Alexandra Steigrad of Women's Wear Daily is a fan of Lawrence O'Donnell: "O’Donnell’s circuitous, introspective ramblings off the air, while profound, contrast with the often cutting and incisive style of his on-air questioning. And it’s that elegant, well-groomed O’Donnell who masterfully navigated himself to near the top of MSNBC’s ratings by invoking the wrath of the right-wing media sensation Beck."
O'Donnell apparently dresses well for a self-admitted socialist (see Morning Joe), "clad in a black suit, light blue shirt and charcoal textured silk tie by Dolce & Gabbana, Tod’s loafers and Seize sur Vingt socks." Sound expensive? Yep. The blog The Cable Game did the research:
For those not up on O'Donnell's level, Seize Sur Vingt is a store--the French words mean "16 over 20," and refers to a good score on a test--that gets a nice plug, along with other pricey brands, such as Tod's loafers and Dolce & Gabbana neckties in Steigrad's puffy WWD profile. Since TCG had never heard of Seize Sur Vingt, she looked it up: Here's some info about it, tucked away on Prince Street in the ultra-trendy SoHo district...
In other words, OK, O'Donnell might be a leftwing socialist, but to the chattering classes, he's their kind of socialist, the kind who uses left-wing ideology as a way of putting down ordinary Americans, as opposed to lifting them up. New York, Boston, and San Francisco are full of those kind of leftists, who use their intellectual and cultural hauteur--in spite of their professed ideology, they always seem to have plenty of money--to lord it over everyone who isn't as smart as they are, or at least as they claim to be. You know, like, say, Arianna Huffington, Donny Deutsch, and so many others who lurk around MSNBC."
Add to that the Dolce & Gabbana ties retail for $105-145 online, and the Tod's loafers sell online at their website for $525. O'Donnell might get some of this as designer swag -- but who would see his fancy shoes and socks from behind the desk?
O'Donnell smugly suggests to his WWD fan that he's not as high in the talker pantheon as Rush Limbaugh...yet: “I understand how that happens,” he said. “I don’t think he’s the devil. I understand why people hate him for it. I understand why they hate me. There’s a way to avoid being hated — I can do the f--ing weather."
PS: The WWD story has this unintentionally hilarious claim by MSNBC boss Phil Griffin, once again saying MSNBC isn't biased like Fox. It's "based in fact."
"Fox is an ideology. They have a sensibility that goes beyond just what is going on out there — the way they select their stories, the points of view they take, the talking points. We don’t send out a note every day telling people what to say,” said MSNBC’s Griffin. Late last year, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” criticized MSNBC for being the liberal Fox News.
“We’re not the anti-Fox,” Griffin said. “People like to position us that way but we do something entirely different…our goal is that we’re based in fact.”
