Punditchick

Psychohistory in the Making

Bush is making the Left crazy. You need look no further than public television's paranoid and partisan look at Rove and the recent Kill Bush stamp to see that Bush has made the entire Left mad.

The great thing about the Left's hatred of Bush is that we have a lot to look forward to-- not least of all will be the feeding frenzy by psychohistorians on the Bush presidency.

One thing's for sure, today's psychohistorians will really have to apply themselves if they hope to be as monstrously cruel to Bush as Frank DeHart and David Abrahamsen were to Dick Nixon.

From David Greenberg's  book Nixon's Shadow--

"The most fertile source of speculation was a letter Nixon wrote as part of a school assignment at age ten.  In the note, Nixon described an adventure he fantasized he had when 'his master' was away. 'It is a tale,' according to James Barber, 'of hurt, panic, and depression'":

My Dear Master:

The two boys that you left me with are very bad to me. Their dog, Jim, is very old and he will never talk or play with me.

One Saturday the boys went hunting. Jim and myself went with them. While going through the woods one of the boys triped [sic] and fell on me. I lost my temper and bit him. He kiked [sic] me in the side and we started on. While we were walking I saw a black round thing in a tree. I hit it with my paw. A swarm of black thing came out of it. I started to run and as both of my eyes swelled shut I fell into a pond. When I got home I was very sore. I wish you would come home right now.

Your good dog,

Richard

"Reprinting the note for the first time in his biography The Real Nixon (1960), the journalist Bela Kornitzer predicted, "Psychiatristswill undoubtedly have a field day." Indeed they did; practically every one of Nixon's psychobiographers meditated upon the letter. One book, Frank DeHart's self published Traumatic Nixon (1979) - either an example of psychobiography at its worst or an ingenious, unappreciated parody of the genre- went so far as to interpret Nixon's whole life through a peculiar reading of the letter, suggesting that Nixon had been forced to perform fellatio on a tramp he encountered in the woods. Michael Rogin and John Lottier suggested in a more orthodox take (Huh?--PC), that "the imagery is anal; feces retaliate for the attack on a tree trunk's anus." David Abrahamsen, for his part took the letter as an indication of Nixon's "oral fixation"- his tendency to respond to adversity by lashing out orally  (by biting)- and his vulnerability, self-pity and longing for his mother's comforts."

I actually think DeHart didn't go far enough. Clearly, Nixon's use of the phrase "he kiked me" has psychohistorical implications. Could it be that the tramp that forced young Dick to give him head was Whittier's lone jew? Wouldn't that explain Nixon's antisemitism? What's not to love about psychohistory?   

I can't wait to hear how an Andover groundskeeper-- who looked like a member of the Tikriti clan but was most likely a Mexican-- forced young Dubya to give him a hand job and how that fateful incident explains Bush's Iraq policy and his opposition to gay marriage.If DeHart hasn't left the building, I'm sure he could make the case that Bush's open border policy proves, despite his butch pose, that he really wants to be taken from behind.

Bring it on, bring it on....

So Many Questions

Is it wise, with hatred of Scott Peterson epidemic in America,  for the Dems to argue Hubby knows best in the Schiavo case?  Terri's parents, the Schindlers, are so clearly the good guys in all this. 

No one expects a guy who always gets it wrong like the execrable Rep.Wexler (D, FL) to get this right, but who could've predicted that he'd be so white hot to starve Terri?

And are Barney Frank, Jerry Nadler, the awful Mr. Wexler and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz -- the new lib in town; a bizzle in desperate need of a no frizzle product--  who the Left wants speaking to the Country on this? 

Bush, DeLay and the Schindlers have already won on this. Craig Crawford, Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan all think Dr. Frist -- despite the memo WaPo found-- is a winner too. I'd argue that Debbie Wasserman-Shutlz is also a winner. DWS and her bad hair got tv time-- she went national last night. She is the Old Media's new It-Shrew.

Make no mistake, Debbie Wasserman- Shultz is going places... God Save the Republic.

Hold the Malaise

In the middle of a ho-hum post on the extreme viciousness of the new bankruptcy bill,  Jimbo Wolcott argues that Jimmy Carter, no shy evangelical he, was President Bad Motherfucker who, but for the pooled resources of the WaPo, the Jewish lobby and the military industrial complex, would have fed the world and let them know its Christmastime.

It's official, the scowling manatee of the blogosphere has finally lost his shit.

Mardi Gras at Martyrs' Square

Geraghty thinks Reynolds wants the girls of the Cedar Revolution to show him their tits. All this time GR has been blogging for the nookie. Who knew?

It's Bigger Than Jude Law

As much as I think Chris Rock fell down on the stage last night (his anti-Bush riff was particularly stale), his cracks at Hollywood were right on. Hollywood is a sick fish.

Doesn't Swank's golden deuce make it all a big nothing? For crying out loud, Brando only won two!!!

The score stands Swank 2, Scorsese bupkis-- Hollywood is soooo effed up.

Marty Scorsese was absolutely hosed last night. Clearly, Marty's decision to lay it all out for Kazan hasn't helped him with the Academy. It's all about the Work, my ass. 

Scorcese, of all people, should understand that the greybeards of the Academy still have Dalton Trumbo on their brains. Did he think they'd finally give him his due for a biopic of a staunch anti-communist like Hughes?

Anyhow, Marty should ditch Leo. Every film he makes with Leo is a doughnut film.  The little bit of Leo as Hughes that was shown in last night's Oscarcast was God awful. Leo just isn't an actor. His accent was intermittent and he looked like a waiter trying to be a good actor. He just can't sell it. I think it's because he hasn't suffered enough. He's been working steadily since he was a kid actor on Growing Pains, and he's been banging Brazilian ubermodel Giselle for the last few years. Brando had  Nebraska, alcoholic parents and the Shattuck Military Academy. Brando suffered. I know Swank had the trailer park and had to sleep in a car, but she's still too Tracy Flick-ish for me. 

Wolcott is all over the shrinking gap between the 20 million dollar babies like Leo D. and the average LaLa Land waiter with big screen dreams. What can we do with the surplus of good looking no-talents in America? Wolcott says, "Porn!"

On the Wrong Side of Misery

MSM bigs aren't dealing well with the new normal-- being accountable and losing their nuclear monopoly is no fun.  In the last six months, the MSM--so used to being on the other side of misery-- has lost two of its icons to conservative bloggers, and they're not happy about it.

Michelle Malkin is all over the MSM's bitchy response to Eason's fall. And Jeff Jarvis is requesting a sit-down with Times' editor Bill Keller.

Here's Jarvis on the nasty article on Easongate in today's Times:

This morning's story by Katharine Q. Seelye, Jacques Steinberg, and David F. Gallagher -- under the headline, "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters" -- is another example of the disdain in which many quarters of The Times -- not all -- hold citizens' media.

This being The Times, many of the slaps are subtle. When they quote Edward Morrissey of Captains Quarter, who stayed on top of the Jordan story, they make a point of saying he is "a call center manager who lives near Minneapolis" Read: "He's not one of us. He's not a real journalist."

We are dealing with hubristic types who went to fancy schools and sit atop the media food chain at West 43rd Street in New York. Now they are having to answer to a call center manager from a suburb of  Minneapolis-- they didn't sign on for that.

The MSM's last big score-- Watergate-- is now an ancient victory and the terms of Watergate are increasingly being co-opted by the Right.

In around twenty days, conservative bloggers were able to take Eason down -- that's a rapid kill.

The journalism of personal destruction will cut both ways from now on, and the formerly untouchable media bigs know it.   

Crossing Out Jordan

Jordan's fall is a big, big deal. The liberal elite can no longer kid themselves that Rather's implosion was a fluke and that only an eccentric, flamboyant liberal in Winter like Rather could get taken down in such a way. With Jordan's desk cleared out, they know now that it was no golden beebee that felled Dan and that any of them could be next.

The clean, consequential kills of the rightwing blogosphere stand in stark contrast to the cheap, little hits that lefty bloggers have scored. Like in talk radio, the Right rules the internet. Kos may get a lot of hits, but the Right's lethal hits on Rather and Eason matter a lot more.

Big media elites are having to adjust to the fact that a Red State professor who teaches law at an SEC football powerhouse is their Daddy-- believe me, they didn't sign on for that.

What's not to love about the new normal? In six months time, a ragtag army of pajama clad bloggers have taken out two MSM whales. David Westin and Jonathan Klein should be very afraid.

Kos Gets Dirty for Harry

Kos is a big deal in the blogging world and awash in ad dollars but having to cheerlead for the likes of Harry Reid seems like such a dreary life.

Watch Poodles for the MSM

Lefty bloggers are all over the Jeff Gannon story. Who can blame them? It's a juicy story that plays into the Left's longtime wish to prove that all males who swing to the right are secret man-meat lovers, but it is no Rathergate-- despite the fact that it is already being called Gannon-Gate.

As far as I can tell, Jeff Gannon is a guy whose job was to ask the Bush administration soft balls, not to empty its balls. If Gannon ran some obscure eGay sites that no one in the Bush administration had a clue about, what does it matter? If Dana Milbank-- a guy who isn't exactly a heterosexual monogamist-- is a credentialed, anti-Bush hack, what's the problem with a guy like Gannon getting a seat at WH pressers?

This whole Jeff Gannon thing also puts the lie to the Left's belief that Rove and Bush know the brand of toaster and favorite flavor pop tart of every American.  Clearly, the Bushies didn't know the depth of Gannon's love for the troops.

Lefty bloggers-- self-tasked protectors of the MSM-- are left with little earthquakes like Gannon-gate while the Right is taking out MSM bigs.  Eason Jordan will be lucky to get out of  his latest lie alive. The centerpiece of Jordan's charm offensive at Davos was a claim that the US Military is assassinating nuisance journalists as a matter of policy in Iraq-- an unsubstantiated crowd pleaser if ever there was one. If true, it would be bigger than Abu Ghraib. The only problem is that it isn't true and Jordan 's "bombshell"  has gone Operation Tailwind-ish really quickly.

Back to Gannon-Gate--

And since everything is on the table, what about the goings on in Helen Thomas's boudoir? David Gregory looks good for some kink on the sly. And Terry Moran's Angelina Jolie like lips don't look like strangers to man-meat. This could get messy.

 

Un-Slim Jim's Beef-eating

Unsurprisingly, James Wolcott-- a Project Runway devoted yogi with a fetish for GoodLife TV's cowboy theatre-- is stuffing his face with Jeff Gannon.