ITCHY BOTTOM! Andrew Sullivan on "Real Time"

From Slate.com

Was anyone except me and James Wolcott watching last Friday's hallucinatory season finale of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO? Maher's guests included Alan Simpson, the former Republican Senator from Wyoming, and Andrew Sullivan, the well-known gay conservative blogger who recently startled his readership by reluctantly endorsing Kerry. Let's skim over Simpson's baffling interview with Maher, in which the senator, who is pro-choice and pro-gay rights, railed at Maher for making people laugh before advancing the odd argument that Wyoming as a state is progressive on gay issues because "Matthew Shepard was killed in this state, and the people of this state were offended." We'll also fast-forward past Sullivan's frothing rage toward Noam Chomsky, who had appeared earlier on the show in a taped interview. Chomsky, Sullivan insisted, had bilked the country for "millions" by criticizing US policy on the academic lecture circuit. Are we to understand that Sullivan himself commands no fee for his speaking engagements?

But the true high point of Friday's Real Time was one of those moments that only live television can offer, more humiliating than Ashlee Simpson's lip-synching debacle on SNL, more mysterious than the bulge under Bush's jacket in the first debate. When the roundtable guests (who also included actor D.L. Hughley and former US representative Pat Schroeder) rose to shake hands and chat in the last few minutes of the show, why was Andrew Sullivan – there's no polite way to put this -- rubbing his own ass, in full view of the cameras and for what seemed like an eternity? (This screen capture fails to do justice to the sheer duration of the event.) Anyone who had ever been caught in a social blunder – picking their nose on the train, say – could only look on in horrified identification: imagine being caught on live TV fondling one's own tush! I know bloggers aren't known for their social graces, but what problem was Sullivan addressing with his not-so-furtive adjustments? Numb buns? Atomic wedgie? Or just nervous fidgeting? Real Time will be replaying on HBO throughout this week. I welcome reader speculation on Mr. Sullivan's dilemma. But please, people … keep it clean.


Dana Stevens (aka Liz Penn) writes on television for Slate and on film and culture for the High Sign.

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Thanks, Borstal. I actually watched the Maher show on "On Demand" last night, and found it as fascinating and bizarre as you did. (What was up with Simpson, suddenly invoking Mathew Shepherd and chastising Maher?)

But Sullivan was the odd centerpice of the show. His personal politics are all over the map now, shaking his finger at Maher for not understanding Those Who Understand Jesus, getting all runny inside about red state folk, most of whom would zealously pass laws to keep Andrew out of their neighborhoods, schools, and houses of worship--unless he's there to denounce whatever it was that make his bum need scratchin'. But then, Itchy Bottom might be the perfect name for the flip-flopping fop.

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Itchy Bottom is perfect. On Datalounge they call him Milky Loads, but that's a little crass for mixed company.

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Itchy bottom.

such a misleading thread title.

Updated On: 11/9/04 at 09:44 AM

think about it, hun. Every gay man on the board should get it right away.