Paglia Dishes on Marty & Al's Endless Love

Steve Perry sperry at usinternet.com
Wed Oct 4 09:42:31 PDT 2000


from her current salon column:

Some Salon readers complain that I said nothing in my last column about "the kiss" -- Gore's Clintonesque use of his wife as a showy sex doll at the Democratic Convention. Frankly, I found that inappropriate display too vulgar to comment on, especially after the media whipped up sweeping claims about female voters being swayed by it. If women are that stupid, emergency educational intervention is needed at shopping malls across the land. Call out the ambulances.

In fact, I had quite another reading of the kiss. Reports flared up early in the convention about one of Gore's major supporters, rumored to be gay or bisexual, making anti-Clinton remarks. That man, it was alleged to me on good authority five years ago by someone who knows them both, "has always been in love with Al." My first thought was that there would now be some ostentatious heterosexual display by the candidate at the convention. But I certainly didn't expect it to be on the podium on the formal occasion of the acceptance speech -- which I think both Gores degraded by their frat-house smooching. Gore isn't gay, but his hothouse upbringing by his dominating parents probably produced his prissy, lisping Little Lord Fauntleroy persona, which borders on epicene. Like Hillary Clinton, Gore appears to have a slightly amorphous and wavering gender identity that draws gay admirers, who platonically worship in elite coteries of Byzantine secrecy. It's well established that Gore has a problem relating to average, heterosexual guys, who are leaning toward Bush.



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