Can't Demonize the Flying Nun

James Wolcott is a Vanity Fair contributing editor

Pickle Pusses

From the article:

Ken Levine must have a cast-iron stomach for a brain--what else could explain his bionic ability to not only watch the Emmys but blog about them not just once, but twice? I missed this year's bleepfest but I've following the predictable rollout of scrunchy indignation coming from the Fox News corral and the rest of the rightwing pipsqueakery over the controversial remarks of Sally Field, Kathy Griffin, et al. Controversial to the Fox Newsers, that is; just as the Patreaus love-in was a strictly pundit affair, the "media storm" over the Emmy comments doesn't extend beyond a few newsrooms, radio booths, and blog shacks. Despite Michelle Malkin's grandstanding huffing and puffing, Sally Field isn't someone who can be demonized; she's one of America's most endearing and adorable chipmunk-cheeked moms--going after her is like trying to tear down Florence Henderson...give it up, it's futile. Similarly, trying to whip up a big to-do over Barry Manilow's refusal to share airspace with Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View is a nonstarter because Manilow is just too fluffy a target for ire. So this singing sheepdog doesn't want to chat with that conservative shrill pill--who can blame him? And do all those Fox News panelists really think that America is in a flecked froth over the Jesus wisecracks that comedian Kathy Griffin made that weren't even aired? To Griffin's stalwart credit, she's refused to apologize or smooth down any ruffled feelings, recognizing what a game this all is. The truth is that outrage isn't what it used to be. The Fox hosts and guests haven't even been able to get a rise out of people after broadcasting the addled, bizarro response of James Brolin on a radio talkshow where, upon being reminded what anniversary day it was, cheerily wished everyone, "Happy 9/11!" Brolin's words and tone were so blithely tasteless and cluelessly dumb ("Celebrate the day, right?" he added) that it was like something out of Terry Southern, a bit of macabre humor that had washed ashore. An apology is being demanded of Brolin too, though I'm not sure how you wring an apology out of a dense cloud and if I were Jonah Goldberg I'd be a little careful about whom I was calling "a jackass of bowel-stewing proportions," j'know? (read the entire article)

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