Category: Old Dish

I would never have picked John Ashcroft as attorney-general, but if I were a Senator, I’d be hard-pressed to vote against him. The only solid reason to vote down a candidate is if he is simply unqualified for the office or of such poor character that one can easily predict he would not be able to perform his job ethically. Neither argument holds for Ashcroft. He’s obviously qualified, and even his political opponents (I count myself among them) concede his sincerity. The worst reason to oppose him was given by Albert Hunt in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, who argued that since blacks perceive Ashcroft as biased, he is unqualified: ‘[I]f an attorney general is perceived as for or against one group of Americans, it sours faith and confidence in the rule of law.’ But what if that perception is not reality? Do we now have to add ‘the perception of bias’ to the ‘appearance of impropriety’ to the roster of smear tactics in modern politics? I think Ashcroft should return his honorary degree to Bob Jones University as a symbolic act. But apart from that, there’s no solid evidence that Ashcroft is somehow biased against blacks. Sure he opposed one black judge for political reasons, but he has backed many, many more. He’s against hate crime laws and affirmative action, but that doesn’t mean he’s a racist. It simply means he’s not a leftist. He’s a fanatical believer in saving every unborn child and executing as many criminals as possible, a position I find morally incoherent. But those views are within the spectrum of decent opinion and certainly don’t bespeak some kind of animus against a group of people. Besides, some black leaders, such as Jesse Jackson, see Bull Connor behind every white face on the block. Giving their paranoia a veto against every cabinet member is a crazy idea. There would never be a fully staffed cabinet. So I’d give Ashcroft a reluctant benefit of the doubt. I find most of his views abhorrent, and his Puritanism worrying. But I’m not the president, and a duly elected one deserves to have the cabinet of his choice. Besides, I can’t help feeling that one of the worries of Ashcroft’s enemies on the left is that he may end up being a pretty fair AG, and exonerate some members of the protestant right from the charge that they cannot be fair and open-minded public servants. I hope Ashcroft survives and proves them wrong. And if he survives and proves his enemies right, then Bush will deserve the drubbing he’ll get at the polls in four years’ time.

A reader suggests a new indicator that we live in a new era. Arthur Andersen just changed its corporate name to ‘Accenture.’ Doesn’t that sound like one of those words George W Bush tries to say from time to time? Those marketing gurus are goo-ood.

My friend Paul Varnell, another contributor to the Independent Gay Forum, a group of non-leftist gay writers and thinkers, points out a couple of factual distortions (among many) in Eberstadt’s piece. (Yes, I know I’ve gone completely overboard on this subject, but skip to the next item if you’re bored. Damn, the next item’s about Eberstadt.) Item: Eberstadt’s assertion that ‘[Gay teen magazine] XY is now, according to its founder and publisher Peter Ian Cummings, the ‘third largest gay magazine in the U.S., selling over 60,000 copies per year…’ This is silly. XY is a bimonthly. That means it sells some 10,000 copies per issue (if you believe the hype of its publisher). Almost any gay paper in a major urban center sells more than that per week. And remember: XY is not officially a pedophile magazine. It’s a gay mag for teens with dirty old men looking over their shoulders. If you were to include gay porn magazines, 10,000 copies is pathetic. (Somehow Eberstadt hasn’t heard of one of the fastest growing gay magazines, Hero, dedicated to gay couples and relationships. Nor is she aware of the growing trend among gay men of celebrating mature masculinity as a sexual object, rather than youth). Then there’s this whopper: ‘positive portrayals of ‘inter-generational sex,’ which are extremely rare in the rest of the culture, are not rare in gay literature and journalism.’ Paul notes that such references are, in his experience, not just rare but almost wholly absent. I’d concur. I’ve been openly gay for almost two decades and have met with thousands of gay men and read thousands of gay magazines. I can honestly say that I have never come across a reference to pedophilia without its being condemned. Am I completely out of the mainstream loop? I doubt it. There probably are underground pedophile gay groups, just as there are among straights, but they have no more legitimacy among gay men than they do among straight men, possibly less. Okay, I’m done now. I hope it’s clear I’m in no way condoning any gay pedophilia that there might be. It’s evil. But it’s a tiny phenomenon compared to straight pedophilia, and has been used by a legitimate publication to smear gay men and women with one of the oldest and ugliest libels known to man. Eberstadt is at best ignorant; at worst, malevolent. The Weekly Standard, which knows better, is both.

‘The most obsessed of the gawkers is Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) a 13-year-old boy who is bodily and spiritually overcome by his lust for Malena. The first time he lays eyes on her, Tornatore actually pans down to Sulfaro’s awakening crotch to make sure you get the message… Those three oft-repeated scenes mentioned earlier consist of Renato spying on Malena in a variety of alluring circumstances; Renato masturbating to relieve his hysteria; and his anti-Fascist father (Luciano Federico) smacking him in the head for his indiscretions.’ – CNN.com’s review of a new movie, ‘Malena,’ by the Italian director, Giuseppe Tornatore. Opening in theaters now across America.

Late entry in the Begala Awards for over-written lefty angst goes to my friend, Katha Pollitt, who still can’t get over W’s victory. Life in this capitalist hell-hole is so bad, who can blame Pierre Salinger for staying in France?: ‘[A]ccording to Newsweek, there are now 1 million slaves in America, mostly women and girls–cleaning houses, making clothes, servicing men sexually to pay off traffickers and pimps. Ask yourself what kind of man would fuck a slave, some Chinese or Albanian or Thai teenager in a plywood cubicle with a mattress on the floor. Do you think he cares if you write a letter to your congressman? Maybe he is your congressman… ‘If there’s a depression, will we have enough money?’ Sophie asks as we turn out the light. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say. ‘Everything will be fine. We can always sing in the subway.”- The Nation, January 22. Oh come on, Katha. If worst comes to worst, I’m sure you could get a gig at the American Prospect.

Anyone as amused as I am that there are two Powells in W’s cabinet, father and son? I wonder when the last actual familial link was in a cabinet, since Jack and Bobby. I have no reason to believe that Michael Powell is incompetent or unqualified, but it does strike me as odd that no red flags have been raised. Talk about affirmative action! And then this morning’s New York Times contains a story about Strom Thurmond’s son, Strom, getting a pass for U.S. attorney because of his father’s name. I know we now have an hereditary presidency, but could someone please draw the line somewhere?

Two late entries in the hetero pedophilia craze. A friend reminds me of Jon-Benet Ramsey and the little girl pageant circuit. Can you imagine a similar pageant for boys? These shows essentially involve dressing up, sexualizing and then parading children as objects of desire and beauty. Since the full extent of these pageants’ existence was exposed in the Ramsey case, was there an outcry over the pedophile overtones? Nuh-uh. Can you conceive of a pageant which dressed up little boys in thongs or erotic costumes and gave them grades for how hot they were? Not exactly. And yet, as Eberstadt implies, girls are even more vulnerable to experiencing violation in this fashion than boys. On the movie front, how about last summer’s hilarious teen-age movie, American Pie. The climax is a teenage boy finally making it with his best friend’s mother. Budweisers all round! The movie was a mainstream hit, especially with teenage boys. Oh, well, never mind. Bashing gay men is far more acceptable to the editors of the Weekly Standard.

W is changing the city, running around whipping up apathy. Three cheers for tedium! For more, see ‘Valium City,’ my latest TRB, opposite.

Drudge links to a London Evening Standard story about a 15-year old who is getting breast implants for her sixteenth birthday. Her eleven year old sister is planning on the same. Her dad is all in favor. Her mom is paying for it. Hmmm. I wonder why. The new, post-modern wave of hetero pedophilia chic continues. But will the Weekly Standard have the courage to take a stand? A nation waits …

I remember when George magazine first started. JFK Jr came down to Washington to chat up hopefuls to staff the thing. My old friend Rich Blow was wooed to go work for it. He asked me one afternoon in Dupont Circle what I thought. I asked him what would be on the cover of a glossy magazine published in New York about Washington politics. He had no idea at the time. Neither, it turns out, did John Kennedy. There are only so many times you can get Cindy Crawford to dress up as the nation’s founder. The magazine contained, from time to time, some good reporting. But conceptually, it was nuts. To put it mildly, you can’t convert Washington into Hollywood. D.C.’s stars are, in general, ugly, over-weight, and best seen in private and very dark lighting. Glamorous they are not. Try as he might, John Kasich is no Matt Damon and Barbara Mikulski is no Anne Heche. Trying to publish a Premiere magazine about the beltway was a sublime piece of folly made possible solely by the celebrity chic of JFK Jr. At its best, George was a pioneering way to milk the celebrity culture in a new way: By subscribing, you felt somehow connected to the Sexiest Man Alive. Why he even took his clothes off and wrote an editor’s letter. Unfortunately, the kind of people who want to be connected to the Sexiest Man Alive are not the kind of people likely to be interested in the doings of the House Appropriations Committee. So you ended up with this extremely weird mélange of style and content that couldn’t be rescued even by an untimely dip into the sea near Martha’s Vineyard. Another indication that a new era is coming, methinks. And not a moment too soon.