The party’s over (EDIT: finally on YouTube!):
Moving to the subject on the minds of all those who pay too much attention to the Washington Post, Brauchli e-mailed City Desk a statement saying the following about Quinn’s execrable column, “The Party”: “Sally and I have agreed that the column will return to what had been its original focus on faith, family and entertaining and will appear online at “On Faith,” a section of washingtonpost.com that Sally guides.
Count me as sorry to see it go. If there is one document that explains contemporary American politics, it is this Quinn classic on Clinton’s impeachment. Nearly every word of the thing is a treasure, so I’ll just select a paragraph at random:
Muffie Cabot, who as Muffie Brandon served as social secretary to President and Nancy Reagan, regards the scene with despair. “This is a demoralized little village,” she says. “People have come from all over the country to serve a higher calling and look what happened. They’re so disillusioned. The emperor has no clothes. Watergate was pretty scary, but it wasn’t quite as sordid as this.”
Stick it in a time capsule, send it into outerspace. It will tell other civilizations more about us than Glenn Gould or Blind Wille Johnson ever could.
Comrade Mary
Close your eyes, close the door,
You don’t have to worry any more …
(Sorry, Doug. I just can’t go to bed without one last twist of Dylan.)
#jumps for joy for mostly real#
DougJ
@Comrade Mary:
Love that song.
d0n camillo
Sneaking Sally out the alley.
SiubhanDuinne
Muffie Cabot? I’m not sure I want to live in the same universe as people called Muffie Cabot.
(No offense, all you Balloon-Juicing Muffie Cabots. Nothing personal.)
Mark S.
Jesus, these horrible people were so outraged and personally offended about being lied to about a blowjob are the same horrible people who didn’t blink when they were lied to about going to war. Many of these same horrible people were around in the 60’s and probably knew that Vietnam was bullshit but didn’t care then either. These horrible people also do not care that the previous administration committed war crimes and argue that investigating these war crimes would be too distracting from whatever these horrible people are usually doing, which is probably going to cocktail parties hosted by Sally Quinn.
I’ve been calling them horrible people, but that isn’t entirely fair, because I’m not sure they are people. They seem to lack human qualities, like being angry when being deceived into an action that ends up killing people but being less angry when someone doesn’t admit point blank to them that they are committing adultery. They seem to lack the moral compass that most sociopaths possess in small degrees. Perhaps if their village was ever napalmed or destroyed by drone attack they would have a better perspective, but that is probably giving them too much credit.
danimal
God, I’d love to see all these rentiers who consider Washington their home evicted. We don’t need them. Just make them go away. They are, in fact, horrible people.
jacy
@SiubhanDuinne:
Muffie Cabot seems just a tiny bit off from being a very filthy joke. Or I’m sure there must be a limerick there somewhere….
tavella
The thing that truly boggled me about it is that Sally Quinn is known for *one* thing: fucking her way to the top. And my dad is a former Postie, so I got the contempt first hand. It’s her only notable skill and achievement. And yet she pretends like she’s some moral avatar in the article.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Wow, that list of musical performances that were sent on Voyager looks pretty damn impressive, except that rock, soul, jazz and country get extremely short shrift (Wot, no punk?)… and I’m guessing that any staffer who hesitantly suggested including a rap record got pink-slipped that very day.
I’ll give them credit for including Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground,” though… perhaps the greatest performance in the history of recorded music.
El Cid
@tavella: But wouldn’t that be the way the self- and promotional delusion would have to work?
Wouldn’t one have to internally believe oneself superior in magical ways than the ordinary person known for such things? Don’t so many of the powerful think that when they do something ostensibly wrong, it’s different than when ordinary people do the same wrong things — because they’re special?
It’s like all our Wall Street parasites who think it’s okay that they’re dependent on over a $trillion in Fed support due to nothing more than their own non-regulated gambling — they are, after all, still the best and the brightest.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Yeah right. And then they’d send the intergalactic exterminators to blow up the fucking planet. No thanks.
kth
The ideal solution would be to have a weekly section called “Sally’s World”, in which her precious little god-botherer column would run side-by-side with her atrociously amoral social diary. Then readers would be able to draw informed conclusions about what ostentatiously religious people are like.
People who are well-read and well-traveled aren’t surprised by the likes of Quinn: i.e., fatuous affectations of piety are exactly what one expects from hollow, vapid social climbers, and vice versa. But for Washington Post readers, you really do have to draw them a picture.
dmsilev
@Comrade Baron Elmo:
Consider that the Voyager probes were launched in the late 70s, and the contents of the record were probably picked out a year or so before that. Punk rock was only just getting started by that point.
DFS
Wait, there was really a Muffie Brandon that worked in the Reagan White House? All these years I always thought that name was just a joke from a Doonesbury strip.
Cheryl from Maryland
It nice that she is gone from the hard copy, but she will still be able to pollute teh internets.
Comrade Baron Elmo
Oh, okay… my ignorance on Matters Scientific is exposed for all to see. Though this revelation does suggest a cool party game: what records would get the nod if the track selection were to be made this week?
A subject worthy of a fresh thread, methinks.
Jack Roy
It’s so funny you mentioned the Voyager gold record; just a few days ago I was watching the episode of the West Wing when Josh mentioned Blind Willie Johnson. Literally Monday or Tuesday of this week.
Okay, “funny” probably isn’t the right word, but you know where I was going.
jayjaybear
@Cheryl from Maryland: Isn’t that like trying to pollute the Cuyahoga?
gil mann
Lemme make sure I’ve got this straight:
An actual carbon-based lifeform named Muffie fucking Cabot? What, no mention of her high school sweetheart Chet McMansion?
Good thing for her the bible’s not true. If a just God existed, people who use the word “summer” as a verb would be right at the top of His “to smite” list.
Xenos
@gil mann: God helps those who help themselves.
I was visiting the Cabot family house on Beacon hill last week – it is now the Greek Consulate. Gorgeous ceilings and woodwork, with lots of neoclassical touches that make it quite suitable for it’s current use.
The one really disturbing thing is that Muffie’s daughter is married to Stephanopolous, one of the original DNC hippie-punchers.
Randy P
How long before Sally tells us now she knows just how the Jews at Auschwitz felt?
Randy P
@tavella:
As a heterosexual male, I have to say that this is one concept I never understood. OK, I can understand that you can get addicted sexually to someone. But what short circuits in your brain when you give them a paying job where they have to actually do something? And the other people you hire to actually do things have to work with them? And your job depends on your company doing things?
I don’t know. Maybe because it’s that I work in the engineering profession, but I can’t imagine the process where I’d say “Hey, I have a great idea! I’ll add a completely non-productive body to this project that is already under-resourced! Then I’ll have good sex!”
I also never understood the Mata Hari thing. I don’t get the urge to tell secrets during sex. But I’m a married guy, and she hears all my secrets anyway when we’re fully clothed.
thomas
@El Cid:
it’s the definition of a sociopath.
It’s time for all of us plebeians to walk into Sally and/or Muffie’s parlor and sh*t on the rug.
Stefan
I don’t know. Maybe because it’s that I work in the engineering profession, but I can’t imagine the process where I’d say “Hey, I have a great idea! I’ll add a completely non-productive body to this project that is already under-resourced! Then I’ll have good sex!”
Read the bolded portion. There’s your answer right there.
Violet
@Randy P:
There’s your answer, like Stefan said above. I come from a family of engineers, so I’ve got some experience with the species. Engineers just see the world in a different way than, say, lawyers or sales guys or fund managers. I can totally see the sales guy or the finance guy hiring the hot chick for some job just for the sex. The engineer, notsomuch.
Rick Massimo
Awesome! Now with an extra column to fill, they can lure John Yoo away from the Philadelphia Inquirer!
You totally know that’s who they’re gonna go for.
Paul in KY
Why would Sally Quinn think anyone gives a fuck about her kid’s weddings & ‘dueling wedding dates’?
MTiffany
Yes, it will tell other civilizations that the civilized universe ought to be grateful we drove ourselves to extinction before we could inflict our stupidity upon anyone else.