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.
Lazamataz wrote:
I've a simple solution: Be the offender, not the offendee.
Now THAT one is over the top. (^ _ ^)
I can say for sure that when I look at alfalfa sprouts I think NO SUCH THING.
Here's a perfect example of what I mean:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1396450/posts?page=355#355
Dear lord,
Are people still getting their knickers in a twist over all this??
Get over yourself.
Well, good point. This is not the FR of a few short
(or long) months ago. Unreal, huh?
Your mind is where your mind is, in a place where it causes you to be either woefully ignorant or appallingly disingenuous. How do you suppose the person in the joke would try to milk a male horse? By pulling his nose? His tail? The meaning of the joke is and always has been clear. It amazes me that people will go to such twisted lengths to excuse shabby behavior by the First Lady, just because they drink the Bush Kool-aid.
Absolutely not. I would like to see the raunchy on both sides reined in. Including those who yesterday called the first lady a whore.
Really, we've dissected this topic beyond all perspective... I'd like a new topic please.
Mr Hendy: Oh... Waiter... this conversation isn't very good!Waiter: Oh, I'm sorry, sir... We *do* have one today that's not on the menu. It's a sort of... er... speciality of the house. Live Organ Transplants.
If you go to the Meijer's after mid-night ( which I sometimes did when I worked at the hospital)
It's "Gay Night" in the produce department.
Let me guess: YOU want to decide whose doing the attacking, right?
Gee, Howlin. There were no slurs towards Laura Bush in that post. No mention of improprieties with horses. Just an opinion on cultural aspects.
Yet still you attacked the poster. What was your justification this time?
OK, I didn't leave, now I'm REALLY ROFLMPJO.
LOLLOLLOLLOLLOLLOLOLLOL,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
What, and take your job? :-)
Apparently so.
Some people on FR just seem to LIKE being angry!
Why not -- EVERYBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition, right?
In a sense, this sort of bickering does suggest one good thing-- we are WINNING, if this is the only issue there is left to discuss....
Not Social Security
Not taxes
Not immigration
Not defending the US from terror
I guess I can take a little concern over a (what I believe was an unintended) horse masturbation joke.
Now, help me out here: is that an attack on me or not?
Uh-oh...Uptight Citizens Brigade will be busting down my door soon. LOL
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