Epic
Irradiated by LabRat
Been wrapped up in a bunch of stuff today and got a commitment later on, so more lightweight.
Via Popehat, who have some pretty epic snark of their own on the subject, a grade A Internet Trainwreck.
First, there is Andrew Cohen. Andrew Cohen, evidently, is a legal consultant for CBS and a contributor to Politics Daily. Andrew Cohen’s ex is getting married, and he has penned a tribute of tributeness that is essentially a tribute to himself as reflected in some woman who comes across as a completely blank slate because he manages to make the entire thing exclusively about himself, as occasionally reflected by her. It’s the sort of thing whose narcissism contains the answer to the question “why on earth did he think this appropriate to put on Politics Daily” in its extremity, so that the answer is obviously “because he could not possibly have resisted”.
A colleague at Politics Daily suggests this may have been a bad idea, and points out a number of ways in which making your ex’s wedding day nationally all about you is in poor taste.
Andrew is put out about this.
Read the original if you can. I only got about two paragraphs in before it became too dense to go on, but friends gave me the highlight reel and those highlights just kept topping themselves.
July 29th, 2010 at 6:28 am
I wonder if this is another example of “male communication” vs: “female communication” and the tendency of both sides of that to want what they themselves don’t receive.
Because that post of his seemed on topic, if a bit over the top, but the post of hers struck me as excessively vicious. And even the mail that Jezebel quoted… if that’s their definition of a “crap email”, I’ve got even less respect for them now than I did after reading the few articles there I had in the past.
July 29th, 2010 at 11:52 am
“But enough about me. Let’s talk about what you think of me.“
July 29th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I dunno, Perl. His post struck me as self-absorbed, deeply passive-aggressive, and massively inappropriate for both the occasion and the forum, and hers struck me if anything as restrained.
It may not be quite male vs. female- pretty sure the Popehat blogger who tore him up is male- but I have noticed pretty much all the commenters who defend him/say she was out of line are male.
July 30th, 2010 at 5:24 am
Tam got it in one… With the size of his ego, I want to know how he can POSSIBLY get through a door… Geez…
July 30th, 2010 at 9:38 am
I dunno. I certainly don’t know the original author, which is certainly a huge factor in properly assessing his intent, but I’m reminded of a large number of conversations with one of my girlfriends, in which she has lamented their expressions of her attractiveness, because that’s icky and patriarchal and stuff. And how this is nearly unfathomable to me, because I can count on the thumbs of one hand the number of times I’ve gotten unsolicited positive feedback about my appearance from someone I’m not already involved with.
Which, I don’t think of myself as an attention whore, but after decades of thinking of myself as not particularly attractive, the idea of being offended by people telling me I’m pretty is just flat out mind boggling.
So, self-absorbed, maybe, although while he was writing about “how wonderful $girl was to me”, it was still all about “how wonderful $girl was” (at least as I read it.) I don’t see passive-aggressive at all. It looked simply wistful to me. Possibly inappropriate for the forum, though again, I’ve never heard of the author, so I don’t know if that’s a Dave Barry style “opinion and rambling” column, or if it’s normally supposed to be about stock trends. As far as inappropriate for the day… again, it looked like a relatively normal wedding speech to me. “$girl is wonderful. You’re lucky to have her, $groom.”
*shrug* I’m certainly no expert on social behaviour, though, so, maybe my view of things is far too warped by the lens of my own experiences.
July 30th, 2010 at 10:20 am
That’s the thing that turns it from a speech about how wonderful $girl is into a speech about his reflected glory, though; she really is just “$girl”. We have absolutely no idea what she’s like from this except that she made him feel good in various ways, and the bulk of it is all about how he imagined he’d end up with her and all the various ways she’d make his life somehow ideal. She’s not a person, she’s an accessory. The passive-aggressive bits are partly in the “not like other women of a certain age in New York and how he so kindly absolves her of “guilt and sadness”… on the day she marries another man, presumably the one *she* judged to be her soul mate. It’s heavily implied she did the dumping, too, so rhapsodizing about how awful she might feel about having done so- again, on her wedding day- is extremely narcissistic.
His role on Politics Daily is legal correspondent, same as his role for CBS. Not Dave Barry style columnizing by any means.
July 30th, 2010 at 1:27 pm
He needs to have “NARCISSIST” tattooed onto his forehead, because it isn’t a Mars/Venus thing-it’s the script of the “Andrew Cohen Show”. Ms. Skurnick hit a hole-in-one; he’s still looking for his balls in the rough (and you can take that ANY way you want to).
July 30th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Most people never have any physical evidence to confirm a relationship decision. Some have a few comments, or written lines. She has an entire essay.
July 30th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
What Jess said. More embarrassing (and because of age & PERMANENCE more culpable) than any drunk late- night phone call I ever made in my twenties.
As our late town drunk and oracle Ernie Pino used to say: “if I did that I’d have to shoot myself to save my life”.
July 31st, 2010 at 11:35 am
Ditto Jess and Steve. As if she would ever have asked “now remind me why I left you?”
This was a delightful volley of posts, Thanks! I giggled and giggled.