The real quote comes from a speech Kael delivered at the Modern Language Association, on Dec. 28, 1972, as cited by the New York Times (Via Wikipedia):
“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”
Rather than showing out-of-touch insularity on Kael’s part, the quote actually shows Kael is perfectly aware of that insularity and is in fact making light of it. It also shows she’s perfectly aware that there are people out there in the world who don’t share her views, as if she hadn’t yet gleaned that when she was 53 years old in 1972. Or for that matter in the previous election, which was also won by Nixon.
Now this isn't the first time the Kael factoid has been debunked and I've noticed that some rightwing bloggers and columnists have begun hedging a bit by tossing in packing chips such as "allegedly," "perhaps apocryphally," and "attributed to" in their rehashing of this stale accusation, yet lord how they love to lean on this bogus rhetorical stand-by. Even some who are cognizant of the true quote in its original context contort themselves into saying that hey this only makes it more ****ing. Such as John Podhoretz, who argued: "it indicates that Kael was actually acknowledging her provincialism ('I live in a rather special world') and from its perch expressing her distaste for the unwashed masses with whom she sometimes had to share a movie theater. What this indicates is that, even then, liberal provincialism was as proud of its provincialism as any Babbitt." The comedy here is that Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary (just like his daddy before him), believes that he isn't provincial, plumped on his sinecured perch and using moldy phrases like "unwashed masses." I bet his pride could beat Pauline's around the block and then some.
