Getting It First

"He doesn't have a screw loose; what he has is a piece missing, conspicuously, radiantly, displaying the absence of any sense of, well, justice. Not a case came up for discussion in which he registered that one or another outcome was just wrong, outrageous to a sense of decency, or to him. He's on record in a memo as believing that to shoot an eighth-grader, known not to be armed, who was trying to climb over a fence in escape, is a proper use of deadly force by a policeman. In a discussion of immigration cases that have been regularly occasioning inexcusable, vile, un-American heartbreak on people who missed obscure deadlines or violated arcane requirements, all he could say was that the courts get bad transcripts and it was hard to find translators for some of the plaintiffs, but that was a problem for Congress. It wasn't exactly Pilate washing his hands, but the man appears to be completely comfortable dealing with frightful social wrongs by moving the issue down the hall to another office . . . A smart, decent, small man."

Slate's Meghan O'Rourke tackles the question: Should nonfiction books be true?

"Long before his book was exposed as fraudulent, the James Frey phenomenon was itself Display A of what has become a deep-seated conviction of our therapeutic culture: Not only is the line between what is factually true and what is purveyed as 'authentic' blurry indeed, but the inspirational power of a work of imagination or memory is the most relevant currency by which to judge its value. Frey's manuscript entered the market as a document whose fate rode more on its packaging than on the artistic merits of its prose, perception, or plot. He peddled Pieces to publishers as a novel, and, when that didn't work, he was content to sell it as memoir in the hopes of capitalizing on the allure of confessional revelation . . .

"The fact is, doubts were raised about the accuracy of Frey's memoir from the start, both in reviews and in cocktail party chatter. And people have long believed that LeRoy was, in some fashion, the invention of another writer. So who is now shocked, shocked that dissembling is going on here? Not Doubleday, which continues to endorse its author. Not Oprah, if you caught her call-in during James Frey's exclusive interview with Larry King this week, to tell viewers that the 'underlying message of redemption in James Frey's memoir still resonates with me, and I know it still resonates with millions of other people who will read this book.' It was a perfectly scripted 'unscripted' media moment. Her message summed up the reigning ethos, in which the once-opposed cultural vocabularies of therapeutic authenticity and postmodern subjectivity fuse: If a book moves you, it's true."

Well, the next time someone accuses me of mangling the facts, I'll just say it's all about the underlying message.

Did the Mainstream Media take a pass on these sickening remarks by Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky because they were so distasteful? Ann Althouse has the details on his analysis of Condi Rice:

"Speaking with Pravda this week, Zhirinovsky chastised Rice for calling on Russia to 'act responsibly' in supplying natural gas to Ukraine. The fascistic pol attributed that 'coarse anti-Russian statement' to Rice being 'a single woman who has no children.' 'If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear,' Zhirinovsky ranted on. 'Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers. She needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied. Condoleezza Rice is a very cruel, offended woman who lacks men's attention,' he added. 'Such women are very rough.'"

What would Putin do if this joker said that about a prominent Russian woman?

This sounds like a parody, but Wonkette claims the following personal ad was posted on Craigslist:

"You: Tall (about 6'1"), dark/floppy-haired reporter -- radio or TV, apparently -- dressed casually, smiling and glancing at me as we have seemed to pass each other in the hallways of Hart, Dirksen and Russell all week during the Alito hearings.

"Me: Print reporter, shorter (5'8"), blondish-brown hair, wearing suit and tie all week, smiling at you every time we pass each other. This afternoon, we finally said 'hi,' just outside the coffee shop in Russell.

"That's where we first saw each other before the hearings on Tuesday -- you were behind me in line. Have seen you at least once every day since.

"Are we flirting with each other? If so, we should do it over lunch or coffee."

I never realized the Alito hearings were such a meat market.