Free Fire Zone

For John, BLUF:  Some people just can't let go.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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WILL MARK HALPERIN’S HARASSMENT SCANDAL BE A GAME CHANGER?

From Vanity Fair and "The Hive", by James Wolcott, 1 December 2017.

Here is the lede:

Reputations aren’t what they used to be.  The bigger they are, the faster they fall.  Reputations that lurched upright for decades, showered with a confetti of newspaper clippings, festooned with honorary degrees, and fortified with genuine accomplishments, can be brought down today with an inglorious crash in a frenzy of social-media fury, like Frankenstein’s monster given the old village stomp.  Two thousand seventeen has hosted a monster mash of big-name demolishings, an extended Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of problematic men.  Disturbing, unsavory rumors had long ghost-dogged the producer Harvey Weinstein, the producer-director Brett Ratner, and the writer-director James Toback, dark princes whose names became associated by many in the film industry with a bad moon rising.  (Disclosure:  I’ve known and been on friendly terms with Toback since the 1970s, when we met through the movie critic Pauline Kael.)  Louis CK’s masturbatory spasms were the simmering subject of gossip and speculation seemingly for ages, likewise the salacious rumors and bad vibes riding on the skulking shoulders of Kevin Spacey.  The accusations against Spacey of sex with minors and aggressive groping of co-workers which led to the demise of House of Cards and the radical excision of his performance from Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World confirmed suspicions that had brewed in the whisper zones of show business for a considerable spell.  Hence, it was mulishly mistaken of journalistic Hall of Famer Gay Talese to fume at the New York Public Library’s Literary Lions celebration, “I hate that actor that ruined this guy’s career,” as if the incident with Anthony Rapp were an isolated lapse that leapt out of the blue.  (As for Talese’s lecturing adult survivors of sexual abuse to “suck it up once in a while!,” oy.  It sounded like something Larry David might blurt out on Curb Your Enthusiasm, landing himself in a heap of grief.)  However, I understand Talese’s reportorial itch to profile Spacey and ask what it’s like to lose “a lifetime of success and hard work” in a whoosh.  Only, the person I’d want to know that of is Mark Halperin, a journalistic juggernaut formerly of ABC, MSNBC, NBC, HBO, Showtime, and the best-seller list, now professionally stuck in oblivion.

We are talking a long article, with long paragraphs.

But, the thing is, the sarcastic Mr Wolcott is a sexual harasser.  I point to "…McCain’s ding-a-ling running mate, Sarah Palin."  Gratuitous.  Adds nothing.  Shows him to be a jerk.  I give it a TL/DR.

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Regards  —  Cliff