Posted 4:45 PM by Gene

Is there anyone in public life you'd DIE to meet? There are people we might want to be, like VICE-PRESIDENT BIG-OIL, or MICKEYMOUSE NIXON, who've never had a bad day in their lives (despite health scares that did not impinge one bit on their immortality), who abuse their power just by being them. I mean, do any big names have such sex appeal you'd stalk them or write anonymous letters? I mean this facetiously, but think: The Great Empathizer and Bugmeister Bill are at heart too-ordinary people, the former the recipient of a nice family string-pull, the latter's luck reinforced by his ruthlessness. They're smaller-than-life figures despite their larger-than-life commands. In a just world Dubya would be managing a ranch somewhere, and the Bug would be bagging groceries and collecting comic books.

In that our age may have the leaders it deserves. Think how George Washington came into office, rowed through New York harbor to the sounds of cannon and the cheers of thousands and all lower Manhattan nuts. Think of Lincoln, superficially the most ordinary of men, who nonetheless could have awed people into silence. Think of FDR and his smile, or Churchill and his cigar. These men had character, and guts, and brains, and sex appeal, and they weren't afraid to use them. We failed three weeks ago because we don't have anyone to look up to; and a nation with no one to look up to can only look down.

That's why I must harp yet again on the amusing tale of Renée What's-Her-Name. Except that she has won an OSCAR® and appeared in some modestly successful pictures it's hard to think why's she's a "star." Recall the now-famous pictures of her with her twanger on the beach -- ordinary face, ordinary figure. (Indeed some unscrupulous designer could have used her to revive the TWENTIES LOOK, if you know what I mean.) Recently in a Wilson Quarterly article decrying our slovenliness of dress (a post in itself) Daniel Akst noted that the great past beauties like Audrey Hepburn and MM had "a waist/hip ratio of about .7" -- meaning they had hourglass figures. Is there anyone in Hollywood today with remotely such an aspect? We can't even turn to Hollywood for the succor of fantasy. This is a mirror of our reality: just as this age has the leaders it deserves, it has the culture it deserves.

P. S. The last public figure with any sex appeal for me was Ted Koppel, before he became a PC pompous ass.