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Jonathan Lear and Andrew Sullivan

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What Goes Around Comes Around

By Andrew Sullivan
Posted Thursday, Aug. 23, 2001, at 5:58 PM ET

Jonathan,

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Ah, yes. Pity and contempt. Hard to feel anything else for Connie Chung.

I love your idea of a Survivor-style reality show for all the compulsive liars and fantasists out there. Unfortunately, it's already been done. It's called Capitol Hill.

Someone just e-mailed me to point out that the latest big news story on cable today was: Gary Condit is now leaving his house. Will they follow his car down the freeway? Meanwhile, Lucianne Goldberg on National Review Online is urging Ms. Chung to ask Condit, "Were you hurt by the erroneous stories that your wife had no thumbs? Were you hurt when Mrs. Levy wouldn't return your hug? What's your wife's sign? Dress size? Bracelet size?" Oh, how far we've come from worrying about a possible crime. Why doesn't Goldberg simply take the poor Mrs. Condit and strip her in public? It would be more honest than this disgusting ransacking of her private hell.

Now a new rumor from pretty good sources. Chung's first question may well be: "Did you murder Chandra Levy?" If it is, we really will have crossed a new threshold of depravity. It's up there with the first time someone asked Gary Hart if he was an adulterer. If that happens, we will live in a world where it's now fine to ask someone--with no evidence but rumor and malicious hearsay--whether they murdered someone. Can you imagine? Mrs. Graham, was your husband's death a suicide? Mr. President, did you have Vince Foster killed?

It's been great chatting with you, too. It was so refeshing to hear a self-declared "bleeding-heart liberal" at least notice the closed-mindedness of some members of the liberal elite--and an attitude toward Bush that they would describe glibly in anyone else as "hate." Maybe it's payback for those who refused to give Clinton a chance either from the get-go. Well, what goes around comes around.

Come back to P'town some time. We'll have a blast.

Andrew