the touch of the sacred *celebrity*

I check the Huffington Post a dozen times daily because I have given myself over to the partisan-news idea. I love the way the editors of that side choose news stories and then title them in incredibly slanted, often misleading ways. It's the Drudge Report for my side. (It's like that line in ANNIE HALL: "I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.") What I generally ignore on the site are the "blogs," most of them written by Hollywood hacks whom that Olympian self-promoter Arianna Huffington is trying to bring into the lefty fold. In my view, they embarrass the left with the simplicity and ignorance of their posts--one can almost see those blogs as former-Gingrichite Huffington's giant practical joke, a Machiavellan attempt to show America that Hollywood liberals really are sheltered and utterly unaware and uncritical of their own privilege. And they make a whole lot of grammatical and spelling mistakes. Oy.

So at this weekend's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner (the one that Stephen Colbert blew away last year), Rich Little was the entertainment (and reviews of his performance have been particularly harsh). As always, the Association invites journalists, politicians, and various "C-level celebrities" to sit in attendance, and this year featured a couple of C-plussers: Laurie David, the global-warming activist and wife of Larry David, and Sheryl Crow, the reportedly once-popular singer and one-time squeeze of Lance Armstrong. The Times reported that David and Crow took the opportunity to confront lord of darkness Karl Rove on the White House's continual refusal to confront global warming (and, presumably, on Rove's masterminding of the "deny... delay... dither... doubletalk" strategy for dealing with the issue). Here's the Times' take on the encounter:

Ms. Crow and Ms. David, who have been visiting campuses in an event billed as the Stop Global Warming College Tour, approached Mr. Rove to urge him to take “a fresh look” at global warming, they said later.
Recriminations between the celebrities and the White House carried over into Sunday, with Ms. Crow and Ms. David calling Mr. Rove “a spoiled child throwing a tantrum” and the White House criticizing their “Hollywood histrionics.”
“I honestly thought that I was going to change his mind, like, right there and then,” Ms. David said Sunday, The Associated Press reported.

Here's David and Crow's, from David's HuffPost blog entry:

We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country.
We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?)
At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.

Here's where it gets good, and where the Hollywood shines through:

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me."

Okay, rude enough, but what do you expect? It's been a hard week month year for Rove and the administration. But come on:

How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow?

Yes! Yes! Who could refuse the Touch of the Celebrity? Is Rove not human? Does he not understand that she is a Former Pop Star, a One-Time Consort of a Famous Athlete? Does he not have lingering ailments or conditions that a Celebrity can cure? Is he insane? or is he truly SATAN?