HE IS A LOATHSOME, OFFENSIVE BRUTE, YET I CAN'T LOOK AWAY: No, not Michael Moore (but more on him below). Keith Blanchard, editor of Maxim and author of the new novel "The Deed," is #1 on New York Press' inaugural list of the 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers. While the format and tone of the piece is largely borrowed from last year's oft-cited list by the Buffalo Beast of the 50 Most Loathsome People in America (the one that picked Ann Coulter #1 and dismissed her as "Goebbels with tits,") it's a fun and entertaining read, even including a two-sentence explanation of why logical top contender Ben Affleck was not eligible.
Coultergeist comes in at #4 in the Press' version, behind Blanchard and (somewhat surprisingly) the loony-left duo of wacko cartoonist Ted Rall and Fat Fat Fatty himself, Michael Moore. I wouldn't put the admittedly odious Blanchard in the league of either of them- and where's that other loathsome editor, Howell Raines? Also on the list are easy targets (Leona Helmsley, Tina Brown, George Steinbrenner), underrated but very deserving targets (Candace Bushnell, Peter Vecsey), and a few names no one reading the paper will be likely to recognize (Mark Scharfman? David Rabin? Chris Komisarjevsky?) I guess I'm willing to forgive the reflexive Strokes-bashing and Rudy-bashing, just for this dismissal of Harvey Weinstein: "a boorish film-industry mixture of Al Goldstein, Laurent Kabila, and Adolf Hitler." Right, and I'm sure neither Goldstein, Kabila, nor Hitler would've approved of Polanski winning the Oscar.
Now yes, I realize I've ripped Michael Moore in six of my last eight posts. But the Press' dismissal of him, somewhat surprising now that it's become, for all intents and purposes, a left-wing paper, is just so note-perfect I think we can safely call it the last word:
Slagging on this pandering blowhard is nothing new -especially not in these pages- but he makes it so easy. In the despicable "Bowling for Columbine," the lumbering behemoth makes fun of working-class whites in order to make over-educated whites feel better about themselves. His arguments against gun control are simplistic, weak and mired in the cloying stink of self-service, which smells suspiciously like a fat man’s crack. Every time Moore comes out in support of a liberal band or politician or fellow celebrity- as he proved last Sunday night- the hardworking, intelligent and reasoned left is degraded by association. It’s time for activists to jettison the ballast that is Michael Moore and start repairing the damage.