-one talks about sexual orientation – straights included. No mention of wives or girlfriends or children; no mention that they are heterosexual in any way. Let’s see how long they last in the closet. I give them ten minutes.
MORE RACE-BAITING AT THE WASHINGTON POST: Bulls-eye column by David Horowitz on the latest piece of race-baiting by a black Washington Post staffer. Courtland Milloy wonders aloud whether Colin Powell is a “Bush man” or a “Black man” because he has sensible objections to the upcoming U.N. Conference on Racism. Can you imagine a white Post columnist writing a piece about, say, a Clinton trip to Africa and asking whether Clinton was properly white? The Conference, which is yet another U.N. excuse for anti-semitism and America-envy, should command no respect or even deference from the U.S. It will be a platform for attacking Israel and the United States for alleged racism, a platform peopled by the usual thugs and know-nothings who lead and pillage dozens of developing countries. The U.S is supposed to take moral lessons from Robert Mugabe and Yassir Arafat? Powell has already visited Africa and demonstrated leadership on AIDS. He needs no lessons from Milloy on being black in America. Besides, he is not a black secretary of state; he is a secretary of state, who happens to be black. The attempt to use his race as a means to dictate policy positions is as ugly as it is sometimes effective. We’ve seen this kind of tactic so many times before. I remember a piece by Polly Toynbee in the Washington Monthly years ago asking whether Margaret Thatcher was a woman. Thatcher regarded such attacks as beneath contempt. So should Powell.
LETTERS: The difference between Huppies and Bulies; who’s dumber; actors or jocks?, etc.
The Dish 