Oprah built her audience by dumbing down

Phil Donahue's format, and trashing up trashy

daytime TV to new lows. Later She got "classy",

but it all started with garbage like the Reagan

era "satanic cults" that never were.

Later She chose to back W in Iraq, and

judging by her nastyish interview with Al Gore

a few years before, She had probably voted for

him as an offended rich person in the era of

Clinton's higher taxes on the wealthy.

Heather trys to justify her "sort of irony"

by writing about what a great host Oprah was/is.

Nonsense. She's a dullard with nothing to say

that doesn't prop up the celebrity culture.

She did win over a lot of bubble headed liberal

woman who found it a lot easier to black friends

on T.V.

Oh yeah, and "Precious" is a god awful movie.

yes, this is a little hard to take. To a Salon liberal, I guess, child molestation gets

a pass if you're a gay black man. O.K., being famous and rich helps...

The void Stephanie dances around is Jackson own inflated talent. He left a

small list of decent hit singles dwarfed in quality by even mid range, short term

pop/rock royalty. The Buffalo Springfield, if you will. But mid range 60's Motown

too.

It's not that complicated: a boy who is given the right to not grown up becomes

something twisted and ugly and dies young. That's the simple truth Stephanie

finds so elusive.

Actually, Tracy, when someone commits and act

of extortion (once a serious crime, in the days

before anything-for-a-buck journalists like you)

and you reward the criminal for their actions,

you are, in effect, colaborating with them.

Duh.

Clearly, it's not impossible to discuss the Polanski Case with balance and

professionalism, it's just gets more attention to print this drivel and get people

as worked up as possible. It's sleazy for the New York Post to do it, and it's

even more sleazy for Salon.

If we must: Just WHO, I would ask Salon or the deeply silly, greedy Harding,

is trying to make Polanski a hero? Who has suggested his talent should make his

crimes excusable? No one. So take your straw man and stick him.

As with any case where the wheels of justice and fair play have been crudely

tampered with; it pretty much sticks the fair minded person with letting the perp

walk. If your going to have a serious legal system, that's just the way it is.

Beyond that, in Polanski's case (not that Harding would trouble us with such

matters) Polanski was given a solid taste of jail, and in effect banished from the

Country. Fair punishment? Maybe not, but I can think of a lot worse cases were

the system failed.

Harding also fails to mention the vendetta the LA Cops had against

Polanski, you know, the little matter of his calling them out when they tried to

hang his wife's murder around his neck. It sure smells like that affected the

his screwed up trial.

I was happy Polanski was not granted passage back to the U.S. Again,

as these things go; the outcome was fairly sane. The woman had grown

up and forgiven Polanski (note Harding also lies about the viewpoint of the

victim, need a factchecker, Joan Walsh?) and his banishment served as a

pretty resounding condemnation of Polanski's crime.

Not good enough for the People who brought you the O.J. Simpson Trial,

apparently. Like the Robert Blake Case, they are going to force a Jury

to return a "Not Guilty" plea, because they are spending millions of dollars

to bring a case they don't have the evidence to win. This in a State that

is flat broke. And the brain trust at Salon looks on and approves.

Steph is no doubt a kid from a rich family not too comfortable with the bellyaching

of the great unwashed. So we get the standard charges of Moore's egotism, his

love of his own voice. No real examples, except the Moore is onscreen for part

of his films, is ever given. Steph chides Moore's fans as people who don't really

think, but does this review suggest any real interest on the writer's part in critically

important subject of this film? I doubt She has any. I would challenge her on one

specific point, Moore often is clever and funny; the flaws in his thinking are pretty

standard elements in the progressive left.

Steph reflects the narrow, limo liberal side of Salon; the part that gives a

free pass to reactionary idiot Camille Paglia. She is the sort of liberal more loyal

to her class than her politics, which are really only weak sentiments. Yes, Moore

does act like he's breaking new ground on ideas that are familiar to many of us.

Yet much of his audience rarely HEARS those ideas in the mainstream media, so

for them they are unusual, if not brand new. That's why he's been able to amass

such a large following, and, contrary to Steph's snotty conclusion, has greatly

affected popular thinking.

Moore would never think of insulting his audience the way Salon does

every time they publish Paglia, and good for him.

I read all the time how wonderful his is on Camille Paglia's

beat, right here on Salon. And since no writer ever challenges

Paglia here at Salon, it must be true.