| |
Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com.
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Camille Paglia is a gem
I have a confession to make: Camille Paglia is my favourite cultural critic. When she was writing a regular column in the online magazine Salon (making her the sole reason to ever bother reading Salon) I used to devour her every word. I was quite saddened when the column ended last year.
Once in a while though, Paglia makes a surprise appearance -- like today. And it should come as no surprise that she hasn't rusted at all. (Please go through the hassle of the 15 second ad to get free access to the article, if you are prompted.)
While I was disappointed, but only slightly surprised, to hear that Paglia is voting for John Kerry (she is a registered Democrat, after all), she still managed to skewer the Democratic candidate and his lame campaign.
Particularly entertaining are her comments on John Edwards invoking Dick Cheney's gay daughter in the vice-presidential debate. Paglia, who is a lesbian, rips into Edwards:
I was absolutely sickened by the use of Mary Cheney as a political gambit by both Kerry and Edwards. My partner disagreed -- she thought it was fine. Many of our friends also thought it was OK. I did not. I found it utterly offensive and manipulative. I don't care whether Mary Cheney worked for Coors as a gay liaison. I don't care that she works for her father's campaign office. Mary Cheney has made her own rules and has not thrust herself into the national spotlight to speak publicly. It is unethical and grotesque to tag and stereotype her as "the lesbian" of this presidential campaign.
What gets me is that this was so clearly a Democratic strategy to avoid actually confronting Dick Cheney head-on. What rank cowardice! Come on! This shows you what's happened to the Democrats -- everything is I-feel-your-pain psychology; everything is melting emotion and ostentatious empathy. What the hell do you know, John Edwards, about what's going on in that family? Oh, the wise father so loves the gay daughter: What is this-- Betty Crocker, "Father Knows Best" politics? We're back in the 1950s?
And for Kerry to glibly invoke Mary Cheney as the archetypal lesbian in a nature-vs.-nurture dispute when he had other ready examples on his political side -- Dick Gephardt's daughter or Barney Frank -- just makes the whole thing look obviously calculating. And then the idiocy of that as a tactic at the climactic third debate -- in the following days, instead of all the media attention being focused on Bush's failings, air space was sucked up by this dopey soap opera.
And as a lesbian, I strongly object to the Democrats' amoral use of sexual orientation as a wedge issue. The Democrats are supposed to be pro-gay, and yet they're using an assertion of gayness to unsettle the Evangelical followers of the Republicans. They're deliberately fomenting and reinforcing hostility to gays! What the hell's the matter with the Democratic consultants? I'd like to kick their asses up and down the Eastern seaboard for this Mickey Mouse episode.
Absolute brilliance. That Paglia doesn't write more regularly is a real travesty.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:22 AM
|
