A Little of the Old In and Out

In: Liberals as clear-eyed realists and Neoconservatives as otherworldly waifish dreamers. Who would have thought that it would be the nuance-friendly liberal internationalism to counter the naive radical idealism of the Vulcans in the Bush administration. Who flipped the script? Kerry looks positively manly compared to the doe-eyed lilliputian Paul Wolfowitz.

Out: Jennifer Garner. Readers: we must stop Jennifer Garner! She is going to conquer the world if we don't. I mean it. Trust my Nostradamus-like media crystal Ball! She is now chatting up her Daredevil spin-off, Electra, which is sure to put comic book geeks in their seats.

People: Her dimples are the mark of the beast. There she was at the Nicolodeon Kids awards, and there she was, she has her own fucking CIA web page, and in "13 Going on 30" - Jennifer Garner plays a 13-year-old who wakes up a 30-year-old woman in Gary Winick's "Big" knockoff.

Stop her, please, stop her!

In: The great foreign policy question of our day is how can the US military response to the Fallujah nightmare be effective, but not aid the foces of chaos before the June 30th handoff to the Iraqi council?

Similarly, in the fashion world, the great question of the day is: have you gotten over Tom Ford leaving Gucci?

Shallow? Fo' shizzle, cornbread, but we need our levity in these dark days of the tough slough of war, so, to lighten the load, here's my Ode To Tom Ford, anyhoo: "He styled/ For the confident, sassy woman/ Those who will not give me the time of day/ Lots of python ... and fox/ Glofying the slim sillhouette, Old Tom/ Was it the Fall of '96, when I first fell in love with a woman wearing your pencil skirts?/ You who showed me the sexiness of coats/ It's all about the fox stole, Mr. Ford/ We'll miss you."

Out: Alcazar as metaphor. Alcazar, the high point of Moorish art, stands today as the metaphor for the Western Civilization-Muslim debate that now takes the form, tragically, of bomb diplomacy. The spectacular 16-arch structure was created by the Romans and finished by the Moors. Spain popular opinion was almost completely against the War in Iraq, but because of conservative opportunists, they are at the front lines in a terrorist battle with a North African rogue al Quaeda element intent to reclaim Spain after 10 centuries. Very sad, this: Alcazar as a metaphor of the possible.

In: Hell. Jennifer Garner notwithstanding, Helloboy is number one at the box office, topping the passion of Jesus. And, according to the Old Gray Lady, Drea de Matteo, hipster, the irritable bowel syndrome having almost-cheater with Tony, is down with Mephistopheles, " her cellphone rings with a Charlie Daniels Band tune ('The Devil Went Down to Georgia')"

Out: Speaking of Beelzebub, Henry Kissinger is out. The Desolate One, Henry (his friends call him bubbles), was on Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer (a wolf among wolves) yesterday. And I, armed with some strong Kenyan blend coffee laced with Cutty Sark (my medicine), watched Henry Kissingass.

Obfuscating, reconfiguring common sense into lies and complex feints, Henry -- via satellite from his Kent, Connecticut home, in front of a satanic burgundy and scarlet cubist backdrop -- was in rare form. The original hellboy is definitely out.

In: Polarization. A nation divided. One can almost imagine a New Yorker cartoon. Two urbane sketches are standing in front of a complicated modernist painting. The caption? "You will see what you want to see, depending on whether you were for or against the war in Iraq."