Why I'm not a 'South Park Conservative', by Michelle Malkin

Townhall.com ^ | May 4, 2005 | Michelle Malkin

[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.

[cubreporter]

OF COURSE NOT! But...this is not in that same vein.

[Sam Cree]

In all honesty, I think that the joke did imply that W would mistakenly do to the horse what's being suggested. For a second, before he got a frosk in the pisk from the horse. But that's what makes it so funny!

Joking about something isn't the same as saying that it's something we should all be doing, either - then it wouldn't be humerous.

I have a feeling that the joke is a lot older than the 50-60 years it's getting credit for.

Laura went up in my estimation, she's a real person.

[RushCrush]

Sometimes I think the people who claim to be the Uber Conservatives are really just the Uber Repressed Horny.

[Celtjew Libertarian]

The General is sorry to be informed that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice hitherto little known in our American Army is growing into fashion. He hopes that the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it and that both they and the men will reflect that we can little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our army if we insult it by our impiety and folly. Added to this it is a vice so mean and low without any temptation that every man of sense and character detests and despises it.

--George Washington

Was that order before or after he encountered General Charles Lee, retreating from Monmouth Court House?

[tiamat]

cubreporter wrote:

Yep and in this case I think the dirty is in the mind of the beholder.

---

For the loudest, it very often IS.

[brytlea]

Oh, that would make me blush!
susie

[HairOfTheDog]

But my reply to you was specifically regarding your 'slippery slope' argument that if we allow this, our first lady will only get cruder and cruder. I was reminding you that she was taking us back in time, to a joke that was allowed in a g rated movie in the mid sixties. Point is, such double inferrence, artfully phrased, isn't wrong. Good grief, man, is our society so uptight that the mere inference that biology exists and there are both male and female animals, and heaven forbid confusion ever happen over touching one of the wrong sex is filthy? If the first lady makes this joke does anyone have to make the logical conclusion that our president both make the mistake ~and~ both he and the horse enjoyed it?

[Dashing Dasher]

Here Here!

Excellent post - and I agree with everything you said.

[JCEccles]

It's a good thing you got the reference. Now i don't have to dispatch Killer Kadogan over to "refresh" your memory with flying butt pliers. ;-)

[dano1]

I agree with Malkin 100%.

Also, some of those old and tired. "First prize, 3 day vacation. Second prize, 10 day vacation". Give me a break. Who hasn't heard that joke before?

[dirtboy]

OF COURSE NOT! But...this is not in that same vein.

Sure, whatever. As long as the Bush Admin stays two steps behind the liberals as they coarsen the culture, we can claim the moral high ground and not have any culpability for the cesspool nature of modern entertainment. Even as we enter territory that not long ago was considered part of the cesspool.

[shhrubbery!]

I thinks it sad to watch so many FReepers pillory MM simply because she espouses a higher public communication etiquette. They did it yesterday on a similar thread and this one looks almost identical. They use the same tactics the leftists employ against those with which they disagree. All we need now is for Peach to come around and denounce the "Taliban" wing of conservatives and the duplication will be complete.

Well said. Thanks for saying it.

Michelle Malkin is a brilliant and delightful commentator (not to mention gorgeous), blessed with a great sense of humor. She's the epitome of class.

(TX grandpa of seven granddaughters--there is no South Park in their homes and yes, they all laugh and have a well-developed and good sense of humor...)

Yep, same here for my teenagers. They're aware of South Park, but none of them has the slightest interest in watching it.

Parents and grandparents do not need to capitulate to what Michelle Malkin calls "the cool-kids clique on the Right."

[tiamat]

RushCrush wrote:
Sometimes I think the people who claim to be the Uber Conservatives are really just the Uber Repressed Horny.

---

No kidding.

[Howlin]

Never mind how many times this has been discussed on FR, how many times has THIS article been posted on FR in the last five hours????

I swear, some of these people just LOVE typing the words, "penis," "masturbation," and "jerking off."

[brytlea]

Sometimes I think the people who claim to be the Uber Conservatives are really just the Uber Repressed Horny.
These are the types of posts I think FR could do without entirely. It certainly doesn't raise the level of debate one iota. I suppose we could try to psychoanalyse why someone feels the need to post it, but what's the point?
susie

[cyborg]

I think MM is being an old fart. Southpark is funny but never will be as funny as Beavis and Butthead. I'm a Beavis and Butthead conversative :-)

[Lazamataz]

Do I know you? Did my wife send you? How do I know you're not the FBI? ALRIGHT! SO I MADE A MISTAKE! CAN'T A MAN RECOVER FROM ONE LOUSY MISTAKE? Maybe I should make another mistake. Maybe TWO mistakes.

[Skooz]

ALL fellow FReepers are my friends. Even clueless and hopelessly overmatched ones, such as yourself. :)

Why thank you! I feel the same way about you.

Have a good one.

[Howlin]

That makes as much sense as anything that's been posted so far!

[itsahoot]

Well written article. I agree wholeheartedly!

You, me and maybe a dozen others on this board. Unfortunately, libertarianism seems to be the predominate fad this year.