Eau du smack and bisexual implications in the beltway

One of the more odious words to come out of this business is "blogosphere". It seems to be on the lips of pundits everywhere, especially ones that traffic in would-be political analysis. I guess the idea is that this wing of the internet is an echo chamber, and, while a fairly closed one [a news.google search for "blog" gives us a paltry 1600 stories, as compared to, say, 19,000 for "horse"], every once in awhile things bust out.

I had pretty much considered the punditry migration to the internet to be the ultimate in self-insulation. Last year, I was teaching a science class to a bunch of business majors, when the most idiotic of the bunch confided to me that he was a "budding pundit". Really, I mused. What exactly does a pundit do? I might be wrong, but it sounds like such a person gives advice to people who are unable to affect public policy. Which is to say, entertainment. Which is to say, such people shouldn't take themselves too seriously. Especially since it seems that the blogosphere is a place where each political blogger reads the other one, quotes it, and links back, resembling nothing so much as an internicine, google-linked sewing circle. Which, really, seems entirely appropriate, given the pundit's role as an entertainer and impotent architect of public policy.

Indeed, the most recent [and only, so far as I can recall] explosion from that land of nod to the actual news is, predictably, a sex scandal. A low-level staffer, Jessica Cutler, dubbed herself "Washingtonienne" and had written a naughty blog wherein she details sleeping with a variety of men, some politically-connected, some, not so much. If there's any mistaking her for a serious political analyst, here's a taste: "A man who tries to fuck you in the ass when you are sober does not love you. He should at least take you out for a few drinks to spare you the pain. Now I know that W does not care about me, only my asshole."

Profound, yes, but Jim Lehrer it ain't.

Anyway, this tripe [she coos approvingly about marthastewart.com at one point] gets picked up by a variously celebrated and denounced blog, Wonkette. Eventually the story breaks, because everyone wants to know about Bush-appointees and assfucking, and it becomes a big to-do. Wonkette herself, not a bad-looking woman, scores an evening of drinks with Washingtonienne, and produces these rather unfortunate pictures. Of course, this was after the actual fallout from her writings, so a juicier part of the scandal, that of a potential lesbian romp between a well-known Washington blogger and the roundheeled staffer she outed, had missed the Post entirely and was restricted to the reverberations of the echo chamber. [Bear in mind that this post would be chock-full of Washingtonienne links if I bothered to rigorously sift through the literature, but there's only so much shit I can give about this topic.] And, predictably, it has fallen from, and I quote, "Damn. After seeing that picture, I wanna be the white meat in a Wonkette-Washingtonienne sandwich," to something a bit more insidious than your typical male fantasy: the niggling idea that these two women had orchestrated the whole thing to get attention. The nerve! Anyway, that's what Wonkette told me:

puddinhead: props for the hasty Washingtonienne exit.
tipwonk: i am happy to be rid of the story
puddinhead: Yeah. One needs to know the proper time to leave.
tipwonk: no regrets (except maybe the pix) but i hated those last few days
puddinhead: Figured you got porn requests from across the country. Feh
tipwonk: exactly
tipwonk: mr. wonkette was exceptionally supportive and good humored about it
puddinhead: Cheers to him. I mean, it's not as if you planned this one
tipwonk: that is not what some people think.
puddinhead: Hm. Interesting conspiracy theory, if you were after publicity as a beltway sex goddess
puddinhead: Somehow I kinda think you weren't, though
tipwonk: no. i wasn't.
tipwonk: i don't complain about any press, but that's not what i was aiming for.
puddinhead: So it's progressed from adulation to snippy accusations of scenestealing? That was quick.
tipwonk: well, it's the internet.

[Before I take any credit for actually knowing this person, you too, can bug her: "tipwonk" on AOL IM. Go for it.]

Yeah, it's messy. I was about to tell her, the gossipy blogger, "Hey, honey, live by the sword, die by the sword," but it struck me that, as a public [?] figure who's an attractive woman, it might be more apt to say, "Live by the sword, die by the howitzer." There are plenty of reasons women don't get props for fulfilling public roles, and I fully expect this one to cartwheel into nastiness in the future. For those of you into this sort of thing, be on the lookout in the upcoming days for outraged ugly male bloggers impugning her wantonness or accidental wiles.

Then, there's the rest of us, who could give a shit. Is the outrage coming? Yes, it is. Is there a moral here? Yeah. Don't read blogs.