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

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

[robbie]

You tell 'er, Matt!!! Kudos!

[rnb]

Ignoring the question of whether it's really appropriate, one certainly can't make a serious claim that you're singling out women/HRC for unpleasant physical description.

[jvarga]

You'd think so, but Senator Clinton's supporters are suggesting that. This is because they have issues with reality.

[AreYouFibbing]

jvarga....­.not unlike Obama supporters I guess or Obama, himself, who feels compelled to tell a woman he isn't getting fresh because he phone vibrated in his pocket. Is that his opening line for getting some action?

[soylentgreenleftovers]

Matt, sometimes you gotta just walk away. Save the well-crafted riposte for a more deserving target.

[martina1965]

O.K., you are not a misogynist. You make personal and offensive comments about everybody. Good for you!

[MrBeale]

If Jong wanted to make the argument about misogyny towards Hillary, she picked the wrong entrance point. Why not lead with someone like Chris Matthews who clearly has it in for Hillary but makes oddly homoerotic comments like Fred Thompson smelling terrific.

[Nommo]

So what's your take on Kim Jong il?

[GoodGuysandBadGuys]

ouch! hahaha gee wiz you think erica will have a response for you?

good job with this response. it illustrates perfectly one of the most frustrating things about the hillary devotees - that they are constantly complaining that hillary is being picked on but yet seem to ignore that the vast majority of public figures are picked on. it's like they have the attitude that people are fair to everyone but hillary.

[falcao]

Good on ya, mate.

Only problem for Jong in providing a link to your piece is that your piece rocked and her's, well, not so much.

[chagedorn]

The fact of more universal contempt and derision of people's physicaly appearance doesn't necessarily rule out Ms. Jong's point...th­ough of course Freud is as dated as...McCai­n. The only thing I object to in Mr. Taibbi's writing is what seems to be the overuse of the word "turd." Though please note I wrote "seems," so don't come back to me with the fact that it's only been used twice in the last twenty years...ju­st a vague unfounded impression, which is after all, the heart and soul of reporting today. Perhaps sometimes Mr. Taibbi's subject matter doesn't live up to his literary and intellectual style -- maybe he should be writing about sex and relationships and Ms. Jong should be writing about politics?

[jojojo]

Or maybe Ms. Jong ought to quit whining about how mean those meanie old meanie men are. Jeez, my women friends, both those over fifty and much younger, are SO tired of HRC's victim act! All it does is make women look weak and unable to take care of themselves.

And by the way, I voted for Hillary Clinton twice for senator, where I think she's done a pretty darn good job.