Grits and Glitz

[Valin]

The American Spectator:

Aram Bakshian, Jr.

March 1993

 

Historians will record that the 1993 Clinton inauguration actually began the year before in early November. Scarcely had the votes been counted when lobbyists, pitchmen, political groupies, and Democratic hopefuls began to flood Washington, D.C. Suddenly the capital’s fashionable hotel lounges and watering holes were crammed with overweight, backslapping, pinkie-ringed redneck hustlers from Southern and border states and some of the more remote backwaters of the Midwest, all with something to buy from or sell to the incoming administration.

 

Hard on the heels of the slick-hick brigade came the bi-coastal limousine liberal set. Film stars, record and studio executives, media moguls and Wall Street operators, they all shared two things in common: conspicuous consumption and conspicuous unction, their minks, diamonds, stretch limos, flaunted riches, and appalling manners apparently rendered politically correct by their willingness to call for more middle-class sacrifice. Bringing up the rear came the special interest groups. At least this bunch was sincere; they had worked hard to elect Bill Clinton and he had bent over backwards to accommodate their desires. Agree with them or not, they really had something to celebrate.

 

But there is something sad and ridiculous about the milling mobs of shrill ultra-feminists, in-your-face gay militants, well-heeled homeless advocates, designer-attired environmentalists, and self-serving ethnic hucksters. As I mentioned to a lesbian on her way to an unofficial gay inaugural ball being held in—of all places—the National Press Club, “I’m an Armenian myself, but I don’t think I’d be particularly thrilled to spend an entire inaugural night in a ballroom crammed full of nothing but other Armenians.”

 

(Snip)