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.
I agree. I think some have gone over board with this, but then, I am from what was farm country - when I was growing up. Now, we are overrun with transplanted northerners.
"Getting sake from a Sumo"? I don't get it.
To those of you who know.....it is like clock work....remember.
Later, have a great day.
P.S. Read FR's homepage....it makes things better.
My dog too.... We could go on all day with exactly how untroubled dogs are by the idea of sex.
You sure are.
You can't possibly be that dense.
Lighten up, enjoy life a little.
Ya know, I think you're on to something with that statement.
I don't know if najida's being sarcastic. Gotta leave that to him/her.
Look, I hate to be sarcastic to you, HairOfTheDog. (You and I probably have a lot in common, too. Your ancestors were Norskies, right? and mine were Swedes. I like your description of yourself as sort of hobbit-y --I maybe fit that description a bit too.)
But some of your posts leave me flummoxed. E.g., I don't understand how you can keep flogging the idea that milking-the-horse is an "old" "farmer's" joke and that therefore it's somehow innocent and doesn't mean what "dirty-minded" people (like Michelle Malkin, I guess) take it to mean. That is just an absurd take, and MM disposes of it well.
(Btw, that's not the only aspect of the First Lady's performance I've posted about. So y'all can spare the "obsessed with male horse anatomy" tag.)
If you don't already understand the difference between actively promoting vulgar trash, and merely passively sitting there while others promote it in a situation that is beyond your control, then I can't explain it to you.
Thank you!
You know, people who actually own horses have to actually ~do~ that. Its a matter of health and hygene. Neither party finds much that is stimulating about it, though it's hard to not joke about it while you're doin' it.
yep.... almost fascinating to watch.. but i'm bored with it... again.
LOL! What did I say in my FRmail to you guys....was I right or was I right.....I want my money!!!!
Anyway, this is really it, I gotta go. Keep up the good work. And REMEMBER!!!
Have a great day!
I am not saying it doesn't have to have a possible double entendre, I'm saying that the absurdity of it should mean it isn't taken seriously, and adults can find it funny, without going to hell. Spelling it out is crass, letting people think it through and take it wherever their own mind takes it, is not. IMHO.
You're talking to yourself in public, you know.
Not only are they more stupid than they were back then, most of them want someone else to do the thinking FOR them!
I'm not sure what a "macro" is, or who you suppose "yourselves" to be, but unless it's in quotes, I wrote it. BTW, how's that Kool-Aid tasting? Grape or cherry today?
I think he has "The Gift".
Liberals love unions and things like big government dependency.
OK - so now I see why you think it's different, but I wonder why you think it's better to be victimized by it, than it is to take the sting out of some of the jokes, by having them delivered by someone who clearly loves the president. We know people are going to tease him about the very things Mrs. Bush did, and having her do it makes him seem to be a man comfortable in his own skin, able to say, yeah, I am like that, and no, you can't hurt me by saying so.
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