Posted by
Katy Grimes on Monday, June 15, 2009 7:15:47 PM
The oh-so-chic Tina Brown wrote a vile column today for The Daily Beast, her version of The Huffington Post. Brown is the former editor of Tatler, and Vanity Fair. In her column, Brown compared Hillary to Sarah – Clinton’s elegance and experience versus Palin’s bitter, backwoods, novice politics.
Brown described the swearing-in of a former Hillary Chief-of-staffer, Melanne Verveer, to an Ambassador position, in full Vanity Fair mode: The scene was a great snapshot of two battle-tested empty nesters, both handsome blown-out blondes in their early 60s, both wearing consummately safe alpha-female pantsuits (Hillary in self-possessed powder blue, her new ambassador in respectful grey), both dedicated policy wonks who worked on behalf of oppressed women in unpronounceable places long before it was fashionable, both mothers (a grandmother in Verveer’s case) with hunky husbands (anchorman-handsome Philip Verveer is a powerful communications lawyer in Washington and soon to be the State Department’s U.S. coordinator for international communications with the rank of ambassador himself).
Oh my! Be still my beating heart. Tina Brown left me breathless (and a little jealous) of Hillary and her alpha-female suits. However, she fails to mention Hillary’s ever-expanding derrière and nasty cankles as the need for the pant-suit wardrobe. And for the record, I too am an empty-nester, am 47, and prefer wearing skirts and dresses above-the knee. And unlike Hillary, I don’t see women as “oppressed,” unless she’s referring to women whose husbands sleep around.
The female-dog tone Tina Brown uses demonstrates the raw fear that Leftist women have of Sarah Palin. Often described as hokey, stupid, unsophisticated, white-trash, the left have proved they must reduce themselves to petty, bitter name-callers instead of arguing substantively… say… against Palin’s politics or policy? Brown knows that with her straight-talkin’ style and real-woman life experience, Sarah Palin can make Tina Brown and Hillary Clinton look like the uppity, condescending, middle-age liberal feminist harpies they are. Who do the waitresses, the dental hygenists, hair stylists, store clerks or the stay-at-home-moms in America look up to? Not Hillary Clinton and not Tina Brown.
There’s so much work to do!” Hillary exclaimed to me in the receiving line, her eyes sparkling at the thought of the impending avalanche of briefing papers heading her way from her new global women’s issues czarina. Is Brown writing a Harlequin or covering a news story? Czarina? It’s not only Hillary’s derrière that's getting bigger.
She might get somewhere in the long run if she would just go away in the short run and read some books. Her problem is that she thinks the popular culture is the culture. She has no context, no knowledge of the world to offset her obsessive Nixonian flailings about how everyone is belittling her stature as the hardworking governor of Alaska.. Did I already mention the female-dog-tone? And Tina Brown accused Sarah Palin of being “Intellectually dishonest?” I thought she said Sarah needs to hit the books… how can she also be intellectual?
When I thought Tina couldn’t get any more ludicrous without getting moronic, Brown actually throws in Nancy Pelosi as an example of a sophisticated, female politician: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is a mother of five who translated what she wanted for her kids into fighting for affordable health care and clean air. Palin has a disabled child, one of a sadly ignored subset of Americans whose chances to live a better life desperately need her celebrity spotlight. Teenage mothers could use a leg up from Palin, too, but she’s too busy ginning up celebrity feuds. She actually played the disabled child card? Despicable given what an advocate for mentally disabled children the Palin family has become since Sarah Palin gave birth to her 5th child – developmentally disabled Trigg. One can bet that had Tina Brown discovered she was pregnant with a developmentally disabled baby, she would have made a quick call to Planned Parenthood.
Tina Brown should take her own advice – as if she’s an authority on anything substantive or more interesting than powder blue pantsuits and facelifts: If you were a real power woman, we wouldn’t be hearing from you right now, so soon after your vice presidential flameout. You’d be too busy preparing yourself for the day when you have something to say worth hearing.
Middle-aged uppity, bitter, liberal women are debased, as Tina Brown so aptly proves with this column. But she has Hillary's ear.