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I hate Arianna

Everybody loves Arianna Huffington.  Except for me.  For some reason, writing that makes me think of the Flanders song on The Simpsons:

“Hens love roosters.  Geese love ganders.  Everyone else loves Ned Flanders.

Not me. (Homer)

Everyone who counts loves Ned Flanders.”

I don’t like Arianna, and have a really hard time reading the insufferable Huffington Post, because I don’t trust her.  Sure, she seems like a good liberal/progressive today.  Today, on September 20th, 2010, Arianna was on Hardball dutifully playing a reasonable person.  One might totally forget her history – most seem to have – but I am not in that group.  I remember her history.

My personal history with her is long.  No, I have never met her but she was a big part of the start of my career.  And yes, I apparently hold grudges.  My experience with her started in 1994 but to get a full picture you need to go back further than that.

Arianna Huffington (née Stassinopoulos) was born in Greece.  In 1960, she moved to the United States.  One of the first things she was known for (here, she hosted a show in Britain before moving here) was dating Jerry Brown.  You know, the liberal.

Mrs. Huffington later married Michael Huffington, a Republican.  The couple moved to Santa Barbara in 1992 so that he could run for the House of Representatives.  He won.  She not only campaigned for her husband but she debated his opponent in his place.  In 1994, the duo ran one of the most expensive campaigns in US history (at the time) to unseat Senator Dianne Feinstein.  Almost $32 million later ($28 million of his own), Michael Huffington almost became a Senator.  That was the year I got my first job in politics.  I was  a press intern for Senator Feinstein.  Most of the time I love elections because they have outcomes that are pretty quick and decisive.  You know (usually, the country learned the lesson I learned that year in 2000 when hanging chads entered our collective vernacular) on election night if you won or lost.  Not in 1994, that election was so close that it was determined by absentee ballots.  This was a painful time for Senator Feinstein because she lost the California gubernatorial race in 1990 because of the same thing.

This was also a painful month for Senator Feinstein’s staff.  The Huffingtons made this worse.  I do not fault either of them for fighting the election night outcome; that’s normal.  I fault them for the incredibly poor sportsmanship they showed in the months between that night and when they finally gave up –I believe it was January when they did.  I could look it up but I want this account to be as much from memory as possible.  Congressman Huffington positioned himself in the path between where Senator Feinstein was sworn in to her office; he was giving a press interview (I was there, I saw it).  He was seen riding the “Senators Only” elevators (not as elitist as they seem, it’s to allow them to get to the Capitol in time for votes).  Arianna was seen measuring offices and picking out furniture.  At least once (when I was there anyway), they walked by our office and waved.  Classy.

The Huffingtons split up because he is gay.  There is nothing wrong with being gay.  Arianna is an immigrant.  There is nothing wrong with being an immigrant.  It is, however, incredibly hypocritical to run a campaign based on discriminating against homosexuals and immigrants when you are both.  It is pretty inexcusable if you aren’t but there I cannot forgive Arianna for supporting Proposition 187 (the anti immigration ballot initiative that would have prevented the children of immigrants from attending public schools).  Yes, Arianna, I kind of wished that had passed.  If only we could have made it retroactive to the day before you got here.  Do I sound bitter?  Kind of.

Once she was on her own, Arianna went on a crusade against the media.  She became a conservative columnist/panelist.  She wanted to start a show Beat the Press.  She hosted a show with Al Franken where she was the conservative and he was the liberal.  I think it was called Strange Bedfellows.  I still haven’t forgiven Franken for that.

And then it gets interesting.  Arianna started the Huffington Post. To whom did she turn for help?  Andrew Breitbart.  You may remember him.  He’s the rabid, Tea Bagger whose web site ‘broke’ the Acorn scandal last year.  He’s a peach.  And yet, I have fewer problems with him than Arianna.  Say what you want about Breitbart; he’s honest about his agenda and position.

So I don’t like Arianna.  It bothers me to no end that her web site is given so much weight and influence. I don’t trust the liberal turned conservative turned liberal.  No self-respecting progressive should.

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The Wizard of Oz (again)

I wrote the following more than a year ago.  TNT has been showing it so I thought I would post this again.  I have one important (and obvious) point to add.  The 'munchkins' are the 'little people' being all of us.

TBS showed The Wizard of Oz last night, or the night before, again and again and again…  I have written about the political symbolism before but feel the need to do it again.  The last time I looked stuff up but I am going to pull a ‘Stephen Colbert’ and write about my thoughts from the gut.  (For those of you who like looking stuff up, that came directly from Mr. Colbert’s performance at the 2006 White House Correspondence Dinner.)

 

The first thing to note about this legendary movie is the infamous suicide that takes place in the background.  Now you can research this and believe the stories that it’s a hoax, my gut tells me this is totally true.  Right after the Wicked Witch of the West sets fire to the Scarecrow, the trio set off on the Yellow Brick Road singing.  If you look carefully, you have to have the DVD, you will see a figure walk out and place a chair in the background.  The figure then stands on the chair and is next seen swinging from a rope.  Don’t believe me?  My roommates and I spent hours reviewing this DVD frame by frame (and you had better ways to waste your time in college?).  I think it’s true.  Don’t believe me.  Look at the DVD and trust your gut.

 

The Wizard of Oz, the book, was obviously published before the movie (no, dud, idiot).  The story took place during a time of political turmoil – I’d bet my life that people then said that whatever election came around then was ‘the most important election of our lives!”  If I had a million dollars I would give it to the campaign that said, Yes, we would like you to vote for us but you, this election’s not that important.  If you’re too busy…    On second thought that could be a way the GOP will suppress turnout.  Anyway…

 

What did the whole thing mean?  In the book, Dorothy’s shoes were silver, not ruby.  At the time we were moving from the gold to silver standard and oz is the abbreviation for ounces , you know measurement.  The Emerald City was Washington.  The Scarecrow was Midwest farmers without much intelligence.  The Tin Man was industry without any heart.  The Cowardly Lion was Congress without any courage.  The Wizard was the president without any power.  The wicked Witch of the East was eastern bankers.  The wicked witch of the west was the untamed western US.  What the movie could do that the book could not, was use color. Kansas scenes are all black and white vs. the bright colors of Oz to show the depression, perhaps also the dust bowl but that’s conjecture.

 

Side note;  Judy Garland was not slated to play Dorothy.  They wanted a blond – a younger girl and they wanted to use less makeup.   People think she was lucky for landing that role.  I don’t know.  At the end of her life, after she became an alcoholic, she said she had ‘rainbows coming out of her ass.’  I am sure she was speaking metaphorically because otherwise, that would suck.

 

Why does this matter?  It matters because we write off a lot of things as being ‘just entertainment.’  I do not support censorship in fact my point is the opposite.  It is easy to watch movies like Syriana and get the take home message but it’s often more subtle.  In that way it’s more special.  The Wizard of Oz was a story about populism and that theme still resonates today.

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