February 14, 2018

Cattily titled WaPo article about the wife of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is deflated by an embarrassing correction.

Emily Heil* writes "8 times Louise Linton tried to be relatable in her Elle interview." The correction is: "An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the magazine Louise Linton spoke with. It was Elle, not Vanity Fair."

I understand the urge to take a shot at Louise Linton....
“I’m just a regular girl, and I’m not perfect, but I’m trying my best,” insists Linton, a sorta-actress who grew up in a castle in Scotland and who has heretofore crafted a public persona that has been likened to definitely-not-average figures like Marie Antoinette and Cruella de Vil. (Her sins of public excess include tagging an Instagram picture of herself with an array of designer-label hashtags, then lashing out against a critic in a condescending rant. In another iconic photo op, she posed in designer duds alongside Mnuchin at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, flaunting a newly printed sheet of dollar bills with his name on them.)

So in this interview, Linton was clearly trying verrry hard to course-correct and convince people she is much more down-to-earth than she has previously indicated....
...  but you've got to make it look as though you're reading carefully and not just flailing impulsively.
_______________

* I had to squint at the third letter of the last name to make sure it wasn't an "L," which would have been funny. And it's not entirely impossible. I think it would be cool for an opinionated journalist to be named Emily Hell. And don't tell me "Hell" can't be a last name. There's Richard Hell.

47 comments:

rhhardin said...

If only there were a way to remember how to spell Mnuchin.

rhhardin said...

Good advice for actresses is keep your clothes on and don't talk unscripted.

Lots of ladies look a lot better nude than you do, and lots of people are smarter.

Wince said...

Hell, they should change the name of Elle magazine to Hell magazine.

Then it would be Emily Hell writing in Hell magazine.

FIDO said...

All hate all the time.

tcrosse said...

It's strange to write about the current fascist regime if your name is Heil.

rehajm said...

Thise sheets of dollar bills are cool. You can wrap small gifts for the kiddies in them and they love it.

I don’t see the problem with posing with them. Her husband’s signature is on them for fucks sake. Not like it was the sheet of 100s either.

Earnest Prole said...

Must we pick sides between the loathsome and awful Louise Linton and the loathsome and awful Emily Heil?

chickelit said...

"I had to squint at the third letter of the last name to make sure it wasn't an "L," which would have been funny."

Limeade

Blogger rhhardin said..."If only there were a way to remember how to spell Mnuchin."

There's a built-in mnemonic.

Wince said...

Never knew this: Clint Eastwood himself changed the name of Lago to HELL.

Ralph L said...

L. Linton had to speak to L magazine.

I approve of the L's in this post.

BarrySanders20 said...

Althouse says Emily can go to L.

Or Elle.

Fernandinande said...

Speaking of embarrassing, the leafy background of Obama portrait is a repeating computer generated pattern, which was painted over.

Fernandinande said...

http://www.unz.com/isteve/phun-with-photoshop/

Ann Althouse said...

"Speaking of embarrassing, the leafy background of Obama portrait is a repeating computer generated pattern, which was painted over."

Not embarrassing. It's an intentional photoshoppy look. The frank references to mass-production were pioneered by Andy Warhol.

It's also obvious that the portrait artists worked from photographs and that the Obamas did not sit for portraits in the old-timey way. A thousand artists could paint "portraits" of the Obamas. The special thing about an official portrait used to have to do with the person sitting there being examined by an artist with special skill at seeing the real person inside the face. In that sense of a portrait, there simply is none.

Curious George said...

Look at Emily Heil. Then look at Louise Linton. Now you know why Emily Heil hates Louise Linton.

Big Mike said...

Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

Birches said...

Mean Girls.

Fernandinande said...

Ann Althouse said...
Not embarrassing.


LOL.

It's an intentional photoshoppy look.

That must be why they added a few changes here and there to obfuscate the repeating pattern.

Don't worry, Obama and his six-fingered left hand are still glossily beautiful.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

Heil is actually a worse name than Hell, considering what happened in the middle of the twentieth century.

Quaestor said...

In that sense of a portrait, there simply is none.

I disagree. Accidently or with forethought Kehinde Wiley captured that constipated look quite well.

Left Bank of the Charles said...

There should be a good no true Scotswoman joke for Louise Linton here. Heil is low hanging fruit. But what if Heil has a child and names him Seig?

Left Bank of the Charles said...

The Elle interview has some great stuff. “I wasn’t thinking who I am. I am the wife of this person and I should act like the wife of this person.”

Robert Cook said...

I loved Richard Hell back in the 70s. He's responsible for much of the punk rock look of tattered clothes and short, chopped hair, (not the more clownish looks devised by the Brits). Malcolm McLaren came to New York in the mid-70s and briefly managed the New York Dolls in their last, dying days. While here, he saw Richard Hell performing with his first band Television at the then unknown club CBGB. McLaren was taken by Hell's self-made style and look. Later, when he had returned to England and was devising his idea to manage a band, he had Hell in mind for his lead singer, and asked Hell if he were interested. Hell said no, but McClaren went ahead anyway. He found John Lydon to be the singer for the band, and Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols were on their way! McLaren shaped the look of the Pistols, influenced by Hell's personal style at the time.

Robert Cook said...

BTW, Richard Hell's real name is Richard Meyers, and he hails from Kentucky.

Oso Negro said...

And the mention of Richard Hell brings to mind Johnny Thunders. Saw him so drunk at the Whisky a Go Go in 1980 that he couldn't tune his guitar.

BJM said...

This article is little more than gotcha mean girl journalism. One can imagine the same article if Mnuchin had a D after his name...glowing, gushy...she cooks! a fashionista!!...oh my loves dogs too!!! Squeee!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shorter version: more leftie propaganda.

tcrosse said...

I can imagine that in elementary school Mnuchin was called Munchkin. Kids are so cruel. Maybe that's Trump's nickname for him .

Yancey Ward said...

Mrs. Mnuchin has learned the first lesson in trying to woo the media in this country- don't be married to a Republican cabinet member.

The best advice I can giver her here- don't talk to the media- ever!

Wince said...

Not embarrassing. It's an intentional photoshoppy look. The frank references to mass-production were pioneered by Andy Warhol.

My first reaction was it's Monty Pythonesque, a Terry Gilliam cartoon.

Expected a large bare foot to come down and squash Obama.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Curious George has it right. I Googled Emily Heil first, and thought to myself "Well, she's not so bad, maybe she was prettier when she was younger."

Then I looked up Louise Linton. 9/10, easy - which means that for a lot of guys out there, she's a perfect 10 (not for me, I prefer larger breasts).

Steve Mnuchin is a lucky guy. That girl is gorgeous, and sounds pretty smart too.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

That's a pretty nifty castle.

Earnest Prole said...

The Elle interview has some great stuff. “I wasn’t thinking who I am. I am the wife of this person and I should act like the wife of this person.”

Here's the link.

Curious George said...

"tcrosse said...
I can imagine that in elementary school Mnuchin was called Munchkin. Kids are so cruel."

I had a client named Don Massengill. Mnuchin got off easy.

tcrosse said...

I had a client named Don Massengill. Mnuchin got off easy.

I went to High School with a girl named Gladys Schmuck, and to college with a girl named Harrianne Wiener. Massengill got off easy.

Curious George said...

"tcrosse said...
I had a client named Don Massengill. Mnuchin got off easy.

I went to High School with a girl named Gladys Schmuck, and to college with a girl named Harrianne Wiener. Massengill got off easy."

My son went to Junior High and High School with a girl named Eden Seamon. Gladys and Harrianne got off easy.

T J Sawyer said...

Estelle Hell, a retired school teacher listed in the Portland phone book, was not particularly tolerant of crank calls during the 1950s from eighth grade boys as I recall.

miklos000rosza said...

Richard Hell & the Voidoids' album BLANK GENERATION featured the immortal "Love Comes in Spurts." They featured Robert Quine on lead guitar, who later played with Lou Reed. Hell didn't do much else in music, but years later wrote a literate, interesting memoir of those years.

Nancy Reyes said...

Cruella de Ville? A bit dated aren't we?

William said...

I know that she's good looking. That's all I care to know about her. I have had similar disinterest in all the wives of Cabinet officers throughout my life. Can anyone name another Cabinet member's wife of the past one hundred years. This story will never get more clicks than Stormy Daniels.

wildswan said...

Mrs. Mnuchin seems like a fairly decent person bobbing about and being ducked in the tides and currents of DC. She's somebody Emily Hell might have liked - intermittently does like - but Emily sternly forces away these little spurts of human feeling like an anti-Semite horrified to find herself liking a Jew.

ObeliskToucher said...

“Can anyone name another Cabinet member's wife of the past one hundred years.”

Robert Dole and Mitch McConnell?

Big Mike said...

@Obelisk, the gentlemen you named are (or were) senators. But I lived in Washington during Dick Nixon’s administration, and no one who was around then can forget Martha Mitchell, wife of the AG.

Yancey Ward said...

I went to school with a guy named Isaac Dick.

Ok, I made that up.

Hieronymus Anonymous said...

Maximilian Hell was a Hungarian astronomer and Jesuit priest .

Lewis Wetzel said...

tcrosse said...
I can imagine that in elementary school Mnuchin was called Munchkin. Kids are so cruel. Maybe that's Trump's nickname for him .

In fact "Munchkin" is Trump's nickname for Mnuchin, but Trump doesn't know that it is a nick name.

veni vidi vici said...

I find it remarkable that the Elle writer and editors can keep a straight face when they allow their ultra high-tone luxury brand pimping publication to cast aspersions like the reference to the "warped lavishness" of the Trump administration.

Uh, isn't "warped lavishness" the goddam business that Elle is in? I mean, the slathering of banner ads with scantily clad skinny models wearing expensive leather boots, jewelry and so forth only comes across as a style guide from which Melania and Louise might occasionally gain a pointer or two to certain components of their haberdashery.

Why do the Elle journo's hate themselves so?

MarkJ said...

"Speaking of embarrassing, the leafy background of Obama portrait is a repeating computer generated pattern, which was painted over."

I'm inclined to think Obama himself was a repeating computer generated pattern, which was painted over.