>I wont comment on his alleged racist statement,
>because I dont know what the context was. His
>statements MAY have been racist, but I dont see where
>he is "bloviating". This statement is undoubtedly
>true:
>
><<I will remark
>> that political correctness is a toxic to American
>> freedom.
>
>PCness puts a straight-jacket on discussion.
Yeah, can be, but sometimes remarks really are racist - and I think this qualifies. Old blowhards like Mailer love to hide behind the PC critique so they can sound bold and against-the-grainish when they're really being pigs. I think Kakutani is pretty bad, but that's par for the course at the Times. She's a former editor at the Yale Daily News (class of '76, I think), and fits right in at the place in every way.
Here's the original, from Page Six earlier this week. I thought "Asiatic" was a mode of production, not an ethnic description!
>June 27, 2005 -- NORMAN Mailer has finally gone off the deep end
>about New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, who has savaged
>his tomes in the past. In a rant to Rolling Stone, Mailer raged:
>"Kakutani is a one-woman kamikaze. She disdains white male authors,
>and I'm her number-one favorite target. One of her cheap tricks is
>to bring out your review two weeks in advance of publication. She
>trashes it just to hurt sales and embarrass the author . . . But the
>Times' editors can't fire her. They're terrified of her. With
>discrimination rules and such, well, she's a threefer: Asiatic,
>feminist and, ah, what's the third? Well, let's just call her a
>twofer. They get two for one. She is a token. And, deep down, she
>probably knows it." We think it's all a clever ploy by Mailer to
>ensure that Kakutani can't review his books again. Kakutani didn't
>return calls.