Here’s the piece I submitted to the Washington Post pundit contest. It was a big failure, apparently, so you rejects will get it:)
The Wages of Crying Lamb
If a recent AP News story is right, America may yet be graced with the presence of Roman Polanski, film auteur and cultural gourmand. Polanski, one of his lawyer’s suggests, might “consent” to extradition and “explain himself”. Presumably that explanation won’t include a full apology for past wrongs. But, let’s be clear about what those wrongs were: he drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. If we believe his fellow “artists”, this is a minor offense akin to shoplifting. Or it’s a “disputed crime”, though not by Polanski. Or Frantic was a kind of repentance.
How did we get here? Roman Polanski isn’t the first celebrity to be heralded in spite of a haunted past. In 1969, Ted Kennedy drove a borrowed Oldsmobile into a tidal channel off the island of Chappaquiddick. Accompanying him was a pretty 28 year old blond named Mary Jo Kopechne. Did he try to save her, as he later claimed? Did he call her name, as the night waned? Whatever happened, 8 hours later, he was back in his hotel, conversing amiably, while Mary Jo’s lifeless form floated inside the swiftly carbuncling car. He hadn’t told a soul.
In 1993, a 13 year old Jordan Chandler stepped forward to accuse Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, of an unthinkable crime. A decade later, another boy made similar allegations. Yes, sensationalism clouded facts, and facts succumbed to gossip. And questions lingered; big ones. Were the Chandlers opportunists? Why Neverland, if not for…? Still, when children and sex are involved, not once but twice, is the moonwalk atonement? Shouldn’t we have wondered a little bit more? Shouldn’t we still?
This isn’t meant to malign the dead. These real and alleged crimes, ghastly as they were, don’t have the concreteness of Polanski’s. We know Polanski had “unlawful intercourse”. He pled that way. We can only shudder at what he didn’t, and hasn’t, pled guilty to. But, this is what we get when we treat celebrities like Kings and Arthurian Knights- shorn of flaws, shielded by the gleaming, invisible armor of art. Every school-child knows not to cry wolf. But, what about crying lamb? When we minimize sins, what replaces the razor teeth?
Update: Here’s a link to the winning entrants.
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Matthew E. Miller can be contacted at Obilisk18@yahoo.com and at his Pawlentyesque blog
October 30th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
So you slice and dice three liberal icons and you wonder why WaPo didn’t select it for publication?
You should have gone with “Why Bob McDonnell is a Sexist, Racist, Capitalist Pig.” It could have been written by a 5 year old and won.
But seriously, a good piece. It is amazing to me what the power of celebrity does. Most people accused of crimes are assumed guilty in the popular mind (they wouldn’t be charged for nothing, right?). But with celebrities, we want to give them the benefit of the doubt (even in the face of overwhelming evidence) so they can continue to be the little totem we’ve made of them.
October 30th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Just to note from a fact-check standpoint. Ted Kennedy actually did tell a couple of people. Just not the authrorities.
Sloppy work like that probably didn’t help either.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Join the club. I lost the Washington Post’s Next Great (Liberal) Pundit Contest, too.
I’m a well-respected wordsmith (a middle-aged, middle-class white male Republican father of two–all evil) and I wrote about the late William Safire and the origin of “punditry” (a word I antedated). No one else has anything like it, but I guess it wasn’t good enough. I solved the origin of New York City’s nickname, “the Big Apple,” with the help of the late legendary Washington Post sportswriter Shirley Povich, although I cannot get that story printed in the Post.
Nine of the 10 winners have directly supported Obama. Several of the winners wrote for the Huffington Post (Zeba Khan, Lydia Khalil, Courtney E. Martin). One winner (Jeremy Haber) worked on Obama’s senate campaign. Another winner (Zeba Khan) helped created a website called Muslim-Americans for Obama. One DC-area local winner (Maame Gyamfi, with an instantly forgettable Maureen Dowd-lite entry) donated money to Obama’s campaign. The Nobel-winning physicist in the bunch (Burton Ricter, who’s probably better on a newspaper’s science/technology section) of course pledged for Obama, also.
One essay presents a rather simplistic support for the public option–a health care disaster. “Bennet, speaking at the Brown Bear Cafe, said he supports the public option to make health insurance more affordable and more widely available.” A public option will bankrupt private health insurance and create government health care rationing. Health care with a public option will neither be “more affordable” nor “widely available,” Mr. Winning Pundit.
One winning entry contains this sentence: “Fox’s criticism has gotten so out of hand that the administration has declared open war on the network.” No bias there! Fox surely crossed the line when it started to show videos of Obama’s czars using their own words to praise Chairman Mao and Hugo Chavez.
Why did we even enter?
October 30th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
God. I’m reading these winning entries and I’m embarrassed. There’s nothing worth speaking of stylistically. A few of the topics are interesting, but the actual essays are mostly a collection of near fragment sentences strung together to try to convey the greatest possible amount of information. I would have submitted the other piece if I’d known they’d place so little emphasis on style. Oh well.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Thomas Alan,
Yes, I know he brought Kennedy people (lawyers, the party host). I knew it at the time. But, he didn’t initially. My original draft had a fuller explanation, but you only get 400 words. The “he hadn’t told a soul” was perhaps rhetorical excess, but its absolutely true that after he told these kennedy people, they insisted he call the police, he said he would, and then instead he merrily swum across the lake, ate breakfast in his hotel, and kept quiet for another 8 or so hours.
October 30th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Good job Matthew! Too bad they can’t handle the truth.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:06 am
No wonder this hunk of disjointed and pointless drivel got rejected. What’s “haunted past” for example? Learn to speak English, moron. Writing is optional, if you can’t do it, don’t, you’re not obligated.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:13 am
Small Wonder,
“What’s “haunted past” for example?”
haunt?ed??[hawn-tid, hahn-] Show IPA
–adjective
1. inhabited or frequented by ghosts: a haunted castle.
2. preoccupied, as with an emotion, memory, or idea; obsessed: His haunted imagination gave him no peace.
3. disturbed; distressed; worried: Haunted by doubt he again turned to law books on the subject.
–noun
7. the time gone by: He could remember events far back in the past.
8. the history of a person, nation, etc.: our country’s glorious past.
9. what has existed or has happened at some earlier time: Try to forget the past, now that your troubles are over.
10. the events, phenomena, conditions, etc., that characterized an earlier historical period: That hat is something out of the past.
11. an earlier period of a person’s life, career, etc., that is thought to be of a shameful or embarrassing nature: When he left prison, he put his past behind him.
12. Grammar.
a. the past tense, as he ate, he smoked.
b. another verb formation or construction with past meaning.
c. a form in the past tense.
October 31st, 2009 at 8:18 am
Small Wonder,
To help you further, here is an example of “haunted past” used by the New York Times Book review:
http://www.pricewrites.com/articles/2008/10/bosnias_haunted_past.php
You know, if you are struggling with comprehension, you can ask nicely for help. Do you insult your poor teacher every time you don’t understand something?
I’ve always thought teaching Jr. High was a special vocation………..
October 31st, 2009 at 9:38 am
I’ve got to admit I’m not impressed with the winners’ pieces I read. The Fox News audience one was rather interesting, but none of them had any real bite to them. All in all, they were fluff pieces with a liberal slant. Not my idea of great writing, but I wasn’t asked to judge.