Off With Her Mike

Again with the Lewinsky question to Chelsea. How has her mother's credibility been affected by the Lewinsky scandal?

If we look closely at this question, we can see that it's become divorced from the avowed original reason for asking it and now exists disembodied, like the Cheshire Cat's smile, or perhaps the other end of the Cheshire Cat. Because she's refused to answer it, Chelsea can expect it to materialize wherever she goes in public now.

Assuming for the moment the best of original questioner Evan Strange, he wanted to help. He says he wanted to give Chelsea a chance to expound on her mother's strength and resilience. Even under the best of circumstances, then, he wasn't asking because he didn't know, and wanted to know the answer; he wished to draw out what he thought he knew. One reason why the question was a non-question.

Another reason it was a non-question: we already know the answer. We know that Hillary's sticking by Bill annoyed people disposed to be annoyed by Hillary and Bill, and pleased people disposed to support her and Bill. How many people changed their minds about Hillary? Why would Chelsea, 17 when the scandal broke, have special insight into how the public perceived her mother? Unless she had a polling firm of her own, she wouldn't. She would only have special insight into her own feelings. Feelings which anybody with more than two brain cells could surmise.

So it's not a question Chelsea is better able to answer than anyone else. Quite the opposite; it's safe to suppose that mentioning the name "Lewinsky" is painful to Chelsea, and that she doesn't have a better answer to the question than any of the talking heads who are more than happy to expound on it, a decade after the fact.

But here we run into the well-nourished constant resentment against her parents: how dare those arrogant Clintons? Now the resentment is splashing over onto Chelsea. She's no longer a child, her detractors say. If she's choosing to campaign for her mother, she should be ready to answer for her mother. And her mother should answer for her husband. And the husband should answer for the the trauma the nation went through when he was impeached, a matter of public record. Therefore, Chelsea is refusing to talk about a matter of public record.

There are weak links in this chain, chief among them the notion that Hillary and Chelsea should have to justify their decision to stick by Bill. No. They were the innocent, injured parties. They did nothing wrong. He caused them greater trauma than he did any member of the public. Whether they forgave him does not affect the public.

Another weak link is the notion that Bill Clinton dragged the public through the trauma and expense of impeachment, so the public has the right to ask him and his family about it, forever. This link is broken, too. It wasn't Bill's idea to be impeached; it was the Republicans' pet project, even though they knew the impeachment would be unsuccessful because the votes weren't there. Any time a group knowingly puts on a show at public expense, the onus should be laid on them.

Another illogical assertion is that because she is now an adult, having chosen to campaign for her mother, Chelsea should have to talk about every aspect of her parents' life, infidelity included. Has any other son or daughter of a politician been held to such a standard? Are the press and public going to hound the Spitzer children if their mother runs for office? Perhaps so. Perhaps this new low will endure. Actually, of course it will! New lows always endure!

But the question has now been transmuted into Chelsea-as-a-Clinton denying the Public's Right to Know. That means that she can be asked the question, over and over, and the questioners can consider themselves heroic for confronting her about her refusal to satisfy the Public's Right. At the same time, they get the secret, mean little thrill that comes when an obscure person makes a famous one flinch. And nourish their own sense of injury when she tells them off.

And get themselves on T.V. Guaranteed. The only problem now is how to get to the mike and ask the question before someone else grabs the glory.

Finally, to get back to the question itself, it isn't a question of any substance; it's the sort of nebulous question 24 hour cable news networks need to chew over during the long winter evenings. The phraseology is pure News Network drivel: is so-and-so's credibility affected? What does that mean, exactly? It doesn't exactly mean anything. It's a stew of "do they trust him/her? Are the 24/7 chattering classes going to be able to milk this? Will he/she make a speech or do some sort of televiseable damage control?"

Governor Paterson's Medicine Woman

First of all, I have to disclose that I like our latest scandal-plagued governor. I want to keep him. His scandals are underwhelming, frankly. The Albany reporters are clinging to their diminishing spotlight, their moment in the sun-- just one more scandal, no wait, don't cut away to the sports just yet, did you hear the one about the funding for the defrocked doctor? Lo and behold, the defrocked doctor is Serafina Corsello---I know her! My father went (or was dragooned by my mother into going) to Dr. Corsello in the '80's, for chelation therapy. What? What's chelation therapy?

Chelation is actually a treatment for lead poisoning. A chemical, EDTA, is dripped into the bloodstream, binds with toxic metals, and hustles them the heck out of the body. Probably every New Yorker could use a little chelation, but Dr. Corsello used to have a program touting chelation for heart disease on WOR radio.

WOR, once called Women Only Radio for friendly, chatty local programming of the Breakfast with the Fitzgeralds variety, played constantly in our house. My mother, the advertiser's dream, snapped up every vitamin, eye cream and nostrum pushed by WOR. So when Serafina Corsello bought a weekly hour infomercial for her services as a chelationist, Mom ate up every one of the then-Doctor's words, which came wrapped in an Italian accent richer than the fattiest prosciutto.

Mom made it her mission to get my cardiac patient father chelated. His protests were as useless as they usually are with my mother, and eventually he was closeted with the Doctor and a tape recorder, the better to capture the wisdom as it flowed. Dr. Corsello looked like Gina Lollobrigida, and sounded like an imperious Sophia Loren. The audience was brief, and my father was ushered from the presence.

Then he was hooked up to a pouchful of EDTA and left to cool his heels for several hours with several other people also reclining on chemotherapy lounges. They were exchanging stories of agonizing yet nebulous disorders; toxin-ridden, phlegmy, headachey, neuralgic disorders, all improving with the miracle of chelation yet always with more symptoms revealing themselves.

They asked my father what was wrong with him. "I feel fine," he said. "My wife thought I should come." The other patients paused, regrouped, and resumed talking to each other. He went back to reading the Times.



He came home laden with intriguing packets, bottles, and tubes, all with the Serafina Corsello label. They were expensive, and the needle on my quackometer swung into the red. When a doctor sells supplements or energy bars under his/her own imprint, to be purchased at the "clinic," beware. If the "clinic" is a rabbit warren of examining rooms and the doctor doesn't deign to enter them but grants you a one-minute audience where you do none of the talking, beware. If the staff hustles around speaking of the doctor in hushed voices suitable to a place of worship, get out.



My father went to Dr. Corsello every week for two months or so, dutifully took his milk-thistle and pycnogenol, and didn't get worse. Now here is where the story clouds, because he was also being treated with conventional drugs, so we don't know where to lay the credit.


It's instructive to remember, though, that conventional medicine killed him. Dr. Corsello's regimen did him no harm.

After Corsello, he was alive. After Crestor, dead.


Corsello alive, Crestor, dead.


But Corsello was defrocked, and Crestor is still on the market.

Salome in a Pantsuit

It's reported by Jonathan Alter that very, very senior Democrats want to offer Hillary the New York Governorship if she will just please, please, go away, assuming that Governor Paterson is forced to step down.

Hillary isn't going to go for it, I don't think. There's the unattractive image of timid Dems attempting to sacrifice a substitute black politican for her, and the substitute hasn't indicated he's ready to go, even after his no good, very bad opening two weeks. Then, Bill in Albany? Bill not in Albany? Which is worse?

There's talk of her running against Giuliani, either in the special election that hasn't been called for or in 2010. Alter is a national reporter and I don't think he's fully aware that the New York legislature wants Paterson to remain Governor. He's one of them, he's easy to work with, he hasn't done anything that most of them haven't done. They aren't eager to get him out of office, what, for either superambitious Donkey Destroyer or superambitious scolding Prosecutor Part Deux?

Yellowdog

To the fervent Obamaniacs and Hilarians who will stay home or vote for McCain if your candidate doesn't get the nomination:

You all realize McCain will beat either Hil or Bam in November, with your help? Ever hear the phrase "divide and conquer"?

I used to be the only person maybe on earth who could either take Hilary or leave her. Diligent worker, typical politician, why should an operator not be a woman? My senator.
Obama? Wonderful mind, inspirational, maybe there could be a little more cake with the frosting.

Their policies, frankly, are not very far apart.

Then the steel-cage match began, with the kidney punches, face it, Hilarians, being thrown by her campaign, mostly.

Both camps have a lot to answer for. But never in memory has a member of one party suggested that the nominee of the other party would be preferable to his/her primary opponent.

I would love to punish the Clinton campaign for the havoc they're causing to their/our chances, and if our primary weren't over, I'd be able to, but whatever is on the Democratic side of the ticket in November, I'm voting for it, because at this point I'm more than just a yellow dog Democrat. I'm a yellow stink-bug Democrat. I'm a yellow slime-mold Democrat. If either of those has a prayer of beating McCain, I'm voting for it.

There are deaths, of soldiers, of Iraqis, to be answered for. If McCain wins, there will be significantly more deaths.
There's the Supreme Court. If McCain wins, the Court will more than tilt to the right, it'll be perpendicular.

So, I'll vote for Hillary, much more unhappily than I would have before the ruthless, silly, lying campaign of hers besmirched her in my eyes. But I'll vote for her, or the other guy, and you people out there had better get a grip and remember what misery the last eight years have brought us.

When you're bleeding to death, you don't ask if the tourniquet is dirty.

Hey Kid, Know a Good Dry-Cleaner? Just Asking.

(All quotes are slightly inaccurate)
Chelsea Clinton's emotional security was breached yesterday when an intruder, cleverly disguised as a college student, threw, not a softball, but a wadded-up-navy-dress of a question at her:
So which did the Lewinsky thing strain more, her mother's credibility or her marriage?

"MYOB," the almost-thirtyish erstwhile first daughter replied.

"But I was just trying to help," said the Swiftian, if not Swiftboatian, Evan Strange.

The rest of the day was devoted to Hilarians and Obamanics denouncing him, her and each other on blogs.

Once more the Dems are turning a non-issue into the sort of family squabble so ugly it makes the kids long to run away from home to lead lives of mindless hedonism in squalid dens of corruption where old men whisper sweet nothings to them---in other words, Republicanism.

Can we try, just try, to reimagine this situation through the clear lens of apolitical basic decency? When is it appropriate to ask a young woman (unless she's on a Mommie-dearest book tour) about how her mother reacted to her father's whoring around? If your answer is anything but "NEVER," you have unlearned everything you needed to know in kindergarten, your moral compass needle is spinning faster than Karl Rove's tongue, you have drunk deep of the Kool-Aid, you are a danger to yourself and others.

Remember when the sins of the father were not supposed to be visited on the child?She NEVER has to be rational about her Mom and Dad. Not because she's privileged, but because EVERYONE deserves a pass on what their parents do. Credibility my incredible ass. Another cable-newspeak cliche. What a weak, facile excuse for poking a sharp stick in somebody's eye.

DRAWN IN HASTE Repented at Leisure: Diane Dixon, Covergirl

Q: What does an axe murderer do?
A: Sells newspapers.


One day. Just one damn day. Couldn't we have had just one day to honeymoon with our cuddly new governor?

Of course not.


Note the New York Post's GIRLS! GIRLS! GIRLS! PATERSON GAL'S TAPE SHOCKER--"Olympics babe bares recording & job 'he got me'" turns out to be nothing but baloney: an evidently attention-hungry former track and field medalist e-mailed the Post that she'd secretly taped Paterson on the phone--tapes she now says she's going to destroy. Has the post heard any tapes? No. What are they of? "Conversations," she e-mailed back with a smiley face. Has she claimed the Gov slept with her? No. She says she's a single mother who's grateful to him for helping her get a job as a Family Advocate with the Board of Ed--a job she's yet to start, if it exists. The Board of Ed has no record of her. Even smut peddler Larry Flynt peddles genuine smut.



Perhaps Rupert Murdoch sees an easy path to another Republican-led era if he can get Bruno in. But Bruno has so many troubles that he'd likely soon follow Paterson. The governorship would start resembling Billy Rose's Aquacade: diving in formation.

Journalists, or, rather, the news media, like to say that among their faults is "pack journalism."

They flatter themselves. "Herd journalism" is more accurate, and "Coop journalism" more accurate still, for cud-chewers are gentler and less damaging then the old hens in Albany.

Ruminants don't write good front-page material.

Had enough of the shallow smugness with which TV reporters face into the camera and recite their 90 seconds of unimaginably intimate and surreal gossip? You're one of the few, then. Peoplemeters say the audience is eating it up. TV reporters are our modern, unthinking, brainless Furies. Pursuing sexual wrongdoers is incidental, impersonal. It's good for ratings. It gets circulation up, you could say.

Will Eliot Spitzer's resignation destroy David Paterson? I hope not. I think not. Paterson's a different number entirely: he's never been a hypocrite, he has support in Albany, and the legislators all know there's plenty of dirt to go around.

We need our governor to govern. Time for him to tell the press the subject of his sex life is closed.

Honeymooning at the Governor's

Due to the constantly changing cast of gubernatorial characters occupying the headlines and hotel beds of the tri-state area, and because I can't bear even the idea of depicting one more politician in bed with anybody but a lobbyist, here is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes cuddling with their tailor, who is rumored to have threaded a few needles too many, which, Mr. Hayes is explaining to the gentleman of the press, is a gross exaggeration.

And whose damn business is it whether the tailor whip-stitched Mrs. Hayes' drapes in the evening, as long as the public didn't pay for it?


If the Rutherford B. Hayeses had had to detail their marital woes to the papers, how could we have held them in the respect we do today?

On an entirely, entirely, different, completely unassociated, dissimilar, not the same kind of thing at all, wildly divergent, so as to be a non-sequitor kind of note,

CONGRATULATIONS GOVERNOR DAVID PATERSON!!!