Tina Brown: "I'm Israel"



(image via maryellenmark)

Granted, we kind of went ga-ga over Tina Brown on our most recent rambling, but Tina -- dahling -- don't let it all get to your head (The Corsair pops a bottle of the fizzy). You'll remember the PEN literary gala where the controversial essayist Gore Vidal declared Tina to be one of the great editors of our time. In Vanessa Grigoriades' profile in this week's New York Magazine, Tina, clearly punch drunk on her own Kool-Aid, overstates things wildly. In the aftermath of Gore Vidal:

"'Before the speech, I told Gore, 'Please don’t say anything about the Jews and Israel,' she says, leaning a hand on the back of Leslie Stahl’s chair. 'Then he gets up, and I’ve become Israel.' She laughs. 'I’m Israel!'"

Oh Tina, desist: No you are the State of Israel. Brown is not an aggressive, nuclearized, unilateral player in the Media Theater under constant existential duress; that distinction goes to Anna Wintour (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). Rather, Tina Brown is more the sociable rogue nation in constant search of beneficial multilateral alliances.

If we were inclined to compare "Brownie" to a beseiged geographical location she strikes us more the wacky, Marxian (Brothers') regime -- Fredonia.