Earlier this week I blogged on the phenomenon, encouraged by the feminist ideologues, of young women who want to be sluts but don’t want to be called sluts. (See my Don’t Call Them Sluts, May 25.) The new politically correct term nowadays for “slut” is “recognizing your sexual desires.” One of my cases in point was Jessica Cutler aka “Washingtonienne,” the former Republican Senate staffer fired for using government time and a government computer to post her sex diary on the Internet. Jessica got All Huffy when Washington Post gossip columnist Richard Leiby dared to suggest that Jessica’s online confession that she was sleeping with six men at once was wild stuff:
“‘It’s so cliched. It’s like, “There’s a slutty girl on the Hill?” There’s millions of ’em,’ she said, laughing. ‘A lot of my friends are way worse than me.'”
I suggested that InkWell readers take in Town Hall/WorldNetDaily columnist Michelle Malkin’s take on Cutler and also on Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox), the foul-mouthed but fun-to-read blogstress who not only broke the Cutler story but became Cutler’s gal pal. Malkin didn’t call Cutler a “slut.” She called her a “skank.” And for good measure, she called Cox/Wonkette a “skank” as well.
Reader H.M. doesn’t seem to like that. He writes:
“I quote [from Malkin’s column], ‘But give The Washington Post two vain, young, trash-mouthed skanks who couldn’t care less about what their parents think of their sex-drenched infamy, and the newspaper can’t wait to help make them full-fledged members of the media elite. Cutler and Cox apparently have no trouble looking at themselves in the mirror every morning. I pity the mainstream journalists-turned-pimps who can do the same.’
“If you look up the definition of ‘skank’ online [on Bartleby], you will find: ‘skank NOUN: 1. A rhythmic dance performed to reggae or ska music, characterized by bending forward, raising the knees, and extending the hands. 2. Disgusting or vulgar matter; filth. 3. One who is disgustingly foul or filthy and often considered sexually promiscuous. Used especially of a woman or girl.’
“A couple of days ago, Charlotte Allen had very good article about sexual harassment being calling another girl in class a ‘slut’ because of her sex life. How would Ms. Allen comment on the impact on Ms. Cutler and Ms. Cox…of being called skanks in 100 newspapers coast to coast and online?”
Well, I won’t comment on whether Cutler and/or Cox deserved the epithet “skank” from Malkin. Instead I’ll let these photos (courtesy of DazeReader) of Cox and Cutler almost but not quite doing the Britney-Madonna thing during some late-night partying speak for themselves (Cox is on the right–and ye of delicate sensibility, beware!). I admit that as a journalist, I find Cox’s behavior, at least in these photos, professionally puzzling. Good reporters are supposed to maintain some distance–emotional and physical–from their subjects in order to preserve their objectivity. And Cox is a married lady, too, with a most respectable husband in soon-to-depart Washington Post book editor Chris Lehmann. Cutler is an all-too-familiar Beltway type–but et tu, Cox?
By the way, for those of you still under the illusion that Jessica Cutler is just a healthy young girl exploring her sexuality who’s been unfairly put upon by Aunt Prunes like me and Malkin, it seems that Cutler 1) lied about her age, and is not a dewy 24 as she’s said but 26; and 2) lied about having a college degree. Although she did attend Syracuse University, the registrar’s office appears to have no record that she graduated.
Read Jessica’s famous blog one more time. How glamorous is your love life when it consists of a boyfriend who kicked you out of his apartment but still likes to to jump you now and then, another boyfriend who flies in from time to time for a quickie and then disappears, an older sugar daddy who covers your expenses in return for anal sex, and “F,” the married Bush administration dude who gave you $400 for a nooner? It all sounds pathetic to me.
Even Cox/Wonkette, who broke the Cutler story with this gushy headline, “A Girl After Our Own Heart,” and has been Cutler’s most avid media promoter to date, seems to have cooled a bit on the Cutler love-fest. According to economist-lawyer-blogster Michael Kantor (whose Calico Cat website offers the most thorough and up-to-date Cutler coverage in the ‘sphere), Cox told radio host Tony Snow that she thought Cutler was “sick” and that she had advised Cutler “as a friend” to use whatever money she made from the scandal to get “psychiatric help.” (The story comes from Robert Cox at The National Debate.) Maybe Wonkette, who makes no bones about her ultra-liberal politics, realized that the affaire de la Cutler wasn’t going to blossom into a Bush administration/Republican Party scandal after all.
Reader B.N e-mails to take issue with The Other Charlotte for finding Maureen Dowd funny when she took on Al Gore’s brain blowout Wednesday in front of MoveOn.org. (See My Tears (for Al Gore) Turned to Laughter, today below.)
Writes B.N.:
“I hate to disagree with the InkWell, but… Maureen Dowd still doesn’t get it, doesn’t have it, and it’s not just ‘a clue.’ There’s no humor, no sense and no need to read her. The best that can be said about the Dowd is that she’s not Molly Ivins (our own Texas scourge).”
We agree with you almost 100 percent, B.N. The Other Charlotte and I find Maureen tedious, unfunny and knee-jerkistically liberal nearly all the time (and we can say the same in spades for Molly). But we have to give the red-headed devil her due, and for once–in yesterday’s New York Times column–she made us both laugh out loud. She said that the former veep represented the “wackadoo wing” of the Democrats, and she noted that among the 100 or so Bush administration officials whom Gore demanded be fired, the name of Dick Cheney was missing–“perhaps in the spirit of second-banana solidarity.” That was genuinely funny. Too bad Maureen isn’t always, and in fact is hardly ever, like that.