What the hell is Joan Walsh, Salon’s editor, thinking of?

After what this country has been through in the last six plus years — a disastrous abnegation of constitutional government, stolen elections, the institutionalization of a permanent state of war, being lied into a disastrous actual war, the self-neutering of an increasingly enfeebled, corporate press corps; unapologetic cronyism, the sale of government functions to the highest bidder, constant lying at the highest level of our government…well, one could go on and on…in the face of all that, why is Salon once again welcoming back to its virtual pages the ridiculously passe Camille Paglia, among whose fetid, fevered observations you will find no references to any of the above depredations of our national culture brought to us by the modern Republican Party.

Are we still in that same cultural moment, even after the 2006 elections, which requires of a liberal online magazine that it feel compelled to prove it’s independence from some imaginary left-wing, politically correct ethos by publishing the work of a hack writer and a worse thinker, who has made a career of bitter, partisan attacks aimed exclusively at her natural allies? Do we really need a post-modern lesbian Joe Lieberman? Isn’t Lieberman’s joementum more than enough of such foolishness?

Apparently no.

When Camille showed up in Salon some weeks ago, I’d hoped it was a one-shot deal. No such luck. I didn’t get past the first of four pages of her newest set of ramblings, but one page was enough; is there anyone more predictable than Paglia?

The reason is not hard to understand.

Her comments on both contemporary politics and culture never fail to confirm the reigning conventional wisdom of the moment. Where she got that reputation for being a heterodox thinker, except in the sense that David Horowitz is one, I’ll never understand.

Just on that first page, here’s Paglia going after Hillary Clinton:

Hillary didn’t help herself with her over-the-top sermon at the First Baptist Church in Selma, Ala., two weeks ago. Her aping of a black Southern accent from the pulpit was so inept and patronizing that it should get a Razzie Award for Worst Performance of the Year. At times, it approached the Southern Gothic burlesque of Bette Davis chewing up the scenery in “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte.” Does Hillary Clinton have a stable or coherent sense of self? Or is everything factitious, mimed and scripted (like her flipping butch and femme masks) for expediency?

I defy anyone to make sense of those last two sentences. First of all, it is entirely possible to have a coherent sense of one’s self and change how you present yourself for the sake of “expediency.” It is perfectly possible to have a coherent sense of yourself and be a sociopath. One could point to our current president, but one’ won’t, primarily because one finds thinking about him depressing.

What we have in those sentences is simply Paglia’s ham-handed restatement of that standard right-wing trop which defines Hillary as ruthlessly self-controlled, and therefore unspontaneous and essentially phony.

Black southern accent? Hillary was quoting a hymn written in black English, what was she supposed to do, “correct” the grammar? As a white person, am I not allowed to quote the famous response of one of the Montgomery bus boycotters who said, when asked if walking for a whole year hadn’t been exhausting, “my feets is tired but my soul is rested?” And of course the many years Hillary lived in Arkansas, some of which she spent as its first lady, wouldn’t have had any impact on who she is, because once you are formed as a personality, according to this school of thought, nothing in your life can change any aspect of your persona. And while we’re on the subject of personas, as we all should know by now, according to the unitary theory of personality, you are this or that, but never this and that, and surely not this and that and that and this. None of us have different selves, different ways of being in the world that depend on the circumstances in which we find ourselves, not unless we’re crazy people, or lack a true center, or are named Al Gore or Hillary Clinton.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of this whole phony issue of Hillary in Selma, there, let us remember, to celebrate an extraordinary American uprising against racism, is the unconscious and unnoticed racism of Paglia and all the other winger commentators who accused Hillary of condescension. Isn’t it about time for us white folks to defer to black folks on the issue of whether or not they are being patronized? What, are they too stupid to know the difference between solidarity and condescension? Could Camille Paglia be any more condescending, then to suggest she should be in control of a black narrative? Hillary Clinton was paying tribute to a great American hymn, a hymn whose greatness can’t be expressed in any other words, or in any other cadences than the ones in which it was written.

Still on that first page of Paglia grumblings, she takes on the Democrats decision to not legitimize Fox News by handing them the unearned right to host one of the early inter-party presidential debates.

What is this morbid obsession that liberals have with Fox? It’s as if Democrats, pampered and spoiled by so many decades of the mainstream media trumpeting the liberal agenda, are so shaky in their convictions that they cannot risk an encounter with opposing views. Democrats have ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times, Newsweek, Time and 98 percent of American humanities professors to do their bidding. But no, that’s not enough — every spark of dissent has to be extinguished with buckets of bile.

But Fox is certainly disingenuous with its absurd “fair and balanced” motto. Oh, come on, give it up! Why can’t Fox honestly admit its conservative agenda, as do major radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and simply argue that it represents a culturally necessary antidote to the omnipresent liberal line? Yet for Democratic presidential candidates, who will be assessed by voters for their ability to stand up to China, North Korea or al-Qaida, to run squealing from a Fox moderator as if he or she were a boogeyman with blood-dripping fangs makes the whole pack of them look like simpering wusses. Dennis Kucinich was quite right to express his scorn and offer to debate anyone anywhere and under any sponsorship. Nice job of skewering the sacred cow!

Just as a matter of clarity in written communication, can anyone tell me which sacred cow it is that is being skewered and by whom?

There is too much nonsense in that paragraph for me to take the time to unpack it. Democrats own the media? Was Paglia unconscious through-out the two Clinton administrations? Paglia can’t see any difference in the journalistic values of The New York Times and Fox News, except that one has a liberal agenda, the other a conservative one? Not to mention the fact that none of the arguments urged on Democrats to get them not to legitimize Fox News by handing them this debate were about fear of contrary opinions. And why wouldn’t Democrats telling Fox News that they can shove it not make the party look tough and unafraid, rather than the opposite?

Check out Eric Boehlert at Media Matters for an intelligent discussion of what was at issue for Democrats.

Okay, I know, by now you’re saying, c’mon Leah, why bother. Because Paglia and all she represents has an impact; that she gets published in a liberal setting is all the more infuriating.

Whenever I read Paglia, I always find myself thinking of Molly Ivins. This time, the thoughts are tinged with grief and tears. I still can’t believe that we’ve lost her. Can’t believe she isn’t still sharing the same planet with us, laughing, writing, having a drink, getting down, getting up, standing up…being Molly. Being everything Paglia isn’t and can never be. The loss of Molly Ivins, who, at 59, was in her prime, defines the meaning of tragedy.

Here’s the great thing, though. She’s still alive in our memories, and in our hearts. And best of all, she left all that wonderful writing. Scads and scads of it. I have all her books. And as it happens, one day a long time ago, Molly, at the urging of an editor, found herself taking on Camille Paglia. Hilariously. After Molly was finished, no one shouldhave needed to say another word about Paglia for the rest of eternity.

Okay, here’s the announcement

Weekends are slow around here. So, I’m committing myself to post something, every weekend,using Molly’s own words, about how she might have taken on the big stories of the previous week. Let’s make it every Saturday.

Consider this a promise. And for the first segment in this series, this coming Saturday I’ll tell you all about Molly’s response to discovering the world of Camille Paglia.