The Harris Treatment
Has the press lost its spirit?

By Carol Iannone, who writes on literature and culture
February 26, 2001 8:30 a.m.

m I alone in hearing a deafening silence surrounding Denise Rich where there should be the shrill squealing of malicious delight? Am I alone in missing the cartoons, the caricatures, the catty columns, the comic impersonations, the pure unadulterated dishing? Remember all the fun they had with Katherine Harris's appearance — the makeup, the eyelashes, the gold buttons?

Remember? "Her skin had been plastered and powdered to the texture of pre-war walls in need of a skim coat," wrote one female reporter. "[H]er eyes, rimmed in liner and frosted with blue shadow, bore the tell-tale homogenous spikes of false eyelashes. Caterpillars seemed to rise and fall with every bat of her eyelid, with every downward glance...." To another, Harris was "[l]ike Dr. Richard Sharpe, the transvestite and alleged wife killer. Or Marilyn Manson. Or Dustin Hoffman as Tootsie. Or Cruella DeVil. . . . [She] appeared to have piled on 10 tons of mascara, four pounds of lipstick and day-glo blue eye shadow (and what was the deal with the neck?) for her grand moment before every TV camera in the free world."

Shouldn't they be having another round of fun with Denise? The dyed-blonde leonine mane, the industrial-weight jewelry, the glitteringly vulgar and revealing evening gowns; you know, the kind they wear at the Grammies, with flesh flashing distractingly and emerging in inappropriate places.

Hers is a trashy-looking persona that the girls should really be able to sink their claws into. You know, she looks like those decked-out women who worked in the saloons of the Old West, and when she wears a suit in daylight and hobbles along on daytime shoes, she seems as odd and uncomfortable as they did when they were hustled out of town by the marshall. That kind of thing.

And remember the whispers about something between Jeb and Katherine? Well, here, they wouldn't even have to whisper. And I mean aside from 100 or so White House strategy sessions. I mean we saw it in full view on that podium: the fastidious two cheek airkiss to Hillary, and then the hug, the embrace of Bill, the virtual two-armed tackle, starting from the biceps, no, the shoulders, no, the wing bones of the back, a full enveloping squeeze, with Hillary discreetly lowering her head, perhaps calculating the per-minute payment for each moment of contact.

They could be having so much fun. What's the matter, girls, lost your spirit?