Posted on 07/26/2004 5:58:30 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
I was a little surprised when I heard that, less than one week after being booed off the premises in Las Vegas for calling Michael Moore a truth-spreading "American patriot", Linda Rondstadt has repeated the offense. At a Thursday evening concert in Livermoore, California, Rondstadt had almost finished without incident, when she returned to the stage and once again dedicated a cover of "Desperadoes" to Michael Moore to plug his "documentary", Fahrenheit 9/11. Slightly less rowdy than the Aladdin Hotel crowd (who hurled drinks at Rondstadt posters and demanded refunds), upwards of 100 concert-goers pointedly walked out.
After my initial incredulity ("Do those liberal-activist celebrities never learn?"), I considered that it would take far more than a hostile audience to change my political convictions, if they can be changed at all. So in the interest of fairness, I attempted to visualize myself in Linda Rondstadt's shoes. I couldn't do it.
First of all, there is not, in my awareness, any film that would suffice as a right-wing equivalent to Fahrenheit 9/11. That fact alone might tell us something. But not to be so easily deterred, I decided to just make one up. It wouldn't be hard: pick a Democrat President, then imagine the most atrocious falsehoods fringe right-wingers might have said about him. I apparently made a mistake in selecting Bill Clinton, since I had a most difficult time imagining a scandalous accusation against him that wouldn't have actually been true.
Suppose, however, that a hateful right-winger had dreamed up a "documentary" on how Bill Clinton had sold all of the United States' nuclear secrets to China to pay for his campaign. Then, while the communist Chinese built a massive nuclear arsenal and aimed it our way, Bill Clinton knew about it all the time and did nothing. Never mind that there was no evidence for such claims; let's just pretend that some conservative nut-job made them anyway. Ask any Democrat who would best play the role of that nut-job, and the first name out of their mouth would be "Ann Coulter!"
Now that I have me a documentary-making right-winger, (Ann Coulter and her film...we'll call it Chinagate '96,), let's suppose I was convinced that she was a truth-telling hero. Further, I believed that, even though it was contradicted by facts, the film had to be worthy of recommending because at least it bashed that reprehensible President Clinton.
Okay, now it’s concert night. I've completed my impressive performance in Las Vegas, before my (I thought) adoring fans, and I come out to perform my last song. Before I begin, I wistfully dedicate my performance to Ann Coulter, a "great American patriot" who is "spreading the truth". The crowd begins to boo...
But wait.
While virtually everyone on the left considers Ann Coulter a hatemongering, right-wing extremist, she's not a college dropout (unlike Michael Moore). Coulter has a law degree from the University of Michigan Law School, is an attorney and author of three New York Times bestsellers. While she may be over the top, she's doesn't make up bizarre stories like a Bush family connection with Saudi Arabia, or Bush having previous knowledge of impending September atrocities. And Bill Clinton had so many real scandals she didn't need to concoct imaginary ones. Therefore, Chinagate '96 would have never happened, because, though Ann Coulter despises Bill Clinton, she's intellectually honest. Liberal comparisons between Coulter and Michael Moore are laughable.
Even if she had made that libelous movie about Clinton, I wouldn't be out promoting it, if for no other reason except that it's simply not true. Facts are facts. There aren't "two sides" to facts. Therefore, those who blatantly contradict them are lying extremists. I wouldn't even call Michael Moore a qualified "liberal"...he's a lying extremist who happened to open his mouth on politics this time. Logic follows that if you embrace a lying extremist as a truth-telling patriot, you might be an lying extremist as well. Or I guess, in your mind, you'd be a truth-telling patriot. Which is why I'm going to stop trying to imagine myself in Linda Rondstadt's shoes. They just won't fit me.
* * * *
David Sessions is a sophmore journalism/political science student from Fairfield, Texas. He hosts his own website, David-Sessions.com, where his columns appear. He also regularly contributes to The Washington Dispatch, OpEds.com, and his hometown newspaper, the Freestone County Times. He can be reached at davidthereporter@yahoo.com.
Ping for an editorial from a fellow in your neck of the woods...
"I Can't Fit Into Linda's Shoes"
.......Linda's new portly stature requires her to wear Michael Moore's shoes now.
Unfortunately the age differential is such that any reference to the "China Syndrome", a movie about a nuclear meltdown, might have been too obscure.
Still, when it comes to Bill Clinton we could do the same "play on title" that Moore did and come up with "Vagina Syndrome"!
Egad, that photo of the bloated one talking into Univision's Channel 33 microphone...
she looks like a ringer for that crazy Chinese lady on FOX's "Mad TV".
Bump!
Good article..
So how much is a throw your drink at Linda ticket? If it's less than $50, I'd consider it a bargain.
Pretty soon she'll think she's at a reversed Gallgher show!
Chuck Berry stole Michael Moore's panties!!!!!!!!!!!
Breaking on Drudge?
[Pictures courtesy of Schlock Mercenary, and apropos of nothing.]
20 "I"'s sprinkled with some 'my's' and 'myself' does not make for a good editorial. It's truly sophomore.
It's a stand-up triple. Nice job, Mr. Sessions.
Um, that's called "first person". One is allowed to write that way--it is correct.
But style points aside, I thought his good insight was the approach of trying to imagine a conservative supporter behaving like Linda--and how that leads inevitably to a compromise of the conservative principle of honesty, so that a conservative Linda Rondstadt is not possible.
It takes practice, but writers can get their points across without ever using the word "I".
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