For some reason I thought Camille Paglia was no longer writing at Salon.com. Turns out she has been for a while, and she published an article just yesterday. The reason I continue to read her is that, unlike most critics of mushy, humorless, politically correct brands of leftism, she isn’t a reactionary conservative (as her critics would claim). She’s smart enough, for example, to see that the Iraq War has been dismal and has no chance of genuine success:

If the “surge” is really working in Iraq, all my fellow Democrats should rejoice, because it’s one more step toward getting U.S. troops the hell out of there. Let Bush have his face-saving claims of victory — who cares? Just bring this stupid, wasteful war to an end. Our brave soldiers and their families have suffered enough.

No matter how popular she gets, she’ll always be outspoken and fun:

Oh, I remember the New York Review of Books — it’s something I subscribed to faithfully in the 1970s and ’80s. I had to jog myself to recall that it’s still being published. The NYRB is now a fringe periodical that I never see anywhere and hardly hear mentioned. When one of its articles ends up posted by chance online, my eyes cross at its dreary, archaic verbosity. What a small, incestuous world its readers and writers inhabit.

Of course, I could say that about the New Yorker too — another publication I literally never see anywhere except in airports. I’ve never been a fan of the New Yorker (except for its cartoons) in any of its incarnations. All that precious, fussy, gassy prose. I listen to real American voices all day long — on sports radio, political talk radio and 24-hour news. And ever since the birth of Salon in 1995, I’ve been a creature of the dynamic Web. Those people at the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books are living in an airless cultural void.

I quote the above passage specifically because I’m getting a subscription to the New York Review of Books (along with Reason Magazine) for this (past) Chanukkah. Yes, she’s right about the NY Review of Books. It’s a stuffy, irrelevant intellectual clique nourished by Edward Said and imported cheese from France. But the fact remains that, unlike Salon, it’s a great place to hear smart people talk about good books.

• I’ll tell you how this grainy, crappy footage of Oprahpalooza ends. Its ends with her screaming: “And YOU’RE getting healthcare! And YOU’RE getting healthcare! And YOU, YOU ARE GETTING HEALTHCARE!! HOLY FUCKING CRAP, I’M ON THE COVER OF MY OWN MAGAZINE! EVERY ISSUE! AND IT’S NAMED AFTER ME! ME! MEEEE!!!!!.”
• Oh shit, maybe you’re not getting healthcare. O & Obama have both mastered platitudinous charisma, it seems. Their current campaign gambit’s got CNN wondering how many votes a hug is worth. That’s so CNN: Analyzing how an act of human affection may influence the substanceless horserace. I can see a future Anderson Cooper scroll: “His mother’s love: Is it helping or hurting Edwards?”
• Hey, I have hope that Obama can transcend politics like he advertises. I mean, why give Americans a decent healthcare plan when you can gush about hope and stuff?
• Hillary pathetically counters with pimping her daughter. Like the pundit world is gonna give two shits about your non-billionaire daughter. Why did you even bother to have her? Does she have pull in the swing states? Can she rig elections? I mean, really? Your own daughter supports you? Well I guess that’s a bonus since Rudy’s fam doesn’t quite support him. His families we know about anyway.
• As for the Huckabee surge…well that’s attributable to a little known fact: Republican evangelicalcats will not vote for whoever loves God the most. No, they will only vote for the candidate whom God loves the most. And a prez hopeful’s stock rises and falls by the caprice of the Almighty. Right now, God loves Mike Huckabee. And he probably hates the American people. Why else would he power the lovechild of Pat Robertson and Jared from Subway? We obviously angered him by not quarantining AIDS infested illegal immigrant gays.

Hey, what’s up, this is Greenberg, a Jew who feels he’s equipped to explain everything in the world from the Middle East conflict to whether there is life on other planets.

What’s on my mind lately? Well, I’ve been thinking that Jewish stereotypes need some updating. What we have going on today is really complex… See, every Jew has two sides now. We got the straight up Jewish side:

And then we got that Israeli side:

I won’t lie, I’m probably like 80 percent Jewish, 20 percent Israeli. I argue about stupid things, I read Phillip Roth, and I’ve had nothing but shikse girlfriends up until this point.

Richard Perle is at it again. Thing is, his “at it” out crazies the craziest of crazies. I think this LA Times headline says it more succinctly than I can: Richard Perle is again propping up regime-toppling Mideast dissidents who lack credibility.

In my opinion, a real leader doesn’t flee his country. He doesn’t beg for an external revolution. He doesn’t pledge fealty to America. The man stays put and risks his life for his people. 

I mean, what kind of self-respecting revolutionary seeks the U.S. for backing for any kind of revolution. America has a long standing history of propping up genocidal and/or civil rights abusing maniacs (ahem, Saddam Hussein anybody?) in order to enforce our foreign policy–or just make a few bucks on the side. In this continent alone, the illustrious alumni of the School of the Americas are fine examples. The fact of the matter is that the United States has always been in the business of toppling non-cooperative regimes and replacing them with more docile ones (as far as we’re concerned at least).

Whether it be protecting our interests in fruit and railroads (United Fruit Company), Cuban Casinos, or more recently oil. America always seems to be able to find a discontent. There’s always some castoff, willing to cooperate begging to bring “freedom” to his country. If the people in that nation don’t think that’s the type of freedom they want? Tough. We invented freedom and we get to use it as we please. So there. Hey, we’ve even started a few civil wars because of it.

Richard Perle seems to be one of the more talented individuals at finding our chosen leaders. Mr. Perle’s most recent proteges, Iran’s Fakhravar and Syria’s Fahrid Ghadry, are just new additions to a long list of “liberators”. If everything goes to plan Perle’s boys will soon be bringing much needed democracy to the Middle East.

There might be some wars started over it. But as long as there aren’t too many Americans killed in the process, and we don’t have a draft, who cares? Right? We all know that a thousand dead brown people will never add up to one dead American.