Each week, one of us is lucky to have the opportunity to call up big New York City magazine and newspaper editors and shoot the breeze. Remnick! Graydon! Keller! What a job! But whenever he brags to friends about it, it never really goes over well. They either don’t know or don’t care.
This all changed a few weeks ago when the reporter spoke to Andrea Mitchell, the NBC News veteran. After casually telling one of our mutual friends, James, that there was an interview with Andrea Mitchell, he lost it.
On Gchat: “5:31 PM James: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Followed by: “it just boggles the mind that andrea mitchell knows who you are. this makes me giddy.”
We talked about James’ overreaction, and then we realized that we were a bit star-struck, too. Was there something to this? Was there something about Andrea Mitchell that melted the gay man’s hardened heart?
Sure, there’s Rachel Maddow and that wry smile, there’s Anderson Cooper and his silver foxiness, but Andrea … she’s got something else. But what was it?
We were pretty sure it had something to do with her performance at the very end of last year’s Republican convention, when she appeared completely unfazed by the avalanche of red, white and blue balloons pouring over her as she reported from the floor. Endearing, tenacious, resilient!
We decided to take a sample of some of our friends. We sent them an IM that went something along the lines of: “Andrea Mitchell: Secretly a gay icon?”
“I do love her! She’s so sassy,” said our friend Chris.
“I’ve always been more of an Eleanor Clift man myself,” said Adam, referring to the Newsweek writer and weekly McLaughlin Groupie. “There’s something to be said for gays and Sunday morning political talk shows, though.”
“I like her,” said Rick of Andrea. “She’s the Golden Girls rolled into one: the body of Sophia, the sassiness of Dorothy and probably a sex kitten like Blanche, and most likely from the Midwest, like Rose.”
Well, for the record, she’s from New York, but sex kitten? We’re betting yes. In an interview with Time in 2005, she was asked, “What’s your pet name for [hubby Alan Greenspan]?” She responded: “I can tell you it’s not Mr. Chairman.”
Yow!
We continued to test our theory. We went to her official NBC News biography online, and tucked at the bottom of the page we found a link to her … MySpace page. We clicked, we browsed and we reached the comments section. It was filled with comments from adoring fans, but more than a few of them suspiciously had a whole lot of gayface.
One comment came from DJ EDDIE KAY on Dec. 31 at 3:11 p.m. “Hi Andrea! :- ) Wishing you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year! Thank you for the years of entertainment!”
We wrote him a note and he gave us a call, and … score! He’s a friend of Dorothy and a big old lover of Andrea!
“I just get this impression from her,” he said, searching for the words. “She always looks flawless.”
Then he told us a story. “The thing that stands out most, someone was talking to her once and made a comment—and this was before the election, when things were getting nasty—and someone was talking to her about the economy and he mentioned her husband! They’re, like, ‘You know your husband would know more about that.’ And he was so catty about it! And then she was all, she, like, maintained her composure and snapped, ‘Don’t bring my husband into this!’ I can’t remember the exact works, but she went there.”
Did she ever. We reached out to more people, and we got another call! This time it came from a 28-year-old gay man from Dallas named—wait for it—Wence Woolridge. He told us that he wasn’t even sure who Andrea Mitchell was, but …
“I actually saw her profile on another gay guy’s MySpace and I saw her picture and I was just drawn to it,” he said, as we began salivating. “I can’t say why, but I just instantly added her. I never really heard of her before and I can’t say I really know who she is. I just went for it.”