Let Them Eat California Roll

Mister egalitarian, Mickey Kaus writes:

(Meanwhile, complaints about the long ballot seem overblown. Are citizens who routinely negotiate a typical cable TV guide or sushi menu really unable to find their candidate among 135 names, if the ballot is laid out clearly?) ….

It may come as something of a surprise to him that the 500 channel, digital cable menu that he negotiates everyday (as do I — with some difficulty, I might add) and long complicated sushi menus may be “routine” over here on the Westside of LA, but they are probably not that “typical” in other parts of Los Angeles, much less California. Certainly, ballots containing 135 names, in no discernable order, spread over many pages and attached to punch card ballots that are impossible to verify by looking at them is not commonplace even for all of Mickey’s salt of the earth pals in Brentwood and Beverly Hills.

Then, unbelievably, in the next post he says:

If Arianna would freely admit her shifting positions and joke about them, almost all would be forgiven. It’s bizarre that she hasn’t been displaying in public the self-deprecating humor that wins over dinner guests in private.

Don’t you just hate it when somebody you just adoooore at intimate dinner parties turns out to be such a bore when they’re running for office. I know I do.

I’m sure that if she didn’t have to appeal to the great cableless, sushilliterate hoi polloi, we’d get to see more of the charming Arianna that Mickey and I just love at those faaaabulous dinner parties.

(How many nights have we spent at Arianna’s salon, nibbling spicy yellowtail, watching pay-per-view, listening to her tinkling laughter as she gaily tells tales of her former days as Newties courtesan? Life can be so sweet sometimes.)

Now, she is dirtying her hands in the electoral process, having to explain her political evolution in a serious way and being forced to answer questions from the great unwashed…even about her (gasp!) finances. It’s so common, so tawdry.

It’s sad, really. She was once one of Us. You know — the people who are superior to Everyone, conservative and liberal alike?