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David Carr and Jill Stewart

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from: Jill Stewart

Free Rides for Democrats

Posted Monday, June 14, 1999, at 2:22 PM ET

David,

I hardly know where to start, since we apparently have contempt for a lot of the same deeply important people but, I suspect, disagree on just how they have earned that contempt. Woodward's yammering pains me in a peculiar way, since I believe I am the only female Democrat in Los Angeles who believes Hillary Clinton has set back women's rights in ways that Phyllis Schlafly could only dream of. To this day, I cannot watch California Sen. Babs Boxer without feeling waves of nausea. Babs, you'll recall, gathered up a group of horrified lady congresspeople back in 1991 or thereabouts and stormed up the Senate steps to make all sorts of demands regarding Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. (Or was it the steps of the Senate? I thought I remembered this vividly, as Bob Woodward claims he knows every damn incident of the past decade. This inspires an idea: Let's give Woodward a pop quiz on a few presidential moments that are not in his book and see how well that sucker really does recall and reconstruct the past.)

But I do digress. Boxer and Hillary make me sick, sick, sick because they are loud and phony feminists. Hillary is a middle-aged woman who hitched her star to a disloyal cad who, in his personal life, never rose above his small-town hick background. Like the clinging housewife of the 1950s who let her man set all the family rules and bent to her man's wishes until she had no life or dignity of her own, Hillary is a shell. I doubt that Woodward has any insights we can tap into to find out how a shell will do as a New York senator, but that doesn't mean I won't buy his damn book to see if he at least tries to address this quandary.

I saw the bit by Neil A. Lewis, and I feel certain that Starr's report, if it is truly forthcoming, will show that the culture of lying practiced by Bill Clinton long ago immersed his sad little wife. She grinned and faked and acted like she had a happy marriage for years, as Bill went after bimbo upon bimbo. I feel certain Monica's claim about the "hundreds" of affairs Clinton once mentioned to her is about right. One simply does not become such a seamless liar as Hillary without the poison of lying spreading to every other aspect of one's life.

Which brings me to other powerful liars, like your very own mayor, Anthony Williams. His current disfavor is another reminder to me that the media are not only sheep but are also lazy slobs. And I don't mean you or your scrappy paper. How could the Post not have found out about the Williams scandal---in a town where gossip is a commodity traded like pork bellies---before the guy was elected? Can you imagine how many hundreds of people in Washington knew that Williams was a highly paid consultant for Arthur Anderson and Nationsbank, yet this crucial information escaped the Post until comfortably after his election? This is yet another example to me of how the sheeplike media give a soft ride to Democrats whom they deem to be politically acceptable. One of the oldest ways to give a soft ride is to ask questions after they are elected.

In Los Angeles, I have been writing about the incredibly soft ride that has been given to billionaire entertainment moguls Steven Spielberg and David Geffen and their annoying near-billionaire sidekick, Jeffrey Katzenberg. As you know, the three men founded the new studio called DreamWorks SKG. You may not know they are planning to build their studio on the last surviving coastal wetland in Los Angeles County, along with their billionaire partners Bill Gates and Paul Allen. Of 1,087 acres of land known as the Ballona Valley, which is salt marsh and grassy uplands adjacent to the Venice and Playa del Rey beach communities, only 250 acres will be "saved."

If a rich Republican like Rupert Murdoch had signed on as the anchor tenant in this devastating project, the media would have burned Rupert like a marshmallow at a beach picnic. Aside from the DreamWorks studio, whose inclusion acted as the crucial Trojan horse for the rest of the project, the developers will build 13,000 condos and 5.5 million square feet of office and commercial space. This new mini-city will include 29,000 residents and create 200,000 extra "car trips" per day on the 405 Freeway. It will be the fourth largest source of smog in Los Angeles after LAX (airport) and two oil refineries. Yet you should see the Los Angeles Times swoon over spoiled snots Spielberg and Geffen. Here's the entire intellectually teetering argument that runs through the minds of most journalists: "For God's sake, Spielberg is the man who made Schindler's List and E.T. He must be a decent person, doing a truly decent thing out there on the wetlands. In fact, everything he does must be decent and right. And Geffen gives to AIDS for Christ's sakes!"

For the good of the democracy, I say we set up special college funds to attract political centrists and political conservatives to journalism schools. Then you won't have places like the Post and Los Angeles Times, where 90 percent or 95 percent of the cityside reporters concede they are liberal Democrats who voted for Bill Clinton. Or perhaps, David, you would really rather not work in an office where the desk next to yours might be occupied by the Other?

Jill Stewart

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112131415161718192021
from: Jill Stewart

Free Rides for Democrats

Posted Monday, June 14, 1999, at 2:22 PM ET
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David Carr is the editor of the Washington City Paper. Jill Stewart is a political columnist at New Times Los Angeles.
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