John Podhoretz
nominates this Judith Warner
post for the "Repulsive Blog Item of the Year Award." I would second the nomination, but I also think it's worth zeroing in the structure of Warner's post, which reflects the kind of gonzo inanity that's made her a
hathetic joy to read for a long time now. The item starts with her reading about
hymen restorations among Muslim women in Europe, which in turn inspires her to forage for a
Times story she's clipped about father-daughter
"purity balls." At which point you think you know where this is going: Toward a "plague on both your houses" attack on the creepiness of Muslim
and Christian fixations on female virginity. And if you're a fair-minded reactionary, as I like to fancy myself, you think to yourself:
Well, that's a little bit of a stretch, but those purity balls are
high on the "ick" factor ...
But then Warner pulls the rug out from under you:
“From this, it’s only a matter of degree to the man in Austria,” I’d scribbled across the first page [of the purity ball story].
"The man in Austria"? Wait for it ...
The “man in Austria,” of course, was 73-year-old Josef Fritzl, who was around that time also making headlines after it was discovered that he had kept his daughter, Elisabeth, 42, locked up in a cellar for 24 years, during which time he’d raped her regularly, and had her bear him seven children.
Yep,
that's the Judith Warner I've come to know and love. (Though I still think that
Warner's meditation on why her readers shouldn't resent her for having a summer place in Normandy remains in a hathos-inspiring class by itself.)
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2008/06/perfect-madness/54161/
