Friday Funnies-Bill Clinton: it's summer but he's in winter...

My Princeton classmate Todd Purdum, whom we're lining up to help grace our happy crew at the nascent Hoya Journalism Department with some wisdom in return for grossly underfunded honoraria, stirs the pot again vis. his wifey's ex-boss. Yep Todd's married to former Bubba White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers. Digression/explanation/boasting here, fanboys & girls: Todd is part of my class's Legion of Super Heroes/Mt Olympus/'36 Yankees/'70 Orioles line up of journalistic cool m-fs: Barton Gellman, Joel Achenbach, Liza Mundy, Lisa Belkin Gelb, Michael (Money Ball) Lewis, and let us not forget Martha McCully, HGTV celeb and former Editor-in Chief of every woman's favorite waiting room at the OB-GYN's office magazine, InStyle.

Getting back to it, in his new gig as Vanity Fair gadfly and general pundit (note I did not say public intellectual), Todd has been de-constructing the deconstruction (demolition?) of the Clinton dual monarchy. Here's one piece: click. You decide. What's the 411 on Bill's albatross-like drag on his equally bizarre-acting wife? Goes back, as always, to that Twilight Zone above his neck, not what's in his pants. Explains everything: the mental toll of the bypass surgery, to his Lucifer the Morning Star-like tumble from Soul Brother Numero Uno to the level of Hell just above Karl Rove's. The E! and Fox newsie element is Todd's whispering over Bill's supposed penchant for Gina Gershon. Gina is of course the vampire-mouthed actress who made stylized lezbo scenes a mainstream, hetero male fantasy in Bound and Show Girls (as opposed to reality: think the LPGA Tour and WNBA). Of course Gina's lawyers are sending letters and Bill has blown yet another gasket, though keeping on the pointless message that somehow Hillary was subject to a vast anti-woman conspiracy. Um...it's called "malice," and "damages" Gina, Bill. If you are a public figure, you have to show reckless disregard for the truth, and damages. Which is why seldom do libel suits go forward. The damages part always tickle me when a jury says yeah, you've been libeled, defamed, but based on your rep we award you $1 plus a few grand in attorneys fees. Ha! I have no doubt what Todd plumbed and Vanity Fair printed is true...somewhat true. Sorry.

Here's something else instructive from the piece...and well, almost banal: "Yes, Obama is a daring opponent who thinks he is hot shit and has benefited from the same enthusiasm, energy, and fresh-faced appeal that a fella named Bill Clinton once elicited (but he has suffered from some of the same skepticism, too). It is Clinton’s invariable insistence that his problems are someone else’s fault, and that questions or criticisms of him, his methods, motives, or means are invariably unfair, that is his unforgivable flaw."

My take: the underlying reasons mined by Todd for Bubba's meltdowns, continued geriatric HBO's Entourage-like behavior and paranoia might be groundbreaking to some NYC/DC/LA literatti and journalism snobs. To me? Meh... I see it all the time. It's the "old playa at the club." Not something so regal as the Lion in Winter. Nope, merely old playa who cannot play on. A tragedy only R Kelly or Eurpides and Aeshylus could love. Todd's just putting the usual uber-serious whiteboy over-gloss on it. I'd like to chronicle the Winter of about 75% of the Congressional Black Caucus myself...Vote Kevin Powell!

Miley Cyrus is a "whore..."

...and yet aren't we all these days? Disney is full of it. Miley is full of it. Vanity Fair is cagey...but Annie Lebovitz, one of the last few photographic artists in America, is full of it for "apologizing." Look at these photos--not the VF shoot, but the ones below: Her supposedly going all Lolita (could it be Miley's decided to toss the pretense and say hey world, this is the real me. Emotionally and intellectually immature yet fecund and almost sweet-16?). Then the Kid's Choice Awards outfit. Now look to the left at Annie's rendition and be honest. Which is "worse?" Nuff said.
Nevertheless, allow me to elaborate for you "shocked" parents of 10 year old girls (and my nieces are rabid fans, best believe!) and middle America morons. Miley is not a person. Miley is "product." That is not my cynical term--it is the term that media companies and producers use. Yes, product. Like black folks were no more than five or six generations ago. Product to sell. Product to deliver demos to advertisers. In turn, this silly story becomes product that pundits and morning show tweety birds tweet upon to certain other demos (target audiences) so they can sell more ads.
Miley herself? Well, if her daddy's mullet and tight jeans from the late 80s-early 90s weren't whoreish enough, she has taken the genetic cue and ran with it. Role model? She's the star of a kiddie show for godssakes! Are you all retarded? If she were some random little white girl who raised money to go to Darfur and feed/clothe/protect other 15 year old girls from rape and murder... would you care? If she started a movement to get other girls to put down the mobile phones which you morons (yes, you parents who are whining about this stupid photo based on the soap opera-wired media's bombardment) purchased for them and stop texting and said time to increase literacy and writing skills and cyber-bullying...would you care?
Likely not. Look, Brooke Shields was doing stuff that makes this photo shoot look tame and there wasn't this outcry, but the media and stars/handlers weren't as whorish back then. The 70s--NOT whorish? You gotta get with the new-school definition of "whore," pal. It encompasses the pervasiveness of technology. The triumph of, as the Washington Post expounded upon, "belief over truth."
So yeah, Miley's a whore. And so am I for planting this post. We are all on the stroll together. Not you whining parents, though...or even your kids. You are the tricks. The pimps? They don't have names like Bishop Magic Don Juan or feature $500 rims. They have names like Google, VIACOM, Time-Warner, Fox/News Corp, etc. This battle between Disney and VF, blah blah is just another game of dozens at the Player's Ball...