Dis horse here, he was milked and look whut it got him
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.
Hmm..
I can be the posterboy.
I'm, short and skinny, and if I muss up my hair I can look bedraggled.
Can bedraggled go in place of waifish?
If I typo too much, I'll need my hands and keyboard rehabilitated.
Why would that be different?
I'm waiting on the Monty Python as well -- though he has seen (or at least is familiar with) the Black Knight in MP and the Holy Grail. And I drop enough Monty Python quotes in my everyday conversation that it's going to seem really familiar to him, when he actually does see it.
Whose Line, however, my son is a big fan of and watches regularly. (BTW, I specified American, because I haven't seem more than a few of the British) It's probably his second or third favorite show, after medical documentaries and maybe Yu-Gi-Oh! I let him watch Futurama, a well (though not Family Guy.)
I'm basically raising him like my parents raised me -- I used to watch Benny Hill with my father and Scots folks songs like "The Maid Gaed to the Mill" and "The Trooper and the Maid" were part of my cultural life, when my age was single-digits -- though I didn't quite get what was going on for a while.
Yes, he's getting more adult humor than most kids his age. But he's getting it with his parents' supervision and explanations of what is and isn't appropriate for him to do and say. He is also made quite aware of how much slack we give him and that if he doesn't act responsibly, we will put more limits on him.
I like how he's turning out -- witty, difficult to shock, and not particularly vulgar.
Should we punish murderers? Adulterers? Pornographers? Why are some vices exempt from State punishment, in principle?
No one has a right to do evil, since rights come from God.
It would be selfishness, if we wanted freedom for ourselves only. However, we recognize that all deserve it -- and put limits on ourselves based on our recognition that others have the right to act as they believe is in their interest.
Like the freedom to euthanize yourself. Or to murder your unborn baby. Or to distribute pornography. This doesn't sound like an application of the Golden Rule to me. Sometimes the charitable thing to do is to slap the sinner upside the head, not pat him on the back and wish him good luck. No one needs "friends" like that.
Dis horse here, he was milked and look whut it got him
"Posted by Palladin to Alkhin
On News/Activism 05/03/2005 3:07:47 PM PDT · 164 of 1,090
You blithering idiot! Check your reading comprehension.
My profile page says this: Favorite columnist: Michelle Malkin
I'm done with you. You're too stupid to live."
UNBELIEVABLE
Some people just think they can post whatever tripe they want and we're just supposed to ignore it.
Those were the good ole days. Before a certain faction within the party thought they OWNED the party.
Bedraggled will do.
We CAN rehabillitate your keyboard and hands..
We'll hold a tela-thon.
(Do you like Tahiti?)
Yup, and that wasn't on this thread. I think there must be alot of carry over here from that thread. Glad I missed most of it.
I can't believe I've stayed here this long. Wow, I need to get a life!
susie
Never been there, sound wonderful though.
You know, your question illustrates one of the most, IMO, dishonest debating tactics involved in discussions like this:
I posted to you:
Let's try to be real here: I'm sure somebody said that to somebody, probably me; but try to realize that remarks like that were made until AFTER reams of posts were made disparaging Laura Bush by the prudes among us.
It's a chicken-egg thing, but in this case, the remarks about "not getting any" didn't come out of nowhere. They were in response to the trashing of a good woman by some uptight people who read more into an innocuous remark than was there.
And to illustrate my point, I linked THIS POST to illustrate the depth of the condescention that I was talking about.
And you come back with:
Will you show me where the post you sent me to called Laura Bush any names??
Peach wrote:
Those were the good ole days. Before a certain faction within the party thought they OWNED the party.
This is all getting to sound very familiar, isn't it?
Amen, Dan.
From what I've read, the dinner was held in the Washington Hilton ballroom.
What did you mean by the presidential podium?
If the president is giving an informal after dinner speech in the Washington Hilton ballroom, does the podium that he is standing behind become the presidential podium? Does the floor beneath him become the presidential stage? The ballroom he was in at the time, does that become the presidential ballroom? What about the building? The city block? The city itself? Or even the state? More over, the nation he is in... does that make it a presidential nation? Are we residents of a presidential planet, galaxy, universe, creation? And if so... what does it mean? Does it mean we cannot make a joke about the President as a city slicker turned rancher?
I could write their lines for them. Save the time.
I am going to be so late for lunch. LOL
Exactly.
bbl
Whereever he speaks, it is the bully pulpit. When the First Lady elbowed him aside, she had the bully pulpit. Your opinion may vary, but IMO whenever the president speaks, it sets a tone with impact far beyond the specific venue.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.