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.
Me too, Sam... For cryin' out loud, we should all be real people. Life's funny if let it be.
If that were the only such joke, I would agree with you. But it wasn't. Do you think there would be mention of male strippers and dollar bills in a g rated movie in the sixties?
Point is, such double inferrence, artfully phrased, isn't wrong.
Well, then, people shouldn't be viciously attacked for noting that there is a double inferrence. You're not doing the attacking. But there have been many over the last few days who have.
ROFLMAO!
You said "fart"...heh...heh...heh
Hopefully they're not doing it while typing.
Beavis and Butthead is the funniest show in the history of television.
Wouldn't let my daughter watch it, though.
Now, now, that is a classic propaganda technique - calling into question the motives or rationale of your opponents. You should admire their artistry in applying such.
And not moved to the SBR. Given the language, that's where it belongs.
Personally, I think half the posters are about 12 years old.
If Hillary had said the same things about Bush, conservatives would be up in arms. The First Lady of the United States put down the most important man in the world as being stupid.
We tell the rest of the world that we have a great family values culture. Horse masturbation jokes and male stripper jokes are not what I expect from the First Lady, at least not in public.
Clinton introduced oral sex as not really sex and Laura Bush has made raunchy unfunny potty jokes as exceptable behavior in public.
This was a slap in the face to conservatives and completely unnecessary. Something is up in the White House.
I agree with Michelle Malkin and Michael Savage.
Absence of teats does not equal masturbation, and absence of humor does not equal moral superiority.
Some critics of the First Lady have a dirtier mind than they realize.
I've heard that old joke before without making the "masturbation" connection.
Oh, thanks for THAT visual. :-)
A slap in the face at conservatives? Oh, brother.
Ah, thank you for enlightening me! :)
susie
In other words, she merely dipped her toes into the muck.
Maybe that'll be enough to convince the RINO centrists and libs she's not the prude they think she is./sarc
Ah, another example of calling into question the motives of one's opponents. This tempest has offered some textbook applications of classic propaganda techniques.
The point? Oh I dunno, it's my OPINION. That's the point. Just because it offends you doesn't mean it doesn't have a point.
Yeah, sure, it's not like your side is crossing the line of propriety. Other than maybe Howlin saying those of us thinking that Laura was over the line all needed to get l***. Naw, your bunch SURE has held the high ground.
I don't know, Cotton Mather, who vowed to "never use but one grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose upon me a Denial of Devils, or of Witches," was hanging witches in the 17th century.
I think Puritanism is deep within American roots. "Political correctness" is, IMO, the leftist manifestation of Puritanism.
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