Stop Calling Me an Opportunistic Hypocrite!

More comedy from Arianna Huffington's blog:

One of the few things I don't love about being on the campaign trail is getting the same questions again and again and again. Especially the one about my so-called "political transformation".

Shouldn't there be a statute of limitation on questions about this? I mean, when I was a Republican, Saddam Hussein was our ally, George Bush owned a mediocre baseball team, Enron was a respected energy company and Michael Jackson was still black.

For those of you scoring at home, Bush owned part of the Texas Rangers from 1989 to 1994 (the team finished first in '94, second in '93), Enron was an unreviled energy company from about 1986 to 2000, and Michael Jackson still had dark pigment from roughly 1958 to 1987. Saddam, of course, was never technically an "ally," but the U.S. gave him quiet support during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and only fully turned on him after the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Arianna, meanwhile, was still writing crush letters to George W. Bush in June 1999, and only gave up the "right" seat on the syndicated NPR talk show Left, Right and Center in in 2000.

Comments

[Warren]

Back in the day, Larry Flint would have paid her a million clams to pose naked. Seems like no one is ever true to the principals that got them there.

[Anonymous]

Huh?

What do Larry Flynt and a million clams have to do with the "principals that got them there"?

[amr]

Holy Shit! The Rangers were in first place in 1994 with a sub-500 record? Where the hell was I and why was the best-looking season ever stopped by a damned strike? (Montreal would have beat Atlanta for the NL East div championship, a sub-.500 team in the playoffs.) Man, I'm all pissed at the players and owners again. Hope my team (Twins) clinches tonight...

[Warren]

I was trying to allude to the fact that Larry was once a controversial character that used to defy the establishment. And now he is the establishment, producing tame vanilla soft-core, scrupulously adhering to the Cambria list, raking in the big bucks and allying himself against anyone who brings bad publicity to the industry by producing something that might offend your mother. I wanted to make a comparison between Larry and Arianna betraying the conservative politics that she built her public career on.

OK it was utterly lame, my bad

[Matt Welch]

amr -- Ain't that crazy? I was out of the country, but I'm an Angel fanatic, and I sure don't remember *that*!

[Steve Smith]

I forgot about the '94 Rangers. At the time the strike began, they were ten games below .500, but leading the division; Bob Costas used to go nuts whining about the wild card/three-division rule back then.

Technically, what Arianna is saying is true if she was a registered Republican in 1989; I don't know if Jacko had unofficially changed sides by then, but each of the four events described may coincide with the period she belonged the G.O.P. Of course, she was also a Republican well after each of those events.

[JSM]

I have to agree with amr, Matt. The crazy talk about going to 2 divisions in each league and adding the wildcard playoff entry into MLB was the possibility of a sub .500 team winning the World Series. As it turned out, the first season of this new system nearly got us there with the AL West division all under .500 prior to the strike, also Matt Williams and Ken Griffey Jr. were on pace to break 61 homeruns. Similar to Bush's administration, his Rangers came up short of expectations.

[Mo]

I think being sub-.500 makes your team mediocre, despite how the rest of your division is doing. 1994 was a great year. Don't forget, Tony Gwynn was close to batting .400. Damn that organized labor.

[Anonymous]

Flynt makes "vanilla soft-core" now?

[Matt Welch]

Steve -- Yeah, she ain't lying (well, unless you count the "ally" crack); she's just silly ... and entertaining! But you'll still want to follow the Jacko link. I think the main question is the line between makeup usage and surgery beginning in the "Bad" era. Shome on!

[Anonymous]

Flynt's the same crude bastard he's always been. It's the rest of us who've changed. The gap between "vanilla soft-core" and Hustler just ain't as wide as it used to be...

[dan reines]

better question for arianna: what's the statute of limitations on "hey, michael jackson's not black anymore" jokes? what, she couldn't find an opening for an urkel reference?

[Brad S]

I remember 1994. I was in a 14-team Routisserie League that year. My team had made a fantastic comeback from the middle of the pack to assume second place. My team was red hot, and I was half a point away from taking over first place when the strike began. My level of interest in baseball will probably never recover. A year ago, I actually hoped that the players were going to go on strike and never come back.

[Fantasy Baseball Owner]

I lost interest in a real sport because real human beings' labor disputes messed up my fictitious team.

[Luca Brasi]

Hey, if I got jobbed out of some real money, I'd be pissed.

[James Merritt]

RC Dean says, "I find it interesting that la Huffington is so marginal to the real world that this thread has already drifted off into a discussion of a baseball announcer."

And yet, who will laugh last, when Arianna has a seat in tonight's debate and serious, albeit underdog candidates such as the Libertarian Party's Ned Roscoe are denied a seat? There were originally supposed to be SIX participants in the debate tonight, but with so many GOP dropping out, they had to keep Arianna just to bring the count to five. Had they continued to try to fill the sixth seat, how could Roscoe's candidacy have been ignored? So the obvious answer was obviously to change the ground rules so that no other alternative candidacies would or could be considered.

The ringleaders are running a tight circus, indeed. Good thing we have the Internet. You can read Ned Roscoe's answers to the 12 debate questions at http://www.nedroscoe.com.

[Anonymous]

ummm Barely Legal....

[joe]

I think James is broadly correct about the way the two parties shut out the Libertarians (and Greens) from debates.

[Douglas Fletcher]

Costas, one of the worst interviewers around. Always wants to butt in with comments that show how cool and ultra-informed he is.

[Robert Hutchinson]

The ratio of Costas-hate to Huffington-hate is disturbingly skewed at this point.

(I like the man, but then, I keep up with sports not at all.)

[R C Dean]

I find it interesting that la Huffington is so marginal to the real world that this thread has already drifted off into a discussion of a baseball announcer.

She is a perfect example of hollow celebrity - famous for being famous.

[James Merritt]

Of course, Roscoe isn't the only one frozen out. Georgy Russell is far more deserving of a seat on the stage than Arianna, imho. Or better yet, let's have them both up there!

Garrett Gruener has some interesting ideas, as yet another example. Neither of those two candidates are especially libertarian, but I am happy to have investigated their campaigns.

My local public access cable channel was running 2-minute video statements by a huge collection of gubernatorial candidates last night. I encountered the program completely by accident. I think these were taped by the "California Channel" (the CA cable industry's statewide answer to C-SPAN). Roscoe was there, making sense, and so were many more. Nearly all of them had interesting points to raise. How come I have to stumble onto this kind of thing on late night alternative TV? Why isn't at least this much available on mainstream TV, and promoted in the published program listings?

The Recall Race could be a LOT more dignified, inclusive, and substantial than it is, except that the media seem to WANT a circus, and to give short shrift to those they have arbitrarily deemed "side shows." I do not think that the media have acquitted themselves well in this election season, least of all the presenters of tonight's "official" debate: the California Broadcasters' Association.

[amr]

I really hated Costas. In 1991 he clearly favored the Braves over my dear Twins. It was like getting the local coverage, except not as balanced.

Thank you Fox for renting the World Series and putting ABC (Anyone But Costas) behind the mic.

Anything that pissed him off would have made my heart glow with joy. Maybe two teams will make it to the playoffs in 2004 with losing records. Here's hoping...

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[erick]

cool

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