Wolcott gets it Right

Man that is a really Sullivanistic headline. Ick, next thing you know I'll start to use terms like "money quote" and "insouciance" with regularity. I apologize.

Anyhoo,

James Wolcott, disspite of his praise of Leno over Letterman, is a wonderful writer and phrase-turner (but Leno over Letterman, c'mon man!). Wolcott sums up the media's treatment of Kitty Kelly in comparison to their slavish bowing before the right-wing sound machine. Speaking of the latter, may I try out this word for internet repetition -- the blowjobviators?

What do you think sirs?

But on with Wolcott.

They grill her on sources, their authenticity, whether she spoke to that person directly or relied on hearsay. And in the interviews I've seen, Kelley has been cucumber-cool and composed, going up to the brink of the available evidence and no further, refusing to back down from her claims of Dubya's drug use, and more than holding her own.

The hypocrisy of the cable newsers reeks to low hell.

For years they've been hyping and peddling every variety of fishy speculation and brazen assertion about the Clintons, Vince Foster, Monica, Gary Condit-Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, this rape case, that abduction case; they've rolled out the ratty carpet for every Swift Boat slob; and now, now, they decide to get loftily anal.

The worst interviews were on CNN. Aaron Brown fretted over the methodology and wondered why Kelley focused on the Bushes, since so many privileged families such as the Kennedys and the Rockefellers get away with all sorts of behavior without having to pay the price most people do--why pick on them?

Kelley smartly retorted that the Bushes have paid less price than most (what she didn't say, and could have, was two assassinations of Kennedy brothers was worse than anything the Bushes have had to endure). He was also troubled that she was implying Bush skipped his flight physical because of drug use, to which she said it was a logical inference and all Bush had to do was release the appropriate records.

Brown at least wasn't a snitty little twit, like the CNN interviewer this morning whose name, I believe, is Heidi Hairdo. From the outset her tone was brisk, assistant district-attorneyish, and yet schoolgirlishly naive, as when she couldn't understand why anyone would be "afraid" of the Bushes and Kelley laughed in snorting disbelief, as if she had to explain the facts of life to Miss Snippy.

There is much more, but it isn't fair to just steal the whole thing from his blog, which you should bookmark and visit.

...just skip over the Leno vs. Letterman post.