Slate's Bizbox
the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Zoë Heller and James Wolcott

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Zoë Heller

Solving the Chandra Case by Female Intuition

Posted Monday, Aug. 6, 2001, at 3:24 PM ET

Dear James,

I was never mad at you. Just mildy vexed. In a way, I owe you. The letter I wrote objecting to your piece was the one of the few things I did for The New Yorker that year that didn't wind up getting killed.

About Chandra Levy, we are in complete agreement. CNN is definitely the chief offender. Old Larry sitting there, all slack-jawed and googly-eyed while those swishy-haired bints lecture him on why Condit is obviously guilty as all get-out--it's sick-making. I particularly hate the way the female panelists try to aggrandize their kibitzing by alluding constantly to feminine intuition. They know what really went down between Chandra and Gary, you see: Their ovaries told them. This privileged female insight thing is not restricted to the CNN women, of course. I read the law professor Susan Estrich the other day, conducting some amateur sleuthing. She had the case solved based on the fact that Chandra left her apartment for the last time without her handbag. According to Estrich, the only time a woman leaves home without her pocketbook is when she's planning to ride pillion on a motorbike. And who in Chandra's life might have offered her such a ride? Why, none other than Gary Hot Rod Condit!

Because Chandra is missing, we have been spared most of the columnar sanctimonies about young girls with troubling moral values that we got during the Lewinsky scandal. But I wonder whether that will last. Beneath their expressions of faux concern, I sense that the pundits are hording up a lot of misogynistic diss about Ms. Levy. Talking of which, have you been following the Lizzie Grubman story while you've been away? Grubman doesn't sound like my cup of tea, but I do think the tabloid coverage of her has been hateful. The sniggering about her being fat, the digging up of old classmates to attest that she was always a horrible old moo ... as for all these hacks pretending to be horrified by Grubman's use of the term "white trash," I doubt if there is one among them who can honestly claim never to have used that epithet themselves.

Zoë

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516171819
from: Zoë Heller

Solving the Chandra Case by Female Intuition

Posted Monday, Aug. 6, 2001, at 3:24 PM ET
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Zoë Heller is a columnist for the London Daily Telegraph and author of the novel Everything You Know. James Wolcott is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and author of the novel The Catsitters.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES
Washington Post