What's wrong with facing down furry critters?

National Post (Canada) ^ | Rex Murphy

[BillM]

It's been quite some time since Fess Parker -- coonskin cap on head and long rifle in hand -- half-sung, half-yodelled the great anthem of Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Parker played the legendary frontiersman/congressman Crocket both on TV and in a feature film. He was also one of a number of singers who sent the song about Crockett onto the hit parade of the 1950s more than once.

No question it's a song about a hero. We're told right in the first stanza that he was "born on a mountaintop," which is a pretty special way of arriving in the world -- or, for that matter, Tennessee. But the real stamp indicating that he's a hero-to-be comes in the third line stating that "he killed himself a bear when he was only three." Being able to handle yourself in the woods and face down the furry critters that live there is something Americans (and Canadians) have long recognized as a mark of character and competence.

Speaking of which, Sarah Palin shot a caribou on the recent episode of her Discovery Channel travelogue, Sarah Palin's Alaska. Evidently the sight of the downing assaulted the brain and sensibilities of one of Hollywood's princes, Aaron Sorkin -- the man who perpetrated the seven soporific and suffocatingly earnest seasons of The West Wing. May I note that, outside a forced viewing of Oprah wailing to Barbara Walters, modern television has no greater torment than any episode of The West Wing. Keep in mind that I've seen episodes of Geraldo At Large, so I'm setting the bar quite high here.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/What+wrong+with+facing+down+furry+critters/3962233/story.html#ixzz17oedyGHP

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

Think you,
I just played it and “He's the spirit of America” is correct.

I emailed a correction to the web site!