Celebutards (19 page)

M
AUREEN
D
OWD
,
the Pulitzer Prize-winning
New York Times
op-ed columnist and author (
Are Men Necessary?)
has a guy problem.

Born January 14, 1952, in Washington, D.C., Dowd’s writing is littered with cutesie nicknames (President Bush the first is “Poppy,” Vice President Dick Chency is “Darth”). But Dowd officially joined the confessional, chick-lit genre by penning two astonishingly passive-aggressive pieces in the wake of failed relationships with producer Aaron Sorkin and movie star Michael Douglas, who took flight after meeting Catherine Zeta-Jones, whom he later married.

Rather than take out her anger on those who dismissed her, Dowd trained her high beams on
New York Times
colleague Judith Miller. She also discovered a new primate to take the place of unreliable men: bonobo chimps.

First, the chimps.

In a 2002 column Dowd, who has not married, moaned that she’s too powerful and accomplished to nail a man. Never mind that other powerful, accomplished women have mates. Dowd was the victim in her tale.

Apparently, human males would not do. So Dowd traveled deep into the animal kingdom to find the bonobo—a being of sexual superiority.

“Because in bonobo society, the females are dominant,” she wrote. “Just light dominance, so that it is more like a co-dominance, or equality between the sexes. ‘They are less obsessed with power and status than their chimpanzee cousins, and more consumed with Eros,’
The Times’s
Natalie Angier has written.

“‘Bonobos use sex to appease, to bond, to make up after a fight, to ease tensions, to cement alliances…. Humans generally wait until after a nice meal to make love; bonobos do it beforehand.’”

Dowd concluded, approvingly, about our malodorous cousins: “The males were happy to give up a little dominance once they realized the deal they were being offered: all those aggressive female primates, after a busy day of dominating their jungle, were primed for sex, not for the withholding of it.”

Before moving permanently into the jungle, Dowd, in 2005, went off the rails in a highly personal excoriation of Judith Miller, the Pulitzer-winning reporter and alpha female who retired under a cloud after reporting claims, which turned out to be false, about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction.

“I’ve always liked Judy Miller,” Dowd began. Mee-ouch! Judy was in trouble.

Dowd launched into her co-worker, writing about her “tropism toward powerful men”—an allusion to rumors of Miller’s active premarital love life. Dowd was angry, but not about Miller’s flawed reporting. She was still steamed about an incident that happened years earlier, in which Miller had the temerity to ask Dowd to give up her seat at a Washington press briefing.

“It was such an outrageous move, I could only laugh,” Dowd wrote furiously.

Miller told me about Dowd over breakfast in New York a few years ago. “I used to think of her not as a friend, but as somebody I like. You see, I wasn’t part of that inner girl gang.

“My problem is I’m too undiplomatic. I’m too blunt. But I like her, and I admired her tremendously,” she said, pointedly using the past tense. “That earlier work.”

What about asking Dowd to give up her seat? Judy said, “I’m sorry I took her chair away. I was covering it and wanted to sit close. But I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

Next, Dowd told Don Imus she loves me.

I’m afraid. Very afraid.

W
HAT’S A BIG-CITY MAYOR
to do when violent crime falls to levels unseen since the days dinosaurs roamed the earth?

If you’re two-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, born Michael Rubens Bloomberg on February 14, 1942, in Boston, you turn your adopted home town into a “Nanny State”—pushing through a ban on smoking in bars and restaurants (not such a bad thing, really), the removal of trans-fats from restaurant food (come on), and discouraging women who give birth in city hospitals from bottle-feeding their young. Thanks to Mike, taxes on a pack of smokes are the highest in the nation, with some brands costing more than ten dollars in your corner bodega. He also pushed through the city Health Department a regulation requiring restaurants to post calorie counts of each item on the menu, with chains such as Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts leading the way. You mean there’s 400 calories in that “low-fat” blueberry muffin? Mayor Mike may have put me off eating for good.

Bloomberg, a card-carrying liberal Democrat, joined New York’s moribund Republican Party because it presented a clear path to Gracie Mansion, where he’s never lived; his own Manhattan townhouse is much nicer. He paid at least $73 million of a fortune he amassed as founder of the Bloomberg L.P. financial media empire to get elected mayor in 2001. For his 2005 re-election, despite only token opposition, he spent some $75.5 million, or about $100 a vote. His net worth was estimated at a spectacular $11.5 billion in 2008.

He took a mayoral salary of $1.00 a year. (I could make a smartass remark here such as he’s being overpaid, but that’s too easy.)

I should have seen it coming. When Bloomberg first ran for mayor in 2001, I asked him to name the minimum wage.

He didn’t hesitate. “About 7.50 an hour?” he said.

The federal minimum wage, which New York followed, was $5.15. I should have taken it as a sign. And yet, I voted for him. Twice. Actually, if you saw the Democratic Three Stooges running for mayor, you’d understand.

His mayoralty has been marked with some wild successes—violent crime has continued to drop like a stone—and a few, egregious misses.

He squandered four years of his reign championing the building of a football stadium for the New York Jets (who regrettably play in New Jersey) on Manhattan’s West Side. Problem was, the project required lofty public financing and would have resulted in choking traffic in that already crawling part of town. But Mike can afford a private box from which to watch the games with his equally rich pals, not far from home! The idea died when two leaders in New York’s state legislature—a Republican and a Democrat—rejected it. State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was vocal in his disgust. “Am I supposed to turn my back on Lower Manhattan as it struggles to recover” from the terror attacks of 9/11. Silver said. “For what? A stadium? For the hope of bringing the Olympics to New York City?”

Not to be undone, Mike further demonstrated his disdain for folks who don’t live in $50 million Manhattan townhouses when he proceeded to try like mad to shove through the state Legislature a “congestion pricing” measure. He sold it as a way to reduce traffic and pollution—not an issue with the precious stadium—and win federal dollars. Problem was, it meant charging drivers eight dollars to drive their cars into Midtown Manhattan. (Many drivers from New York’s four outer boroughs, with which Bloomberg has only a nodding acquaintance, already pay more than that in tolls.)

The episode wound up revealing precisely how tone-deaf and out of touch the wealthy mayor was from the majority of New York citizens. Despite promised federal dollars, congestion pricing came with no guarantees that mass-transit fares would be reduced or hold steady for the little people, who no longer would be able to afford driving their cars. The move was nakedly aimed at pleasing rich residents of Manhattan, like the mayor, who don’t drive anyway, or can easily afford the tax. But congestion pricing died an ignoble death in the State Assembly in April 2008. Despite the mayor’s fervent cheerleading, it was so unpopular it failed even to come up for a vote. The word “elitist” was uttered a number of times by state politicians who killed off Mike’s folly.

Bloomberg reached his tone-deaf zenith on November 27, 2006, when he turned his back on the city’s police department in a time of crisis. Less than forty-eight hours after New Yorkers learned that police had shot an unarmed black man, Sean Bell, outside a sleazy Queens strip bar under the mistaken belief he had a gun—and before any witness statements could be assembled - Bloomberg made up his mind:

“I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have fifty-odd shorts fired,” Bloomberg said at City Hall. He added, “But that’s up to the investigation to find out what really happened.”

Why have an investigation, when you’ve deemed the shooting unacceptable?

Making matters worse, Bloomberg said of Bell and his friends, “There is no evidence that they were doing anything wrong.”

The Reverend Al Sharpton, who was banned from City Hall while Rudolph Giuliani was mayor, was seen, front and center, at the press conference. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, thrown for a loop by the mayor’s premature blast, was momentarily speechless, later saying the mayor “is entitled to his opinion.”

Bloomberg attempted to repair the damage by saying he only gave the armchair opinion of a “civilian.” As if New York’s essential commander in chief may lapse into the role of civilian when it suits him.

On April 25, 2008, the three detectives charged in Bell’s shooting were acquitted of all charges—including manslaughter and reckless endangerment—by Queens State Supreme Court justice Arthur Cooperman, who concluded that prosecutors had failed to prove a crime was committed. Bell’s shooting was a horrible, fatal mistake, but it was just that—a mistake. Egg on his face, Bloomberg was asked if he put the city in jeopardy when he prejudged the shooting. The mayor merely showed a flash of the irrational anger he has shown whenever his back is to the wall, but refused to answer the question.

Our regal mayor picked a side. Too soon.

A
COMMUNITY
(even one in California) is not ordinarily designated a celebutard. But Brattleboro, Vermont (established 1887; 2000 census population 8,259), worked hard to make this list.

This sleepy town in southern Vermont, previously best known for its overpriced maple syrup, became the location in which people spontaneously began tossing off their clothes and walking around downtown stark naked. It started in 2005 when teens played hula-hoops in a parking lot in the buff. Before long, senior citizens took to walking around exposed.

“I’m concerned we don’t know where [naked people] are going to strike,” worried a local minister, the Reverend Kevin Horion.

After two years of wringing hands and other body parts—Vermont had no law banning public displays of naughty bits—town elders commanded the populace to cover up. It was just the precursor to Brattleboro’s biggest insanity. Gosh, I miss the nudists.

On Primary Day 2008, as the state ushered in Barack Obama as its choice for Democratic candidate for president, the towns of Brattleboro and nearby Marlboro voted to indict President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for unspecified crimes. As if the region hadn’t more important things to worry about—schools and the economy for starters—residents spent months agonizing before finally deciding that if the pair ever dared set foot within these borders, they’d be arrested on sight. Vermont is the only state in the union in which Bush had thus far failed to step foot. You won’t see him around these parts any time soon.

I guess from now on I’ll have to buy my extortionate syrup in New York.

Other Folks Who Drive Us to Drink, but Don’t Rate an Entire Chapter

Al Franken
(born Alan Stuart Franken on May 21, 1951, in New York) took it upon himself to body-slam an elderly Lyndon LaRouche supporter who heckled former lefty presidential candidate Howard Dean during a New Hampshire campaign stop in 2004. Franken broke his trademark Coke-bottle glasses during the brawl. In his defense, Franken said he would have attacked a Dean supporter if he shouted at a Kerry rally. (No mention of Bush.)

“I got down low and took his legs out,” Franken boasted about his smack-down of a senior. “I was a wrestler so I used a wrestling move.”

The cops arrived, but did not know what to make of the dumb beating the old.

In 2008, he announced he was running for Senate from Minnesota, where he grew up, as a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Opponents are advised to come armed.

I could go on about the proud anarchist
Noam Chomsky
(born Avram Noam Chomsky on December 7, 1928, in Philadelphia). But I think this single quote criticizing the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks crystallizes how the biggest intellectuals are the dumbest people: “Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.”

’Nuff said.

Dan Rather
(born Daniel Irvin Rather on October 31, 1931, in Wharton, Texas ) was unceremoniously booted from CBS News after forty-four years after he reported a damning 2004 story critical of President George W. Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service record. Problem was, the report was based on forged memos so crude, a toddler could have executed them. For a while, Rather feigned repentance. But later, he shockingly told Larry King, “Nobody has proved that [the memos] were fraudulent, much less a forgery. The truth of this story stands up to this day.” He also sued CBS for $70 million. Way to end a career.

Christine Amanpour
(born January 12, 1958, in London) deserves a special place in our hearts for her stubborn, pandering, Arab-centric coverage of the Middle East for CNN. Her macho posturing while facing down tyrants (accompanied by her protective entourage) is to make one ill. Sorry. Try as you might, you can’t make them love you.

Aaron Sorkin
(born Aaron Benjamin Sorkin on June 6, 1961, in New York) admitted he wrote the boring romantic comedy
An American President
while locked in a hotel room smoking crack, before creating TV’s
The West Wing
and squiring Maureen Dowd. And this man is a major influence to today’s budding lefties.

Being liberal in Massachusetts is easy. If you’re Senator
Ted Kennedy
(born February 22, 1932), so is driving drunk in Chappaquiddick, then running from the scene after your vehicle dunks into the drink, leaving a young lady, not your wife, to drown. He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, and spent not a minute behind bars. Last I saw Captain Oldsmobile, it was weeks after his son, Representative Patrick Kennedy, crashed his car on Capitol Hill. A cop said the rep appeared drunk. He insists he was on medication. Being a Kennedy, he pleaded to a wrist-slap offense of driving under the influence of prescription meds. When I caught up with Teddy K, he was in New York promoting a children’s book about a black Portuguese water dog named—are you ready?—S
plash
. I could not invent this stuff. Ted was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008, though he did manage to make an appearance at the Democratic National Convention on opening night, August 25, 2008. If nothing else, it proves beyond doubt that a fatal disease is the only surefire cure for a bad reputation.

Woody Allen
(born Allen Stewart Konigsberg on December 1, 1935, in New York) wrote an astonishing piece in the
New York Times
in 1988 urging his fellow Jews to exert “moral, financial, political pressure” against Israel to end oppression of Palestinians. But then, in 2002 he accused the American Jewish Congress for adopting Gestapo-like tactics—actually, his tactics. The AJC had urged a boycott of the Cannes film festival (where Allen’s new movie coincidentally premiered) because of virulent French anti-Semitism. “Boycotts were exactly what the Germans were doing against the Jews,” Allen told French radio. Why expect moral consistency from a man who incestuously married Soon-yi Previn, better known as the adopted daughter of Allen’s girlfriend, Mia Farrow? When you’re Woody Allen, morals are for other people.

Robert Redford
(born Charles Robert Redford, Jr., on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California) has an energy problem. The filmmaker and ardent environmentalist moans about administration failures to combat global warming and reduce the use of fossil fuels, while presiding over an SUV-locked Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, several hours and many Lear jet rides away from the homes of anyone in the movie industry. John Tierney of the
New York Times
sensibly suggested that if Redford cared about the environment, he’d move his festival to New York, which would “spare [movie-makers] a trip, enrich our economy and save energy.” Redford, however, persists in owning an environmentally unfriendly, remote and pricey ski resort.

Rob “Meathead” Reiner
(born Robert Singer Reiner on March 6, 1947, in the Bronx, New York), a film director best known for playing Archie Bunker’s son-in-law “Meathead” on the sitcom
All in the Family
, sponsored California’s Proposition 10, which slapped a 50-cent tax on packs of cigarettes to pay for programs for children under five.
The Los Angeles Times
reported that 20 percent of the $700 million a year raised from the tax was spent on a “First Five Commission” run by, you guessed it, Rob Reiner. To that end, Reiner has awarded hundreds of millions to advertising and public-relations firms, in part to fund campaigns to pass new initiatives, including Proposition 82, which would have taxed high-earners for preschool. (It failed at the ballot box.) Reiner had to quit as head of the commission amid mounting criticism. Was this money well-spent? Or political patronage and waste levied by a rich liberal with little to do? You decide.

Jerry Seinfeld
(born Jerome Seinfeld on April 29, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York) must ask his wife for permission to leave the house more often. Some questioned the faded ’90s sitcom star’s sanity in 2007, when he told David Letterman that a cookbook author was a “wacko” and potential serial killer. Why? Because many have suggested the author, Missy Chase Lapine, who wrote
The Sneaky Chef
—which tells how to hide pureed vegetables in kids’ food—was plagiarized by Seinfeld’s wife, Jessica, in her tome,
Deceptively Delicious
.

“Now you know, having a career in show business, one of the fun facts of celebrity life is wackos will wait in the woodwork to pop out at certain moments of your life to inject a little adrenaline into your life experience,” Seinfeld said, comparing Lapine with Letterman’s now-deceased stalker, as well as with a man who plotted to kidnap Letterman’s son.

Like a tot on a sugar rush, Seinfeld noted Lapine used three names. “If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins,” he said.” Mark David Chapman. And you know, James Earl Ray. So that’s my concern.” Chapman gunned down John Lennon, but wrote no known cookbooks. James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King Jr. and also never penned a cookbook.

Never having actually watched a program helmed by
Keith Olbermann
(born January 27, 1959 in New York), I am at a loss as to what gifts this influential (in his own mind) lefty has bestowed upon the universe. But Olbermann, who drew the ire of the Anti-Defamation League for repeatedly using the Nazi salute while referring to people he doesn’t like, has nonetheless rewarded me. He named me his “Worst Person in the World” in 2006, after I reported on a loud conversation I overheard in which he envied Fox newscaster Bill O’Reilly’s superior ratings, and guffawed as a pal scorned colleague Connie Chung as a death-defying “cockroach.” Olbermann said that was meant as a “compliment.” Thanks for keeping it real!

Some people get divorced. Others transform their lives and ideologies in the process of ridding themselves of a toxic spouse.
Arianna Huffington
(born Arianna Stassinopoulos on July 15, 1950, in Athens, Greece) says she was simply a “former right-winger who has evolved into a compassionate and progressive populist,” as if such a shape-change overcame her during breakfast. She went from conservative to uber-liberal after her embarrassing divorce from former United States Senator Michael Huffington, who disclosed his bisexuality (a 1999
GQ
profile declared that she knew of his sexual interest in men all along). Following the split, she became a wealthy woman from her ex’s oil money, free to start the leftist online vanity sheet, The Huffington Post, which publishes the liberal musings of every manner of celebrity and deep thinker, from Alec Baldwin to Cindy Sheehan. Her biography on Maria Callas was the subject of a plagiarism scandal (settled out of court). These days, Huffington, with her charming accent and good hair, is a constant on the speaker’s circuit, where leftists are in great demand.

And this book could not be complete without:

Jane “Hanoi Jane” Fonda
(born December 21, 1937), the grandmother of the modern celebutard set, whose treasonous pose on an anti-aircraft battery in Hanoi during the Vietnam War in 1972 was credited by John McCain as earning him extra torture as a prisoner of war. In 2008, she used the word “c*nt,” live, on the
Today
show while discussing her role in the
Vagina Monologues
—crudely and inadvertently crystallizing what so many have thought of her for decades.