Erica Jong Thinks I Want to Do My Mother: A Response

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I feel compelled to respond to an article written in part about me by emigree contributor Erica Jong. According to the eight hundred year-old sex novelist, my offhand description of Hillary Clinton's arms as "flabby" means that I'm a misogynist and a sexist who is guilty of "Momism," which she describes as an "Oedipal obsession with the bad mother -- to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother." The whole of her argument is based upon my use of that one word, "flabby" -- which she argues is evidence of my typically male tendency to fixate on the appearance of female politicians. Like other sexist men, I apparently trained my monomaniacal focus on Hillary's appearance while while ignoring the paunches, liver spots and comb-overs of male politicians.

Jong has apparently never read anything else I've written. Here is a short catalogue of some of the physical descriptions I've used in recent articles about male politicians:

RUDY GIULIANI, former presidential candidate: "Virtually neckless, all shoulders and forehead and overbite, with a hunched-over, Draculoid posture that recalls, oddly enough, George W. Bush, the vestigial stoop of a once-chubby kid who grew up hiding tittie pictures from nuns." Also: "The electoral incarnation of Tommy Lee Jones' acid-bath-surviving Two-Face character." A "bottomless pit of vengeful little-guy ambition."

MARK PENN, former chief strategist for the Clinton campaign: "Penn is the Democratic version of Karl Rove. He even looks like Rove, only he's fatter and more disgusting. Up close in a forum like this, his eyes bulge out of his fat, blood-flushed head; his neck spills out of his too-tight shirt collar; and he generally looks like Jabba the Hutt, his suit bursting at the seams, with only the bowl of snackable live toads suspended at arm's length missing from the picture."

MIKE HUCKABEE, former presidential candidate: "Huckabee, who in recent years has lost 100 pounds, has the roundish, half-deflated physique of an ex-fatty. With his button nose and never-waning smile, he looks slightly unreal, like an oversize Muppet."

TOM DELAY, former House majority leader: "DeLay moves through the aisles like some kind of balding incubus, and as he passes, Republican members instinctively turn their backs on him, not wanting to be caught in the Gorgon's gaze (or, more to the point, be threatened with the loss of a chairmanship or reelection funding)."

JAMES SENSENBRENNER, former House Judiciary Committee Chairman: "An ever-sweating, fat-fingered beast who wields his gavel in a way that makes you think he might have used one before in some other arena, perhaps to beat prostitutes to death." Also: "Your basic Fat Evil Prick, perfectly cast as a dictatorial committee chairman: He has the requisite moist-with-sweat pink neck, the dour expression, the penchant for pointless bile and vengefulness."

MITT ROMNEY, former presidential candidate: An "utter tool...a poll-chasing stuffed suit with a Max Headroom hairdo who will say (or won't say, for that matter) whatever the fuck it takes to get elected." Also: "When it comes to the satanic art of presidential campaigning, this lean, heavily moussed political athlete is a stone prodigy, a natural who glides through campaign events with the aid of some dark supernatural power - a tie-clad, sweat-resistant cross of Roy Hobbs and Rosemary's Baby."

BORIS YELTSIN, former Russian president: "A pig... A human appendage of a rotting, corrupt state, a crook who would emerge even from the hottest bath still stinking of booze, concrete and sausage."

TOM TANCREDO, former presidential candidate: "Vengeful midget."

JOHN McCAIN, Republican nominee: "On the trail, McCain looks equally pathetic -- slow-moving, soft-spoken and physically frail. With his lecturing tone and corny jokes ('Governor Schwarzenegger and I have many similar attributes'), he recalls the moralizing granddad who's not a bad egg overall but who embarrasses the fuck out of you by waiting till your late thirties to give you the birds-and-the-bees speech."

That's just from the last few years. And yet according to Jong, the reason I decided to use the term "flabby" when describing Hillary Clinton is because, deep down inside, I want to fuck my mother. "And love is the problem, of course," Jong-Freud writes. "You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her."

I mean, wow. And I thought I was a hack.

Sincerely,

Matt Taibbi

Related:
Erica Jong Responds: Eight-Hundred-Year-Old Jong Responds to Callow Youth Taibbi
Matt Taibbi: Erica Jong Rolls Out Every Liberal Cliche in Existence

Previously:
Erica Jong: Misogyny, Momism and Militarism

Comments

[ashleybaines]

He made his point. ________________________

Why would Jong tangle with Taibbi? His aim is as deadly as his tool belt.

[TwoCentsWorth]

Taibbi -- when are you going to grow up? Journalists are not supposed to be so self-centered they take everything personally. And don't forget, objectivity is a high priority as well.

[TwoCentsWorth]

Taibbi -- when are you going to grow up? Journalists are not supposed to be so self-centered they take everything personally. And don't forget, objectivity is a high priority as well.

[mcostello]

Look at that bio pic of taibbi and tell me he isn't self centered, defensive and lashing out to make up for his insecurity.

Oh, and also smart, well informed, articulate and hilarious if you like the art of ridicule.
I think he is good to have around.

[WRPrintz]

Matt has the kind of writting most people love when it is about their enemies, and revile when it is about their friends.

It sure is descriptive, but hardly relevant. There are a lot of good fat people....do they get to be "jolly elves" with "friendly chins" and smell "Slightly of butter and oatmeal cookies"? My point is here that Matt is using a style of Fiction writing to describe a Factual person, one we know and can see, as though their outward appearence reflects their inner vices and virtues.

Erica, wrongly in my opinion, thinks that this represents physical desire on Matt's part. My problem is not with the quality of Matt's writing, it's with the style. He makes some excellent points about his subject's souls, using physical attributes, which is more fitting to "The Dozens" or trash talk, than serious discussion.

He's got big ears so he can act like he can hear us all better. That one is as old has his political ideals-mid 19th century. She has arms as flabby as her ability to tell the truth. All we need is a rim shot.

[JimH69]

The problem here is that Matt's protestations to the contrary("I thought I was just a hack") is that he wants to be a serious journalist. If you give offense, you can certainly expect that someone will take offense so Erica Jong's scolding is not unexpected. I might also add that when handed an opportunity to speak truth to power (Former White House Press Secretary Tony Snow on Real Time) Matt didn't do so well with the snark. I'm no fan of Snow, but Matt didn't lay a glove on him and merely sounded sarcastic.

[JimH69]

I know that Matt is a serious journalist. I also follow him in Rolling Stone. I'm just saying he can't have it both ways. He can't push the snark and then hide behind "I thought I was just a Hack" as his defense. As to whom took offense, it could've been anyone. I feel the same about Matt's Hillary description as I did about MSNBC' s David Shuster saying that the Clinton's pimped out their daughter with regards to her campaigning for her mom, it's simply inappropriate. The descriptions Matt uses to defend himself are more of the same and while humorous ( I especially like his Giuliani description)
don't add anything to his analysis.

As to his Real Time appearance with Tony Snow, I saw it and he clearly was trying to go after Snow and Snow made him look foolish. Towards the end of the show, he simply resorted to sarcasm and not particularly witty sarcasm at that.

[mcostello]

And that was a damn shame.
Because Tony Snow has the confidence and dignitas of world class used car salesman. He uses his charisma and confidence to sell a pack of lies and he should rot in hell for his part of what has come to this country.

[clevelandchick]

Matt Taibbi is a serious journalist, his work on the Iraq War and Congress have been amazing. I have several RS issues I'm keeping just for his articles. Erica Jong is a feminist fiction writer from the 70s who still writes and speaks of feminism as if it is still the 70s. Her response to this piece was cringe-inducing.

And maybe since Real Time is Bill Maher's show, Matt was told not to go after Snow by Bill Maher? You have no idea. And since it is Bill's show, shouldn't Bill be the one expected to go after Snow? It is the host's place to set the tone of the show, to drive the conversation not the guest's.

[mikekev58]

How do any of the ad hominem descriptions of candidates advance serious journalism?

How does referring to Erica Jong as "the eight hundred year old sex writer" not lend credence to Jong's critique of Taibbi's "flabby" comment as misogynistic?

To say that Erica Jong is a fiction writer from the 70's who still writes and speaks of feminism as it is still the 70s requires more than just that one liner as evidence.

I don't read much of Taibbi but this retort suggests that I'm okay in that.

[JenWhy]

It's not as though we jump down the throats of the writers on SNL, or any of the day time and late night talkshows hosts when they make a few jokes about the appearance of a politician. If Matt Taibbi only made jokes about female polititians I might think he was sexist, but he's just ripping everyone a new one. There's a lot of people (Erice Jong) who could do with not being so sensitive about everrything. How can one person possibly be offended by so much. Taibbi-love you, love your work.

[beright]

Mike -

You defended yourself well, but there are some points that Erica makes that are worth mentioning. First, she raises the point that the Christian narrative informs the treatment and social positioning of women in the U.S. - that's true. There are "themes" in this narrative that are superimposed on women: "the virgin," the "prostitute" etc. Second, she raises the point that a social order has been constructed that is overly concerned with the appearance of women and not their 'real' substance - that is also true.

That said, none of us can deny that the English language itself is full of sexist euphamisms, and as you know language superimposes a certain reality on the mind - even though the mentality itself was there first. Therefore, we cannot escape misogyny or 'momism' because the mentality is embedded in the language. We are all 'guilty', if you will, of giving expression to this mentality - we cannot help it, but we can become conscious of it and our tendency to color our opinions and words.

[Nommo]

I think that the mind simply imposes a reality on the word. One may change a word, but not without even a nano second of thought. I hope that you are not suggesting that we are the prisoners of words. We are the prisoners of our own minds. Why listen to crap written by savage men 2,000 years ago, or 1500 years minimally, when so many have written much finer words of inspiration, new ideas,
and freedom from ghostly times. We have infinitely more capacity to obtain and transmit information yet it seems that we can not do better than an "eye for an eye" kind of crap.

It is a fine notion to be the master of one's fate, but it can be kind of useless if the world around you is going to hell in an orgy of cluster f*cking and bombing. We could start with simply deciding that it is not a good idea to keep killing each other all over the globe. From there, the skies the limit. Up to the van Allan belts, anyway.

[DouginCT]

Granted, only ignorant men -willfully or not- are blind to the very real fact that most women have been engaged in a long, tiring battle for equality and fairness (though a minority come from pockets of the country where they really do see themselves as only worthy of the sidecar).

That being said, Erica picked on the wrong guy here. Matt is an equal opportunity satirist, and his comment really was not sexist. I don't at all think it implied he was hot for his momma. Women's arms do sag as they get older. And men lose hair and get paunches. Matt's characterizations in this reply are hilarious, and really do spread the love to all who invite the attention by their overall hypocrisy or scuminess.

Erica....cool off. Nothing to see here, even as I grant that you have excellent insight and are a valuable writer and cultural observer. Matt, walk it off and then go write more great material about that phony Mitt Romney. He's not in it anymore, but he still deserves a pro-longed verbal beat down for being such a phony. Thanks to you both.

[TedAtkMA]

Since Taibbi's posts seem to find such favor with the largely pro-Obama crowd who frequent the Huffington Post, I think Barak should consider adopting some of Taibbi's policy positions such as supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, opposing job protections for gays, etc. I guess the basic approach of this crowd of bloggers is, to paraphrase Alice Roosevelt Longworth, "if you don't have anything good to say about Hillary, come sit next to me."

[rrafiringa]

For those who can't get a laugh out of those descriptions: Get a sense of humor, or at least just roll your eyes at teh silliness.
Besides, I have lived with women most of my life, and they are worse than men once they start gossiping.

[mikekev58]

And I've lived with men most of my life, being one myself. Women have nothing on men when it comes to gossip, particularly malicious gossip. Part of the male competitive drive is to win and I've seen first hand men's attempts to undermine other people's reputations by repeating, or even inventing, malicious rumors.
Your embrace of Taibbi's "humor" and your stereotype of women makes Jong's point even more strongly than her column itself.

[Shantee]

Hillary makes it easy for us to criticize her looks, because she is insecure about herself; plus she's botoxing her face to death. All the candidates from Guliani to Romney to Edwards where criticized about their looks. I'm not saying I appreciate that, but if Hillary wants to play with the boys she can't ask for special treatment.

Matt, you did a knock-out job in your article 'Hillary's Flimsy Case' for Rolling Stone Magazine. Here's one comment that was particularly appropo:

'Nobody in American history has ever been better than the Clintons at calculating the elctoral math of resentment, paranoia, media agression and just flat-out, back-alley nastiness. Every day, the Clintons come up with some new and brilliantly devious way to color the subliminal background of the electoral canvas, from using comparisons to Jesse Jackson to buttonhole Obama as a "black candidate," to floating rumors of an "unstopable" Hillary-Obama ticket - despite the fact that Hillary would rather eat a KFC bucket full of her own shit than run with Obama - in order to con on-the-fence voters into thinking that a vote for Hillary might also be a vote for Obama. That's why it seemed so weirdly appropriate that Samantha "she's a monster" Power was forced to resign, while Gerry Ferraro could all but call Obama a n***** and then claim that she was the victim of discrimination.

We expect the Clintons to play dirty and don't demand that they apologize for doing so.'

[joeinvt]

You gotta love Matt's defense. He's not picky on Hillary by referring to her as flabby. Making fun of the physical features of people he doesn't like is what he does for a living. You'd think that someone who looked like him would be a bit more sensitive about that sort of thing. And you think well of Taibbi's contributions to the national dialogue?

[mikekev58]

Where's the evidence of the botox? And so what, anyway?

And it's bad to make a political comparison of Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson after Obama's big win in what the media had been calling the first state to test the power of the black vote for either candidate?

How condescending is it to think that "on the fence voters" could be conned by the suggestion of an Hillary-Obama ticket?

And I don't know what version of the Ferraro interview Taibbi read, but Mrs. Ferraro never came close to calling Senator Obama a "nigger". Excuse me for avoiding the despicably pc refusal to say the word - seeing it or hearing it reminds one of the terrible power this word has and therefore should give one pause before accusing someone of "all but call(ing)" Obama or any African American a nigger.

[texpine]

Matt, U-R-Right, you're a total Hack.

However, ask Erica Jong if you are also secretly wishing to return to the Womb
every time you crawl into an Automobile! I'm sure she will have a Clinical and
Insightful answer for you.

I've been told my Motorcycle is a Subconcious replacement for my Penis.
Let's see....I secretly wish my Dick was 8 ft. long and weighed 700 lbs.......???

Hope you are all reading this post "Tongue-in-Cheek".

[barrista]

Taibbi is the man.

Who's this Jong character?

[strifeknot]

She's a caricature.

[LittleBrother]

Yeah, Matt-- come to think of it, you're the guy who described NYT infotainwhore Elisabeth Bumiller as looking like "a smug, barking cow".

Which is incontrovertibly Sexist and manifestly Wrong.

Keep it coming.

[presto]

Holy cow - based on your descriptions of those people I'd say you were right the first time - you ARE a hack.