Posted on 11/09/2007 8:54:07 AM PST by Congressman Billybob
Ever since the Internet was invented, Ive received e-mail from all sides of the political spectrum. It goes almost to the point of spontaneous combustion in my inbox. I leave most oddball senders on the list of what I continue to receive. There is general amusement value, and sometimes something to learn, from all that diversity.
However, once any particular source shows itself to be a source of unmitigated drivel, I tell them to leave me alone. One source that has ignored my repeated requests to take me off their mailing list is the Huffington Post. Unfortunately, Ive been receiving that for a year now.
Let me tell you about Arianna Huffington. She is of Greek extraction and still speaks with an accent, which I think by now is affected. Her former husband was a very successful California businessman who spent $25 million in a failed attempt to purchase, in effect a seat in Congress. After that, he dumped his wife and announced he was a homosexual.
Arianna began as a staunch conservative and Republican. After her husband jumped ship, by some process not adequately explained, Arianna became a liberal Democrat. She ran for Governor of California in the special election that Arnold Schwarzenegger won. She ran a celebrity campaign consisting of this statement: I am Arianna Huffington.
After that venture into politics, a group of her Hollywood associates who shared with her the characteristic of having more money than brains, created the website known as the Huffington Post, featuring largely airheaded celebrities pontificating on subjects about which they know nothing. Coupled with that are blog comments by readers who believe celebrities know what they are doing, outside of their specialized field, whatever that is.
This week instead of dumping the latest e-mail from Arianna in the electronic trash, I opened it. Ariannas own column is about the Atlantic Monthly asking her to contribute a haiku on the future of the American idea. She offers several haiku (un-rhymed poems with lines of five, seven and five syllables) on that subject. The proper question is not which one is best, but which one is least worst.
More dreadful than that, by far, is the Atlantic Monthlys list of those invited to submit essays on that same subject. She prints the list as John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Justice Stephen Breyer, Cornel West, Nancy Pelosi, plus a fundamentalist writer and an atheist one.
On that list there isnt a single competent historian. Looking into the past and projecting into the future is the very task for which historians are trained. Consider someone like Barbara Tuchman who jumps across five centuries or more, and keeps it interesting and relevant.
The only thing resembling an historian on the list is Cornel West. However, his profession is being a black man. His idea of research is rap music. And, he dissed Harvard University and wound up as a full Professor at Princeton, much to the shame of that university. I like Princeton. Some of my best friends went to Princeton. But I defy anyone to read the semi-literate drivel on Cornel Wests website to conclude that West is anything other than a fraud, and that Princeton is a foolish institution.
As for the others, Justice Stephen Breyer has no concept of what the job of a Supreme Court Justice is, much less what the American idea is. Whatever he says should appear in such a special issue, only if it is balanced by someone who does understand the role of a Justice and the American idea, someone like Justice Antonin Scalia.
When you look at the political list from the Atlantic Monthly, you see the same thing as the political list. It is stacked in favor of those who think the government should run both peoples lives and the American economy. That is the polar opposite of how America got to be what it is today, from its beginning as a defenseless nation huddled against the Eastern Seaboard of North America.
Arianna herself is not about to notice the skewed nature of this special issue of the Atlantic, any more than she can see the same skewed and non-factual twaddle she published on her website.
Any thoughtful person with a reasonable knowledge of history can get a good laugh by visiting the Huffington Post. Other than that, it has no function. And, whatever you do, keep off their mailing list.
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About the Author: John Armor practiced in the US Supreme Court for 33 years. John_Armor@aya.yale.edu He lives in the 11th District of North Carolina.
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John / Billybob
Huffington’s theme is “Look at Me!”
Not on a bet, thanks though. :-)
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I remember when she used to go on Fox as a conservative political pundit. It’s odd that she’s gone lib. Most people evolve from lib. to conserv.
No time to waste on the garbage site called the Huffington Post.
John / Billybob
Re: going Lib
Arianna had to switch. You cannot remain both “Somebody” and a conservative in Hollywood.
If she had not switched, and that in a big way to atone for her past “indiscretions” as a conservative, she would have been ostracized by her Liberal friends. The horror of it... to be snubbed by Babs Streisand and not be invited to the next soirée where Al Gore would pontificate on nasty manmade gasses. You see, she simply had to change!
That's why it is unfortunate that we can't post them on this forum. They can be so absurd that they are hilarious. Thanks for the explanation of a haiku. I just came across sudoku puzzles.
Re: Mike Huffington - Which came first? Arianna or the homosexuality?
Sanatize before and after.
She will say what ever gets her the most attention. No one gets more attention than a “conservative” who’s seen the light.
I want my freon back!
It's long been clear who Arianna has been in bed with.
I wonder if her switch has anything to do with her husband’s bizarre outing. That had to have hurt. Perhaps she is trying to throw all of her “old life” away.
this person is rather boring
Arianna Stassinopoulos is such a drama queen GAP...a plagiarizer...and an insult to women everywhere.
Maria Callas would spit on her.
Michael Huffington was never any more to her than a means to power: he got a political wife as a "beard" and she got money and access to power. As soon as he was outed, she ditched him like a hot rock.
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