The bar for embarrassment is so high now it's almost out of sight for celebrities who do things that would make the rest of us die of shame.
Tom DeLay, who left Congress under a cloud of Jack Abramoff corruption, is ready to sashay in sequins on "Dancing With the Stars."
Eliot Spitzer, who resigned as governor of New York for caucusing with call girls, shows up on Bill Maher's show, pontificating about the economy alongside Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and defending capitalism against Michael Moore.
Rod Blagojevich, under indictment for (in David Remnick's words) trying to sell Obama's Senate seat "as if it were a used Barcalounger on eBay," is doing TV shows (including Jon Stewart's) to plug his new book and making himself available to lecture at universities and corporate meetings and, from the evidence of his website, would no doubt be happy to do his Elvis impersonation for a price at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.
Mark Foley, who bowed out of the House for hitting on teen-age pages with sexually explicit e-mails, is back as the host of his own radio talk show.
But being disgraced and bouncing back, according to a New York Times media critic, is no longer enough. The fallen have to be outrageous enough to warrant a second chance in the spotlight.
"Politicians," writes Alessandra Stanley, "can no longer talk their way out of trouble, they have to shake it off by revealing their inner dancing fool. Celebrities can’t just write a tell-all biography and earn a coveted appearance on 'Oprah,' they must disclose a horrifying secret"--such as Mackenzie Phillips' nostalgia about sharing drugs and having sex with her father.
Yet someone is trying to draw a line. Eugene Robinson, as a columnist and commentator who "used to like John Edwards a lot," has now decided that the former presidential candidate is irredeemable--"a bad cad."
What tore it?
"Edwards is being investigated by federal prosecutors for possible campaign-finance violations, though I think it will be hard for the law to lay a glove on him.
"But looking forward, with his mistress, to the day when Elizabeth would die? Planning a post-funeral wedding? Choosing the rock band? Even if all this was just a fairy tale meant to reassure Hunter and keep her quiet, I can't have any 'like' for John Edwards anymore."
Robinson's disgust is refreshing as is Elizabeth Edwards' reported angry blogging but, if and when the $400 haircut man eventually shows up with an oily memoir, any bets on whether most of the media will welcome him back to make a case for his oh-so-sincere rehabilitation?
Showing posts with label Tom DeLay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tom DeLay. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2009
Monday, July 02, 2007
Non-Stop Newt Is Too Busy to Run
The Energizer Bunny of American politics has too much on his plate to campaign for the White House. "The presidency is a minor post on the scale of change I'm describing," he tells the Washington Post.
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
But a moment later, he sounds like Alfred P. Doolittle (in “My Fair Lady”): "I don't have to be president," he says. "I'd be willing to be president."
Gingrich is an assembly line thinker-—if you don’t like one theory, another will be right along. “He has a new idea every five seconds," says Tom DeLay, a former House colleague and no admirer. “He's trying to appeal to everyone and cover up who he really is--which is typical of Newt."
But then, DeLay is still facing money-laundering charges while the object of his scorn is, according to the Post, running “a multimillion-dollar enterprise that keeps three dozen camp followers gainfully employed and Gingrich earning what he terms ‘adequate’ income in the seven figures.”
If he gives in and decides to run, there will be some explaining to do, even to conservatives, about shutting down the government in 1995, impeaching Bill Clinton for office sex while carrying on an affair in his own and, later, having to pay a $300,000 fine by the House ethics committee. But if anyone can, the voluble former Speaker of the House is the man.
If not, Gingrich will settle for being Benjamin Franklin: “He didn't think he was less than Washington or Jefferson. He was deliberately eclectic and deliberately complex, and happy to be so. He was pretty interesting. If you had told him, 'If you could have been simple, you could have been president,' he would have said, 'That's pretty stupid.'"
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