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Today's advantage in the Susan Estrich-Michael Kinsley feud goes to Kinsley. Last week he informed the USC professor that she was no longer welcome on the Times opinion pages, and today the lead piece splashed atop the op-ed page is by her ex-husband, fellow USC professor Martin Kaplan. Oh, the piece is about lying in Hollywood.
Meanwhile, it appears that Estrich's blog has not been updated for several days. She's wrong, by the way, about the editor of the Orange County Register being a woman. Most of the reaction I've heard around town about her venting at Kinsley disparages Estrich for raising his health as a debate point. Now reading down to the end of her blog (under the headline "ONE LAST CHANCE BEFORE I GO PUBLIC…") I see that she is the first writer to go public with innuendo about Mayor Jim Hahn's wife. I wonder how she will defend crossing that line, putting gossip like that in an email to Kinsley then posting it on her blog.
* Also commenting: Eric Alterman: "Really, insisting that Kinsley’s Parkinson’s is affecting his ability to see the world Estrich’s way is just about as low as a person could go, though her anti-feminist swipe at Arianna may have been the previous record"...Heather Mac Donald: "Estrich’s insane ravings against the Times cap a month that left one wondering whether the entry of women into the intellectual and political arena has been an unqualified boon."
** Estrich's blog, latimesbias.org, has morphed into a site that tallies the gender and locale of contributors to the LAT opinion pages. As for as I can tell, there is no link to the former emails and blog entries.