Conservative bloggers and pundits may know nothing about film or film reviewing but one factoid that they cite as an article of faith is that critic Pauline Kael once expressed bafflement and exasperation over the election of Richard Nixon since nobody she knew voted for him.

Jonah Goldberg, 2007: "The late film critic Pauline Kael is reported to have said that Nixon couldn't have won because she didn't know anybody who voted for him."__

__ D. G. Myers, Commentary, October 2011: "But without descending into the snobbery of Pauline Kael’s wondering how Richard Nixon could possibly have been elected president since nobody she knew had voted for him, I wonder if the near-universal readership for Harry Potter (everyone but me, apparently) doesn’t prove, in fact, the decline of the public novel." PoliPundit, March 2012: "Obama’s biggest asset – and that of ultra-liberal politicians in general – is the perception that they are in the majority, and we isolated conservatives will be relegated to the ash heap of history. That perception is zealously protected by the Lying Liberal Media, who downplay stories that could puncture it. As New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael famously said after Richard Nixon won a 49-state victory, she didn’t know anyone who voted for Nixon." Some dope, Hot Air Green Room, September 2012: "Does Streisand seriously think that our anemic economic growth of less than 2%, $5 trillion in new debt, and chronic unemployment above 8% for over forty consecutive months is better? It’s either obliviousness or willful ignorance...something akin to what film critic Pauline Kael said after the 1972 presidential election – 'I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won. I don’t know anybody who voted for him.'"

Etc., and so on, chirp chirp.

Over the years I've seen the original factoid muddled to where it's Reagan, not Nixon, that Kael is said to be bemoaning, but the intention of the anecdote is the same: to show that Eastern seaboard elitists live in their own little perfumed cloud, divorced from true-grit reality.

Now let's turn things over to Stephen Silver at Technology Tell, who sets the record straight:

It’s election time, and with it comes the periodic return of one of my least favorite political talking points. It’s the notion that film critic Pauline Kael, in 1972 or at some indeterminate time afterwards, said that she couldn’t believe or understand how Richard Nixon won the election, because “no one I know voted for him.”

Now, I understand that a big part of the Republican political arsenal is to depict liberals and Democrats as elitist and out of touch, and one of the most efficient ways of doing so is by bashing Hollywood. Hollywood actors have a tendency to make statements about politics that are simultaneously lefty and snooty, and the right certainly loves to jump on it. During the early Bush Administration, Hollywood-bashing, in some quarters, was the primary argument for the war in Iraq.

In keeping with that, the supposed Kael quote is often trotted out, even as recently as this week.

But I have a huge problem with it, for several reasons: First, Kael never said it. Second, Kael is a giant of the form, one of the greatest writers on film in history. Her tremendous legacy is way, way bigger than one silly non-comment. Third, I’d venture to guess that there are as many Republicans as Democrats whose friends all voted for the same candidate. And fourth, I think history has shown that the friends of Kael’s who didn’t vote for Nixon had the right idea after all.

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 damning. 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.

It's true that if Pauline were alive she'd be mystified that anyone would want to vote for Mitt Romney. But that's not insularity, that's sanity.

[personal plug: my memoir Lucking Out, now available in paperback]