"Hmmmmmmm. No sir, I don't like it."
Posted on 05/04/2005 5:59:04 AM PDT by OESY
I'll get to First Lady Laura Bush's bawdy stand-up routine in a minute. But I want to highlight a related new book out about how young conservatives are shaking up the dominant liberal media culture. It's called "South Park Conservatives." My name is listed on the cover along with many other (mostly) right-leaning pundits, websites, and bloggers, but I must confess to having mixed feelings about the honor.
The best-selling book's author, Brian C. Anderson of the Manhattan Institute, writes a fun, breezy survey documenting the rise of talk radio, FOX News, the Internet, conservative publishing, and college Republican activism. Anderson's chapter on the success of conservative talk radio and the abysmal failure of liberal Air America to replicate it is incisive. Another chapter on the blogosphere (alone worth the price of the book) gives readers a useful history of the explosion of news, opinion, and political websites that have smashed the left-wing media monopoly.
But how did such a wide-ranging list of individuals and organizations -- Anderson's book cover includes the names of conservative-leaning Internet pioneer Matt Drudge and center-left journalist Mickey Kaus, the libertarian Tech Central Station, the culturally conservative WorldNetDaily, political upstart Arnold Schwarzenegger and political chameleon Andrew Sullivan, plus Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and myself, along with a feature blurb from Jonah Goldberg -- all get lumped under the umbrella term "South Park Conservatives"?
Anderson argues that Comedy Central's cartoon series "South Park" embodies the "fiercely anti-liberal comedic spirit" of the "new media" from Kaus to Coulter. The cartoon, he writes, reflects a "post-liberal counterculture" that is "particularly appealing to the young, however much it might offend older conservatives."
Well, I'm 34 and no fan of "South Park." I have many good friends who are indeed huge boosters of the show, but I find that the characters' foul language overwhelms any entertainment I might otherwise derive from the show's occasional, right-leaning iconoclastic themes.
"South Park" may be "politically incorrect." But "politically incorrect" is not always a synonym for "conservative."
My discomfort with "South Park's" increasingly mainstream vulgarity is not a matter of nitpicking. We're not just talking about a stray curse word here or there. As liberal New York Times columnist Frank Rich points out, "South Park" "holds the record for the largest number of bleeped-out repetitions (162) of a single four-letter expletive in a single television half-hour." That's probably about the same number of profanities uttered at John Kerry's infamous New York City celebrity fundraiser last summer, which Republicans rightly condemned for its excessive obscenities.
Rich is wrong about most things, but he's painfully on target in noting the incongruous pandering now taking place by some in the cool-kids clique on the Right. Conservatives criticize Hollywood relentlessly, but as Rich notes, "the embarrassing reality is that they want to be hip, too."
Which brings me to Mrs. Bush. She demonstrated at the celebrity-studded White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend that you can entertain without being profane. Most of her humor was just right: Edgy but not over the edge. But her off-color stripper and horse jokes crossed the line. Can you blame Howard Stern for feeling peeved and perplexed? And let's face it: If Teresa ("I'm cheeky!") Heinz Kerry had delivered Mrs. Bush's First Lady Gone Mildly Wild routine, social conservative pundits would be up in arms over her bad taste and lack of dignity.
The First Lady resorting to horse masturbation jokes is not much better than Whoopi Goldberg trafficking in dumb puns on the Bush family name. It was wholly unnecessary.
Self-censorship is a conservative value. In a brilliant commencement speech at Hillsdale College last year, Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner called on his audience to resist the coarsened rhetoric of our time: "If we are to prevail as a free, self-governing people, we must first govern our tongues and our pens. Restoring civility to public discourse is not an option. It is a necessity."
Lighten up, you say? No thanks. I'd rather be a G-rated conservative who can only make my kids giggle than a "South Park"/"Desperate Housewives" conservative whose goal is getting Richard Gere and Jane Fonda to snicker. Giving the Hollyweird Left the last laugh is not my idea of success.
Woah!
Your girl rocks!
I play a lot of chess. Can't get the Kid interested.
And NO, I did NOT know that panty-hose can be used in that manner.
Thank you!
(Knowledge is power)
I guess your mind is where your mind is.
Thousands of people have heard this joke without jumping to the masturbation association. And it is funny when it is taken as it was meant to be taken.
It is an old "dumb city slicker" joke. It has been around forever.
I do think that self respecting country people would tell this joke at Rotary or other meetings.
I have to say this. The idea that The First Lady told a "horse masturbation joke" came out of Michelle's own mind and others. If you were to attempt to milk a horse, I would expect that you would scan the horse, searching for udders and finding none you would conclude that something was amiss in Texas. Laura Bush never said or even implied that President Bush went any farther than that.
Sadly, I had a sister who loved "Gilligan".
I feel bad for you about "Lassie", though.
Your comments are spot on. Some people seem like they just have to color things in a way to make them nasty.
Actually, I jumped to the masturbation association and thought that made it funnier....
John Wayne made a joke with the punch line "Maam, you ain't gonna get milk out of that kind of goat" in a g rated movie in the 60's or 70's.
Uh, when someone is viciously attacked because of what they thought the joke meant, it tends to set up a situation where the possible meanings of the joke are covered in graphic detail.
I'm sorry, but because of the manner in which the joke was timed and written, the writer, IMO, clearly meant for there to be a double inferrence. Your opinion may vary - but quit blaming those who say there is a double inferrence - they are not the ones who wrote or presented the joke.
i agree. way over the top. but to be honest .. i saw it from both sides. maybe you didn't, but i did.
i was on a heated post a week or so ago.. and someone who was agreeing with me resorted to name calling with another poster... i asked him to not do that- openly.. to take a breath, but i asked politely.... and he did.. even apologizing to the other poster. we could all be a little more polite. ALL of us.
I agree.
That joke gets told all of the time at 4-H events.
Most 4-H people are some sort of Christian, tend to be moral, come from intact families.
But the clubs are kind of rugged by nature and so is some of the humor.
(You have not lived until you have been to a "Gelding Party"! )
If you'll FReepmail me privately with a list of all the ones above and beyond your reading level, I'll gladly define them for you.
My employed logic annihilated your post, and you threw a tantrum to cover it up. Then you threw another tantrum to cover up your first tantrum.
You have a marvelously rich and inventive inner fantasy life. Comes in handy on many an evening, doubtless.
Sorry I so thoroughly kicked your ass so early in the morning.
Oh, please. I've experienced greater terror, online, scrolling through the postings on knittingtipsforgrandmothers.com .
Friends?
ALL fellow FReepers are my friends. Even clueless and hopelessly overmatched ones, such as yourself. :)
"Hmmmmmmm. No sir, I don't like it."
And the point is, if the woman is reaching under that kind of a goat, what would she be trying to milk? It doesn't mean she was deliberately trying to do that to the goat - but the double inferrence is there.
Look, folks can agree to disagree on this. But posters are getting viciously attacked for differing. And that's just wrong.
If the joke was the only one of its type, then maybe you'd have a point. But the writer also tossed in comments about Desperate Housewives and going to the Chippendales and dollar bills. So in that context, it is a reasonable assumption that the male horse joke was also meant by the writer to have a double inferrence with a risque interpretation.
Truth be told, I'm not sure I would recognize a fan belt. So I married a woman who brought her own tool kit.
Ummm....did General George S. Patton get Washington's memo? If he did, he certainly didn't seem to give a flying f*ck. Does that make Patton a bad leader???? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I even 'heard' the horse in that voice that he has on that show. :o)
Yep and in this case I think the dirty is in the mind of the beholder.
I just like tweaking the tersely hemorrhoidal.
Clever you!
:-)
No, you assumed I did.
susie
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