Last week I went to my first Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington. It was everything I expected it would be—bad hair, liberal mudslinging, awkward jokes, and sleazy sexual innuendo. And that was just Joe Biden’s speech. Otherwise, I had a blast—in the Fox suite I chatted with Rep. Michele Bachmann about health care and Catholicism, and Alisyn Camerota about the disturbing appeal of the Real Housewives franchise. Ran into Ed Schultz, Tracy Byrnes, Steve Hayes, Megyn Kelly and Harris Faulkner, and tried my best not to drool on Charles Krauthammer. The take-away? Never wear a strapless dress—my only concern all night was trying not to flash Roger Ailes.
I stayed in over the weekend to dry out my liver and catch up on some work, and happened to catch the creepiest program ever to air on television. No, not “Hardball” or “My Two Dads,” it was a documentary on BBC America called “My Fake Baby.” It followed a number of women who collect frighteningly lifelike baby dolls and dress them up, stroller them around, and show them off to their friends as if they were actual babies. One woman explained the urge as follows: “My children are older now, so I don’t get the attention anymore. Now I get to be the mother of a newborn all the time.” Some babies—called “reborns”—come with warming mechanisms, so the baby feels disturbingly alive. Some come with breathing mechanisms so their pink plastic chests rise and fall. And—not kidding—some come with small scratches on their face. Because, you know, sometimes you scratch your baby’s face. One woman, waiting for her newborn to be delivered to her (in a box, by a UPS man), says nervously, “Oh dear, this is a long labor.” Much as I wanted to, I could not turn it off. (Relatedly, watch Lemondrop’s fantastic slideshow of creepy dolls here.)
The health care debate totally bogarted my weekend—which was unfortunate because it was finally sunny out in New York City. But in between all the hair-pulling and name-calling on the cable news shows, I did happen to catch Cornell’s ass-whooping of Temple in the NCAA tournament, and its blowout against Wisconsin. I have no delusions of grandeur about my alma mater—which proudly produces more pale and pasty chemical engineers than it does future all-stars—but it would be pretty awesome if Cornell screwed up Obama’s bracket.
I also caught the Bristol race—and in an absolutely shocking turn of events, some guy named Jimmie Johnson came out of nowhere to win the checkered flag.
I read Kathryn Lopez’s account of the chaos among Catholics on health care reform in National Review Online. Nuns love the bill, the Bishops hate it, and surprise, surprise, there’s no consensus among Catholic voters. This rift is underscored of course by the fact that 56 percent of Catholics voted for Obama—the most progressive pro-choice president we’ve ever had—despite their insistence that life issues are the foundation of the faith. To say that Catholics need to do some soul-searching is a gross understatement.
Following up on that, Pelosi said in a speech last week that the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, who taught us both, enthusiastically backed the bill. This makes sense—because while the steely-eyed nuns may have been glaring disapprovingly at our too-short hemlines, our health teachers were touting the intellectual superiority of liberalism and feminism. They didn’t bother teaching us abstinence—sex ed at my Catholic high school was merely “use a condom, girls.”
State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz wants to ban salt from New York City restaurants. Future headline: “Mario Batali arrested for battery.”
In order to glean some inspiration for this diary, I flipped through some of my old ones. Turns out, my observations then were just as shallow, self-indulgent, and absurd as they are today. Here are some highlights—in my defense, I was 11:
- April 7, 1990: “Me and Heather made a teen mag called TEEN FLASH. It’s awesome!”
- May 14, 1990: “Today I had band. There is a song called ‘Especially for Clarinets.’ Mr. Alan said that he might just have me and Nichole do it as a duet. So we decided to call it ‘Especially for Sarah and Nichole.
- April 26, 1990: “For my evening jog tonight, I jogged 2 miles! Me and mom split a crepe at TCBY. It was good—only 221 calories!”
- Sept 3, 1990: “Today I went over Heather’s house after chores and we did a New Kids on the Block museum. It was awesome. After that we went to see Ghost. It was the best movie I have ever seen.”
In another 20 years, I wonder if I’ll say of this diary, “In my defense, I was 30.”
S.E. Cupp is co-author of “Why You’re Wrong About The Right,” (Simon & Schuster, June 2008). Her second book, “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity“ comes out in April 2010. She is a columnist for the New York Daily News and a regular guest on “Hannity,” “Larry King Live,” “Fox & Friends,” “Geraldo,” “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld,” and others.