First “Hanoi” Jane Fonda attacked America’s favorite party girl (though now she’s at the age where we might call her a party woman), now political gadfly Ben Stein has come down hard on Paris Hilton for her humorous response to John McCain’s “Celebrity” ad, an ad in which I am told he used Hilton’s likeness sans permission.
Her response, if you haven’t seen it, is here:
Stein’s response to this bit of mild humor is hateful, petty and slightly misogynistic:
Now, this is perfect. First of all, Paris Hilton was a total nobody party girl in West Hollywood until she and her boyfriend made AND then “someone” SOLD a hard core video of Paris Hilton having sex. So basically, she got her start as a porn star. And she’s being trotted out by the media barons to smear John McCain, as brave and patriotic a man as lives in this nation. This little tramp, who isn’t even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country.
Paris, get this: in modern day America, we don’t mock people because of things they have done that are unavoidable and not in any way blameworthy. We don’t make fun of blacks for being black. We don’t make fun of women for having breasts. We don’t make fun of old people for being old. This is uncool from any source. It is downright disgusting coming from a porn star — and not a very good porn star at that (yes, I have seen the tape). And we especially don’t like being told how to vote by porn stars. If this is the best the Hollywood pals of Barack Obama can do, maybe John McCain has more of a shot than I thought he did.
O.K. let’s slow it down a second. While I agree that making fun of people because they’re old is unseemly at best, the jokes about his age came as part of a larger joke she was making at her own expense about how clueless she is. She’s insinuating that she doesn’t know who McCain is. It’s part of her public image.
Why this set Stein off more than when serious political analysts say basically the same thing is debatable. What isn’t is that his attack on Hilton’s “porn stardom,” which includes a critique of her performances, is much more unseemly and despicable than Paris Hilton calling an older gentleman, well, old. As a man in his late 30s who worked with teens and children until just recently, believe me when I tell you that a younger person calling you old may sting, but it simply doesn’t rise to the level of insult that Stein seems to think.
Look, unlike Stein I haven’t seen the entire Paris Hilton tape and I’m no expert of Hiltonology, but from what I’ve seen most of the antics she’s gotten criticized for, including what Stein thinks of as a sub-par porn career, were the direct result of her being a “party girl.” As an adult Stein knows that a “party girl” is a euphemism for someone who’s involved with the drinking/drugging culture that his rotten generation of miscreants introduced to children and still romanticize even in movies Stein has appeared in.
Hey, though I don’t like the term, I’m “straight edge” having given up “partying” almost a decade ago so maybe I’m more forgiving of what kinds of things people get up to when they’re not sober. But Stein’s dwelling on what a young, high Paris ended up doing, letting her boyfriend film her having sex, reeks of immaturity and a sordid cattiness which would be more at home in a high school cheerleading squad. Hilton’s antics should elicit more than a bit of sympathy from adults who can see, from the outside, that Hilton’s main problem is being surrounded by people who want her high, drunk and stupid so that she’ll continue making news. What Paris Hilton shouldn’t elicit from grown men is the desire to not only review her adult videos, but to review them badly as if to say she can’t even have sex right.
Worse than Stein’s thumb down review (I’d say thumbs but since he’s apparently watched the whole thing I assume he only had one available to make his displeasure with her performance public) of Paris Hilton’s homemade porn, however, is this comment that should be the take away quote of Stein’s entire piece:
This little tramp, who isn’t even close to being pretty, is belittling a man who spent six years in brutal captivity for defending his country.
Paris Hilton is an attractive woman by any standard, a little thin for my taste but still a beautiful woman. Observe:
It is here that we see Stein’s attack for what it is, the displaced anger of a bitter man toward political currents which run through Hollywood. Stein’s attacks on the left and the Nouveau Riche and the numerous other targets of his ire have sometime bordered on parodying the moonbat image the left is (rightfully) saddled with, but this is the mirror image of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Compare Stein’s attack on Hilton to the Liberal with raging B.D.S. from this Gay Patriot post and one could imagine that Stein and said liberal would be fast friends, except neither would be able to comport themselves like gentlemen in the presence of the other.
Were I to feel the need to be critical of Paris Hilton I might take on her involvement in the drug culture of Hollywood and how her celebrity helps mainstream and minimize drug abuse. I might go on to point out that Hilton’s treatment by other celebrities and the press, which is often poor indeed, is an example of the hypocritical class warfare politics of rich liberals who can’t stand to see people richer than themselves. What I would not do is call her an ugly slut which is what Stein’s article boils down to.
Then again unlike Stein (or McCain for that matter) I’m a Republican. Commissar Stein should look up what the party of Lincoln really stands for before he releases another screed attacking someone for following in the footsteps of his drug addled selfish generation.
