First of all, at 9.00am local time, let me offer an apology for publishing, arguably, the most disgusting photograph you would wish to avoid at breakfast. Clench up, folks, here it comes:
Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton at the premiere of SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER at Pier Sixty on October 6, 2006 in New York City. (Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
Yes - sorry, sorry, sorry - you can clean up the mess later, and don't blame me, it's all the fault of Mr. Lee Smith at The Weekly Standard who has a fascinating article on the downfall of the despicable Mr. Harvey Weinstein. I can't say that I have spent a lot of time thinking about the whys and wherefores of this story except for one question - why now? The NYT had the story of his licentious behaviour a decade ago, as did virtually every other newspaper and magazine. So why publish now?
Mr. Smith offers two reasons. First, all the print media, and the TV as well, were dependent on both advertising revenue and a constant stream of show business stories which would attract both readers and advertisers. The mega-organisation, Miramax Films, and its creepy, corrupt boss, absolutely controlled this flow both in Hollywood and 'Noo Yawk'. Even so, gradually over the past ten years both the print and TV media have felt the inexorable squeeze exerted by this amorphous 'internet-thingie' operated mostly by sad, old geezers in their jim-jams slumped before their keyboards, er, a bit like me, really! (Well, I may not have broken many Hollywood stories but, 'back in the day', I did used to keep you right up to date with all the exciting goings on at the Richmond Shakespeare Society! Sorry, did you say something?) Anyway, the Miramax grip became less and less important to a media that was being strangled elsewhere.
The other fascinating cause cited by Mr. Smith is the downfall of the Clintons:
Which brings us, finally, to the other reason the Weinstein story came out now: Because the court over which Bill Clinton once presided, a court in which Weinstein was one part jester, one part exchequer, and one part executioner, no longer exists.
A thought experiment: Would the Weinstein story have been published if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency? No, and not because he is a big Democratic fundraiser. It’s because if the story was published during the course of a Hillary Clinton presidency, it wouldn’t have really been about Harvey Weinstein. Harvey would have been seen as a proxy for the president’s husband and it would have embarrassed the president, the first female president.
Bill Clinton offered get-out-of-jail-free cards to a whole army of sleazeballs, from Jeffrey Epstein to Harvey Weinstein to the foreign donors to the Clinton Global Initiative. The deal was simple: Pay up, genuflect, and get on with your existence.
As my church-going friends might put it, "God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform". Or, as the late, great Tennessee Ernie Ford put it, "If the right hand don't getch'a, then the left one will"!
Photo caption: "Harvey Weinstein and Bill Clinton at the premiere of SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER".
Superb irony. Couldn't be bettered. Are there any truths we would like to speak to these two powerful gentlemen?
Posted by: Whyaxye | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 10:52
Keep it zipped, could you?
Posted by: Michael F Adams | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 11:58
Our culture's little gods seem to have feet of clay. If we no longer look to something higher than ourselves and better than ourselves, we end up deifying those in the photo. They are simply failed appetites driven by lust for the trappings of power. Desperate people will pay any price to be around such as these, hoping sufficient adulation will rub off and reward the clingers with money and power too.
Posted by: Whitewall | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 12:19
Weinstein's story is only one in a continuing series. Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, Rep. Anthony Weiner, Gen. David Petraeus, Gov. Mark Sanford, Newt Gingrich and, of course, Trump come to mind, and those are only some of the more recent. Rather than looking for conspiracies it's probably more useful to see these stories as American society becoming less tolerant of this type of behavior. After all, the "casting couch" has been around Hollywood at least as long as I've been alive, and powerful men have always had their ways with women.
What's truly sickening about the Clintons are the slopily formulated NAFTA and the Financial Services Modernization Act that eventually caused the financial meltdown of 2007. To backtrack a post, those are the main reasons suicides by guns, drugs, and alcohol are an epidemic.
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 16:07
Bob, your disingenuous partisanship is showing. Please pull up your trews.
Spot on Whiters
Posted by: missred | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 17:04
I can't find a definition of "pull up your trews" and you have no point, missred. Should I have only listed Democrats? Here's a list of the latest federal scandals:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_sex_scandals_in_the_United_States#2010.E2.80.932017
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 18:21
"Trews" are trousers. "Pull up your trews" means you are an asshole.
Posted by: TheBigHenry | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 20:03
"Trews" seems to be Scottish for tartan trousers. I've never worn them and am not clear on how doing so would make me other than sartorially challenged.
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 20:52
Spoken no doubt with a straight face:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/hillary-clinton-breaks-silence-on-harvey-weinstein-allegations/ar-AAtgHOk?li=BBnb7Kz
Posted by: Whitewall | Tuesday, 10 October 2017 at 21:55
David? As to your question "Why now?" I suggest it may be, end the end (sorry sorry) it's the bottom-line:
Here's from August 2017
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-movie-projector-summer-meltdown-20170830-story.html
And then there's just a little snippet ( 9/15 beginning at 15:54) from Pacific Watch:
https://audioboom.com/posts/6306091-pacific-watch-long-arm-of-the-berkeley-campus-police-jeffbliss1
Posted by: JK | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 01:42
Re Trump-Weinstein "whattabout"....from Twitter:
Hollywood: on the one hand, we tolerated Weinstein until you caught us. On the other hand we tolerated Trump until he was a Republican
Posted by: Whitewall | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 12:43
It's even worse than you wingers think. Hillary released a statement:
"I was shocked and appalled by the revelations about Harvey Weinstein. The behavior described by women coming forward cannot be tolerated. Their courage and the support of others is critical in helping to stop this kind of behavior."
The hypocrite could have said the same about her husband. The woman has no self-awareness or shame.
Posted by: Bob | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 14:33
I don't normally explain myself.
Bob, I thought you were most disengenuous in naming only republicans. Had you named both parties, your claims of independence would have had some merit. Pull up your trews - pull up your pants, behave with at least a semblance of integrity.
Posted by: missred | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 17:56
missred, evidently you missed the name of Rep. Anthony Weiner on the list. However, I did name more Republicans to emphasize the point there are sexually abusive people in both parties. It's not a partisan issue even though someone tries to make it one. Some hack at the Weekly Standard or Hillary Clinton, for example.
Posted by: Bob | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 18:26
just an aside Bob,
Couple weeks back on a Leftward Ho! site I visit (before the stoopids shouted down the ACLU ...
David! Seen this?!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAbbcOi5dA0
)
I offered a suggestion I only appended yesterday owing to the seemingly "steam being let off" all the controversies of a couple weeks back concerning the Remove the Statues Movement! that now I'd be perfectly satisfied were they, as they were apparently thinking "some other more appropriate historical figure" be placed on the barren-looking pedestals that,
I'd be perfectly satisfied if, 'as every "success was achieved" (toppling a statue of some 150+ years dead guy not one in ten of the stoopids could list a single specific atrocious example for) they at the very least could replace with, as "they're" saying, "more appropriate" ... Anyway I'd be satisfied were "they" to put up a statue of Anthony Weiner.
My comment is now appended Bob to an either/or suggestion, Replace the 150+ years old dead guy nobody knows nothing about with either Anthony or, this now current movie [whatever] guy.
Posted by: JK | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 22:11
JK, or the stoopids could erect replacement statues of this successful figure: Antonio Gramsci.
https://www.thoughtco.com/antonio-gramsci-3026471
Posted by: Whitewall | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 22:21
Yeah Whitewall I know, I'm here to tell ya. And I got an example (though I am only comfortable - no case has been presented nor, Grand Jury impaneled but, there's this One-Thing that's been noted/said/[testified/affirmed to]?
"Harris, according to WCPO, is now wanted on charges of unlawful wounding in connection with that same day, and is accused of attacking a man in the group who brutally beat him."
It'sall topsy-turvy from me'n you Whitewall was kids.
http://www.theroot.com/deandre-harris-now-wanted-in-connection-with-same-attac-1819310947
(Oh yeah Whitewall - Leave the porchlight on for Dip?)
Posted by: JK | Wednesday, 11 October 2017 at 23:30