George Clooney Takes on Arianna Huffington
I rarely write for the
Huffington Post anymore, for a few reasons. I'm focusing my attention on this blog. I've increasingly uncomfortable with the ideological monotony of tone over at HuffPo, both on the part of posters and readers. And also, I'm just a little tired of giving Arianna free copy. At one point, we were supposed to be paid for pieces we wrote which were syndicated; I've never seen a dime from it, and I doubt anyone has.
Finally, while I think Arianna is a fascinating woman, and part of me admires her drive and ambition, another part of me is turned off by her self-promotion. The Huffington Post was supposed to be a community, but all too often, it's a community of one.
Now
George Clooney has pointed out something Arianna's done that's a little sleazy: compiled some quotes from him to make it look as if he had written a blog item for the site. Even after he asked her to take it down, she refused.
Bizarre.
Funnily enough, it was
a post I wrote about Clooney that played a large part in my disenchantment with the site. I chastised him for insulting Jack Abramoff at the Golden Globes (Clooney said something about what kind of parents would give their kid the first name "Jack" when their last named ended with "off.") That kind of insult, I said, should be beneath liberals, and anyway, it would backfire; Americans don't like Hollywood liberal celebrities making crude jokes. (Whoopi Goldberg, anyone?)
The post received more comments than anything I'd ever written for HuffPo in the past—well over 100—and honestly, about 99% of them were not just negative, but nasty. Stuff you'd never say if you actually had to say it to the subject in person.
They reflected, I thought, the increasingly belligerent tone you find on HuffPo these days....there are still good people writing smart things there, but too often, it's just soapbox ministers preaching to the converted.
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P.S. Arianna presents her side of the story
here.
