Thursdays with Tina: We're Back Edition
You thought I'd forgotten about you, didn't you?
| TinaSpeak | What it means |
| The best thing about Richard Clarke's testimony was that we were finally shocked by something important instead of pretending to be shocked by something ridiculous. | Here is the premise of my column: Celebrity culture is sort of superficial Also: I am tired of faking orgasms. |
| The Clarke Chronology was a sonic boom that will go on reverberating through the op-ed classes. . . . | 'The Clarke Chronology' -- it's by the guy who wrote '2001,' right? This must have something to do with that Mars mission. . . |
| . . .whether or not the Clarke Apology to the 9/11 family moves the polls. | OK, scratch all that. I'm pretty sure this Clarke guy is running for president. |
| Who, in the end, can relate to the date-rape complications of a zillionaire basketball giant, the financial finaglings of a domestic dominatrix-tycoon, or the alleged pedophilia of a loony recording legend who makes his face like Joan Crawford and maintains a zoo? | I have just composed the world's longest rhetorical question. |
| For news junkies numbed by the freak shows of celebrity justice, the Clarke story has been bracing. | I am determined to repeat the slender premise of this column in every single sentence. |
| [Paul O'Neill] never lost the aroma of the boardroom. | I call it "Eau de Weinstein." |
| Every office has someone like him, a supercompetent guy whose big, square, argumentative head you learn to dread when it appears around the door announcing bad news. | Fuck Harvey. |
| Thirty years of turf wars and PowerPoint strategizing served Clarke well. . . . | My knowledge of the history of technology is as extensive as my knowledge of American government. Note to editors: Come on, I dare you. |
| Who knew this off-the-radar guy would turn out to be such a star. | I have to constantly repeat the premise of this column. How did it go again? Oh yes: The celebrity culture maybe is not quite so real. |
| The Bushies clearly didn't. Or else they might have paused before demoting him and cutting him loose. | Yes, I know Clarke resigned and wasn't actually 'cut loose' by anyone. Note to editors: Ha! |
| It's his Tom Clancy quality that gives Clarke dramatic resonance. . . . (In the movie version Clarke would be played by Gene Hackman or Robert Duvall.) | Celebrity culture is shallow. But it often helps to think of political events in terms of celebrity and tawdriness. |
| The Condi Rice hearings will supplant Clarke in sex appeal. The new story line of 'Bush's best girl in trouble' has too much of a sweeps week flavor not to win the next round. | Tell you what: Let's just consider the original premise of the column an April Fool's gag. Note to editors: . . . Hello? Editors? I know I left you somewhere. . . |
The Story That Puts Other 'News' In Perspective [WP]
