Wolcott: Mary Quite Contrary (Matalin on Meet the Press)

[kskiska]

I only caught the bitter end of Meet the Press so I'm not sure what provoked Mary Matalin's pout-fest (I'm sure Arianna will issue a full forensics report later), but she made quite a petulant spectacle of herself, shaking her head from side to side in silent, lemon-puss disagreement whenever Maureen Dowd and David Gregory made mildly critical comments about Shotgun Cheney. (Another prominent deployer of The Disapproving Headshake is sister conservative Kate O'Beirne, who wields it to upstage other panelists and ensure herself additional face-time: after her reaction shot, the host invariably calls on her next to vocalize her mute dissent. "Kate, I noticed you nodding your head..."--as if anyone could not notice!) Even without the immature pouting and pissy expression, Matalin would have been a car wreck in repose: With a bad haircut topping a mistaken facelift and a ghastly floral pin that looked like spray-painted aluminum, she looked like the Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot. Maybe defending the defensible is getting to her, and the acid reflux has gone to her brain.

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/02/mary_quite_cont.php

[MADem]

1. How delightfully BRUTAL

Kate is another one who has gone to GOP facelift hell--though she looked pretty awful before, too. Guess meanness shows on one's visage, no matter how many nips and tucks one gets.

I guess most plastic surgeons are Democrats--because bad GOP facelifts seem to be everywhere! Linda Tripp, Paula Jones...could it be a conspiracy of patriotic knife-wielders???

[earthboundmisfit]

4. As my grandmother used to say, "Remember - Pretty is as Pretty does -"

"But UGLY is as UGLY does, too!" :)

[Warren Stupidity]

2. I noticed that she has gone all ugly.

She was once sort of good looking. So her and her hideous reptilian husband make quite the gross-out couple.

She isn't stupid. You have to think that these people have sort of a Dorian Grey effect, where the evil they do is all bottled up inside them until...

[applegrove]

5. I actual fact - sociopaths often are notoriously lineless. Baby-faced

is often a nickname.

Don't know about Matalin - don't like her. But I do know that women get the short end of the stick when it comes to ageing.

Sad but true - the evils ones are not the ones who always end up suffering in the end.

[Fridays Child]

3. It looks like Crooks & Liars snagged the clip. I'm downloading it now.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

[hlthe2b]

9. C&L's clip captured her in all her snotty bitchdom...

Dowd's knowing smiles to the guy next to her and David's patient and professional knocking away at her hypocrisy were great. I loved C&L's creative editing at the end (he pans in a close-up on the wicked witch's face--I had to duck to avoid an eye shot by that horrendous flower pin she was wearing, or those red painted claws!)

Wolcott's description was wickedly on target, although I didn't think the hair was so bad. I too can't wait for Arianna to weigh in! LOL


My Lord whatever does Carvell see in the witch?

[Kurovski]

15. Her blood-red claws were painted in a color that clashed

with her flower pin/ninja-star/xmas tree topper.

When she held her wildly flailing talons in relative repose, she looked like a horrific wound.

I think her dressers may be getting some sort of revenge. Of course, it is completely possible that she WANTED to look like an insane ghoul risen from the dead, hungry for raw human flesh.

[xchrom]

6. very, very witty -- just excellent

and right on point.

[susu369]

7. Delicious

Mary portrayed the perfect clown - even had the flower pin to squirt water.

[Joey Liberal]

8. I tried to catch "Meet the Press" today, but

it was pre-empted by some bible show. Well, this is Oklahoma.......

[Fridays Child]

10. After the show, that broach began feeding on Mary Matalin's face...

[hlthe2b]

11. LOL.... Really, does ANYONE wear pins/broaches that BIG?!!!

Good God.... Between that and the red-painted claws...

[Fridays Child]

12. Mary, if you're gonna wear a pink "invasion of the body snatchers..."

...broach on a black suit, at least paint your hideous claws to match. They sell pink nail polish and black nail polish at Walgreen's. Your choice, hon.

[freesqueeze]

13. I noticed the CHICKEN NECK

She had that chicken neck thing going pretty good when responding to the charges that Dick was drunk. Looked a lot like one of the guests on Jerry Springer's show confronting the out of work boyfriend caught doing her daughter.

"Do you think the secret service would let him hunt drunk?"

Sure I do. If the President is helpless against him, then why not the secret service?

[Kurovski]

14. "...she looked like the Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot..."

LOL.

She was pitiful. So full of shit.

Is there a crowbar in existence thin enough to pry those lips of hers apart? Geez, woman OPEN your mouth when you speak.

And what was with all the "air quotation marks"? All the obnoxious assholes who did it in the 90's finally gave it up. Leave it to Mary to singly keep the tradition alive.

Wasn't "defensible" as written in that piece an error? I think Wolcott might have meant "indefensible' as in "Maybe defending the indefensible is getting to her"