Blonde on Blonde: Libya, Liquor, and Loose Lips

Lis Wiehl kicked off this morning’s Blonde on Blonde with her buddy Deirdre Imus by wishing everybody a happy Ash Wednesday, even though she hadn’t been “smudged” yet. Though Imus definitely won’t be wearing any ash on his forehead today, he noted, “I have fallen in a couple of fireplaces in my life.”
 
Despite his storied past, Imus is still better off than pretty much anybody living in Libya, where protesters opposing longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi are being violently repressed by his regime. As such, several notable politicians, like Senators John McCain and John Kerry, support instituting an internationally-backed no-fly zone over Libya, so that Gaddafi cannot attack his people from the air.
 
Though a no-fly zone would purportedly be enforced for humanitarian reasons, Deirdre was weary. “It comes down to a matter of perception,” she said. “The perception never lands in our favor, even though our efforts are truly, a lot of the time, humanitarian.”
 
Why the U.S. needs to be involved at all in protecting Libyans, many of whom cheered when Pan Am flight 103 went down 22 years ago over Scotland at the hands of a Libyan hijacker, is beyond Imus. And don’t even get him started on the resemblance this scenario bears to Iraq.
 
“But on the other hand,” Lis jumped in. “People are dying every day, and you’re saying that’s just fine?”
 
Frustrated, Imus insisted that was not what he meant at all. “We’ve got people dying in this country everyday,” he pointed out, then added, maturely, “I hate you.”
 
The unrest in Libya bubbled to the surface in the wake of Egyptian demonstrators demanding—and receiving—the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, who had been in power for almost 30 years. Now faced with creating some semblance of democracy in their country, Egyptian women’s rights activists put together a “million women march” yesterday, during which a shouting match ensued when Egyptian men showed up and told the women, essentially, “Get back in the kitchen, and stay there.”
 
Sound familiar? It did to Deirdre. “That’s what you do to me!” she yelled at her husband. “And Wyatt does it now. I need a suffrage movement in my own home.”
 
Interestingly, in ancient Egypt women were quite literally treated as goddesses, and not the type Charlie Sheen hangs around with. Along those lines, the Wall Street Journal is catching some flack for publishing an article about parents who allow their underage children to drink alcohol, and try to teach them how to do so responsibly.
 
Since steam was practically coming out of Deirdre’s ears, Imus asked her if this was a worthy goal. “Not in our household!” she said, and highlighted the “rampant” alcoholism in this country.
 
Lis, the mother of two teenagers on whom she admittedly spies, obviously does not support feeding alcohol to underage kids. Yet she was able to rationalize why some parents might find it beneficial.
 
“If I can’t have any cookies because I’m on a diet,” she began, “And then there’s a big bag of cookies when I go outside my house, I’m going to stuff my face with those Oreos, because that was a forbidden treat.”
 
Told her example was “lame,” Lis was also accused of giving her kids drugs by allowing them to eat Doritos. Fearing things were about to get ugly between the two blondes, Imus moved on to the Supreme Court’s recent decision granting members of the Westboro Baptist Church the right to protest at military funerals.
 
Lis, an attorney, disagreed with the Court’s decision. “They’re fighting words,” she said of the Church’s protests, which often include harsh anti-gay rhetoric. As with shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, she observed, “fighting words” are an exception to the First Amendment’s freedom of speech guarantee.
 
Naturally, Deirdre disagreed with Lis.  “As disgusting and reprehensible as it is…they still have that right,” she said. But Lis would not be swayed.
 
“Fighting words incite violence,” she countered. “Like this show.”
 
-Julie Kanfer