Was Nixon the one? Or was it Ronnie? We were startled to read an apparent factual error in an otherwise stellar admonishment by our adored Tom Wolfe to his fellow New Yorkers to step out of their Pauline Kael bubble and talk to some red staters. He seems to have gotten it wrong re that fabled Pauline Kael quotation -- the one we're forever citing here -- about how none of her friends voted for the Republican candidate, so how come there was a landslide.
We've Googled "pauline kael nixon reagan" and found both Tricky Dick and The Gipper plugged into the quotation. 'Stumbled onto some fun articles along the way, like this one in a FrontPage article of two years back by David Harsanyi (plus ca change):
"How could such a destructive man be so popular with the American people?" singer Barbra Streisand asks about George W. Bush's popularity. After all, she didn't vote for him. This arrogant mind-set is reminiscent of theater critic Pauline Kael's reaction to Richard Nixon's landslide presidential victory over George McGovern in 1972" "How can that be?" she supposedly said. "No one I know voted for Nixon."
Another Google find, commenter John at BrothersJuddBlog -- referring specifically toTom Wolfe's quotation -- says Nixon's the one. Some say the quotation itself is apocryphal. Anybody out there got definitive evidence one way or the other?
I too was quite surprised to see Tom Wolfe mentioning Reagan. Every time I've ever seen this quote from Kael it's been about Nixon. It's certainly more plausible: I don't think anyone expected anything other than a fairly comprehensive defeat for Carter in 1980.
Posted by: David Gillies | November 20, 2004 at 04:48 PM
Yes. It troubles me that Tom Wolfe's fact checkers may not be any better than Dan Rather's.
Posted by: Sissy Willis | November 20, 2004 at 04:54 PM