UGLY BUSINESS

Just a few weeks ago, I criticized socialite journalist Judy Bachrach's guileless review of "The Washingtonienne," for being captivated by the supposed novelty of true-life Washingtonienne Jessica Cutler's observation that Washington DC is "Hollywood for the Ugly." The exact phrase, I demonstrated, had already been attributed to P.J. O'Rourke, a contributor to the very magazine whence her misbegotten review appeared, the Weekly Standard. Moreover, the sentiment is an old standby, not an original insight. As a snarky comment about the nation's capital, it's more common in contemporary discourse than JFK's one-liner, "Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm," if not quite as clever.

I remind you of this ugly episode (as it were) because the first sentence of Mark Steyn's "Post Mortem" column in the September Atlantic goes:

Politics, according to Christopher Hitchens, is show business for ugly people.

Where to start?

I must say that I happen to think Mark Steyn is one of today's most gifted columnists. He prolificacy doesn't mean he's spread himself too thin; each of his multiple newspaper and magazine columns are a pleasure to read. His monthly two-page obituary for the notorious and obscure recently-departed is always fascinating. This latest is no exception, focusing on the unusual life of Edward J. von Kloberg III, the dictator's lobbyist, the "go-to guy for guys you wouldn't want to go near." Kloberg was a man with "a Rolodex full of evil" and an "expert at schmoozing friendless regimes into picking up the tab for his social life, a one-man oily-for-food program he kept running for two decades." An opera buff (wink, wink) Kloberg recently jumped from a famous tower in Rome where the suicide in "Tosca" takes place. He carried down with him a magazine cover featuring himself and George H.W. Bush.

For the most part, it's another great installment of what's arguably Steyn's best column. (The Washington Post's A1 treatment in May is also pretty good, if you don't subscribe to The Atlantic.)

But that opening line — that's just lazy. Yes, according to Google, others have attributed this particular phrase to Hitch, although as of this afternoon I only count "about 30". But I also see "about 885" occurrences of the phrase without Hitchens' name necessarily attached, and others think it's a Jay Leno quote.

What's more, Hitchens himself has a monthly book review in the Atlantic, which runs only a few pages before Steyn's. But if that's not enough, none other than P.J. O'Rourke is a frequent essayist for the Atlantic as well. I know people here are fond of saying that Washington is a small town, but this is too much to process (perhaps the vast right-wing conspiracy has hijacked the art of quippery).

Maybe it's not laziness after all — more likely it's a tip of the hat from one drinking buddy to another, and that I suppose I can forgive. But it's about damn time we stopped pretending this DC-LA connection was a novel observation. I'd be more interested in hearing what a Los Angelino would say about it. And regardless of who first voiced the sentiment (I should write to William Safire) the observation no longer belongs to any one person. It belongs to "they" — as they say.


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UPDATE, FRIDAY — What do I get for never (ever) reading Fishbowl DC or Wonkette?

Tipped off by Mickey Kaus that those blogs have been talking about the same thing, that's what. Apparently Fishbowler Garrett Graff seemed ready to declare the phrase coined by Paul Begala in 1999. Then Wonkette pushed it back to 1995, when George Magazine (whose defunct status perhaps puts the lie to the claim that DC is anything like Hollywood) attributed it to a "comedian" — Leno, perhaps? Then Graff's tipsters told him it was first heard in 1992 by ... Begala. Kaus' own readers tipped him off that the line was used in 1991 by Texas political consultant Bill Miller in a Dallas Morning News article.

Hmmm, better. But not good enough. Instead of e-mailing the vacationing Safire, I headed over to the archived forums of the American Dialect Society, and ... survey says Mickey's readership probably includes one Benjamin Zimmer of Rutgers, who found the Miller reference on Factiva just last night, and posted it to the ADS listserv.

Mystery solved? Perhaps, but it's too soon to know for sure. The problem here should be obvious — we can't prove a negative; we cannot say that no one said it before Bill Miller. Alas, it's late in the afternoon on a Friday and I have a big send-off party to get ready for. If I can find out more, you'll be among the first to know.

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posted by WWB at 6:18 PM |