ash knows just enough about Psychology to appreciate the truth of the adage "a little bit is a dangerous thing." Nevertheless, what harm is caused by having fun with people who are familiar with that other adage "public figures are fair game"?
George Bush, the formerly empty vessel, is a dunce. Dick Cheney is a war-monger. Tom DeLay is a power-monger. Bill Clinton is a narcissist. Hillary Clinton is disingenuous. Bill Frist is an opportunist. Denny Hastert is the literal turned figurative sports coach. George Bush “the Elder” is insulated by the family name. Barbara Bush is Marie Antoinette reincarnated. Richard Nixon was a clinical paranoid. G. Gordon Liddy is a thug. Donald Rumsfeld is a buffoon. Colin Powell is too loyal. Dick Durbin is too timid. Katherine Harris, the Cruella Deville of Florida, is an exhibitionist.
Bob Shrum, manager of many failed Democratic campaigns, is a professional loser. Karl Rove is downright evil. Hitler had the ultimate inferiority complex until Kim Jong Il came along. George Will is an aristocrat. Bob Novak is shameless. Bob Woodward has sold out in the search for truth. Michelle Malkin is a faux prude. Molly Ivins is folksy exponential. Ted Rall is mighty sure of himself. Ann Coulter is irrevocably insane.Pat Robertson is self-referential. Sean Hannity is self-reverential. Alan Colmes is a whipping boy for hire. Bill O’Reilly is a bully actively engaged in tempting fate. James Dobson is a megalomaniac. Chris Matthews is glutinous with self-approbation. David Horowitz is glutinous with self-hatred. “Doctor” Laura is glutinous with smug omniscience. Michael (nee Weiner) Savage is a glutton for punishment. Brit Hume, stricken by a guilty conscience following the untimely death of his son, retires from mainstream broadcasting and resurfaces as a Fox News anchor. Arianna Huffington is the media darling contemptuous of the media. Tom Brokaw is terminally serious. Brian Williams is terminally pretty. Bob Scheiffer is terminally sincere. Dan Rather is terminally gullible. Ted Koppel is terminally suave. Anderson Cooper is terminally over-exposed. Katie Couric is terminally perky. Matt Lauer – well, who really cares where in the world he is? Rush Limbaugh is the ultimate charlatan and latter day Lonesome Rhodes. “Pitchfork” Patrick Buchanan is a Neanderthal. Dan Abrams is tabloid law personified, with Greta van Susteran a close second. Laura Ingraham is the Ivy League ice princess masquerading as everywoman. Bill O’Reilly (and doesn’t he deserve another mention?) is the star star-struck by himself masquerading as everyman. Ann Coulter is delusional.
Russell Crowe is a rabble-rouser. Lindsay Lohan is an aspiring rabble-rouser. Dennis Rodman is getting too old to be much of a rabble-rouser anymore. Paris Hilton is the punchline to a celebrity-obsessed cultural bad joke. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes aren’t in on the joke about themselves. OJ Simpson is a morbid joke (and more narcissistic than Bill Clinton). Robert Blake is schizophrenically incapable of distinguishing between fiction and reality. Scott Peterson, the accidental celebrity (and almost as narcissistic as OJ Simpson), is a cautionary tale in the perils of temporary infamy. Jennifer Anniston is in public mourning over her personal life. Jay Leno isn’t that funny. David Letterman isn’t that acerbic or witty. Cher has reinvented herself too many times to keep track of. Madonna has changed her hair color too many times to keep track of. Demi Moore demonstrated her midlife crisis by marrying a much younger man (though she does get points for switching genders) then playing coy about whether she got married. Susan Sarandon would rather be a politician than an actress. Barbra Streisand would sacrifice her singing voice to influence elections. Jack Nicholson has become a self-parody. The Olsen twins have peaked too young, and may never realize that they’re to acting what the Monkees were to music – a packaged commodity. Barbara Walters has sat on the stage much too long. Ann Coulter is a wacko.
And Larry King has interviewed “just about everybody.”
Woah there. Did you say everybody, Larry? Is “just about” the disclaimer? Or is it that, when Mr. King refers to “everybody,” he is excluding us ordinary schmos, and for that we should be grateful? Why display one’s personality disorder, which everyone has to some degree, to an audience of millions when it would be so much more seemly – and effective - to consult a therapist in private, with no one the wiser? Ay, there’s the rub. One of the elements of a mental pathology is the inability to recognize it within ourselves. What a guest on Larry King or member of Congress intends as a publicity stunt or career move or a discussion of this issue or that movie role may actually be a signal telegraphed to those familiar with the code, roughly translated as “I’m too big for my britches.” When Ah-nold announced for governor, was it payback to his adopted country or expanding the realm in which to throw his egomaniacal weight around? If it’s the latter, then Ah-nold’s got a lot to learn. In this obscure dot of the universe we occupy, on this miniscule planet, the rich and famous are no greater “somebodies” than the rest of us. They’re simply spectacular nobodies.
That’s my populist rant for the day. And, oh yeah, Ann Coulter is nuts.