The Wright Comeback Tour

I'm not going to defend the records of Karl Rove, Tony Snow and Bill Kristol. Rove, to take one example, was involved in telling reporters about Valerie Plame and avoided indictment. My point was that Newsweek hired Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos at the same time as Rove. But this is unacceptable to Arianna, because one is good and one is evil.

Kristol's sin, according to her, is that he was repeatedly wrong about the war, while Snow defended an untruthful administration as press secretary. Again, I can pick apart their records. I didn't like the way Snow sometimes challenged the motivation of reporters, but he was widely respected by the White House press corps. The question is, if you're going to exclude them from the commentariat, what about all those who got their hands dirty working for the Clinton and Carter administrations?

James Carville, Paul Begala, Dee Dee Myers, George Stephanopoulos, Mike McCurry, David Gergen, Sid Blumenthal (Clinton). Chris Matthews, Hendrik Hertzberg, Walter Shapiro (Carter). For that matter, Tim Russert (Moynihan and Cuomo) and even Bill Moyers (LBJ). I'd be happy if the revolving door slowed down, if politicos didn't show up as TV commentators five minutes after leaving their administrations and campaigns. But as long as that's the case, the media ought to allow both sides a voice, and shouldn't give either side's water-carriers a solo platform. I hardly think Newsweek, CNN and the New York Times op-ed page have suddenly become bastions of conservatism.

Let's seek refuge at the water cooler, where Miley Cyrus is saying she's embarrassed by the Vanity Fair photos of her. Jamie Lee Curtis, who's actually been accused of appearing topless (posing for AARP magazine, no less), says:

"Apparently young Ms. Cyrus has apologized for something she was told would be artistic and now feels embarrassed about. I feel for her. Of course she is embarrassed. She is a young girl. She shouldn't have to deal with any of this. I don't feel that she was duped. I know the integrity of Ms. Leibovitz and the magazine and I know there were people present at the shoot that should have been looking out to make sure that this didn't happen. In the offending photo she looks tousled and soft and vulnerable and yes . . . even sexy.

"She is fifteen after all, and the word sex is starting to come up. I seem to remember a fourteen/fifteen year old Brooke Shields commenting that nothing came between her and her Calvin'. There would be no problem if Ms. Cyrus doesn't represent something that is counterintuitive to that image."

Jeff Jarvis jumps in with the traffic-generating headline, "Graydon Carter, Child Pornographer":

"I blame the adults around Miley Cyrus for exploiting her: Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, Annie Leibovitz, her agents, and her parents. She's just a kid with a sweet show that millions more kids -- including my daughter -- love. She didn't go out . . . on a Lindsay Lohan bender. She did was she was told. The photos are not the scandal that the press is making them out to be nor as shocking as various prudish parents' associations will think as they, too, exploit young Miley. But Carter and Leibovitz knew damned well that they would cause this fuss."