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.
Thank you!
Now someone is going to come along and say they don't fit, but the two or three times I have seen the subject come up on FR that's the way it seemed to split.
"and an uptight shletered, prudish puritan who obviously has no street smarts or sense of humor."
Thanks for putting this in better words than I could. 100% agreement.
She really DID love Albert.
Poor lady.
Sadly, despite what you say is true, that most of Victorianism was practised and recognised as form, it has evolved into doctrine.
That's because it's not an issue anywhere - except at FR.
I'm renting now, and I'm up to my ears in pets, but it's on a 'someday' list, when I am in a place where I could design such a thing.
Yes, tomkat. Much. Thank YOU. And I love your lil guy icon. :-) Have a good one today.
You think Laura's comments equate her to being a whore?
You think Laura's comments equate her to being a whore?
You are well beyond the pale with that comment.
You are over the top..calling the First Lady a whore? I am shocked at your answer..and will refrain from comment or I will be lowered to your classless type of slanderous comment.
Here's another one that actually said she was talking about beastiality!
One fault does not make a person evil.
But pretending their mistake was actually a virtue is specious and unworthy of serious people.
So you won't say heck but you think it's appropriate for a lady to tell jokes about bestiality.
That's an aporia.
Try NOT to associate yourself with Laura Bush -- or to justify them with Malkin's approval.
You're not ruined but you are a little bent.
Couldn't find the entire lyric on the net, but from what I was able to find, there was absolutely no sexual references or innuendos in Nancy's skit. So I really don't see how her singing "Second Hand Clothes" shows that sexual innuendo by the First Lady was acceptable back then, because she didn't appear to engage in any.
I've gone to all the trouble of digging up an 11 year old article from The National Review that mentions Nancy Reagan's skit and reminds us of how lousy Clinton was at the self-deprecating bit. Please reward me by actually reading it.
_________________________________________
It's funny till someone gets hurt - anecdotal look at Bill Clinton's lack of a sense of humor - Column
National Review, March 7, 1994 by Andrew Ferguson
MARCH comes to Washington, bringing with it our annual spring fling of parties--deafening, crowd-choked affairs, held in hotel ballrooms the size of football fields. They are usually sponsored by large organizations as tributes to themselves. And what tributes! The food is cold; the cocktails are lukewarm. The after-dinner speeches stretch to Homeric lengths, lasting long after the water glasses have been drained and the table wine has disappeared. A woman with a medium-sized bladder could easily spend half the evening waiting in line for the powder room, and her husband could spend the other half looking for her coat; and on the ride home both would discover that neither had missed anything of interest. No true Washingtonian would pass up such a party for all the world.
My own experience with these occasions is comprehensive. I have covered them as a reporter, attended them as a guest, and fidgeted backstage while important personages delivered remarks I had ghostwritten for pay. What I mean is, I know from these big Washington parties. And so I don't feel shy in offering advice about them to the President of the United States.
Advice is needed; the President has had trouble in their regard before. Several of the parties are thrown by collections of media folk--the Gridiron Club, White House Correspondents' Association, and others. Members get to dress like grown-ups, drink for free, and hand out awards to one another. But the highlight comes when the President offers a few remarks, consisting mostly of self-deprecating jokes and at least one about Sam Donaldson's big mouth, and concluding with what sitcom writers call the MOS, or "moment of s---," in this case a sentimental peroration about the importance of the First Amendment.
It sounds simple, but this President has yet to catch on. He is clearly uncomfortable with self-deprecation-- with humor of any kind, in fact. Last year, his jokes at the Gridiron were considered "mean-spirited." A followup appearance at the White House Correspondents dinner caused a minor scandal when he accused Bob Dole of porkbarreling and Rush Limbaugh of racism. But these were mere symptoms of a larger pathology, which was the President's failure to comprehend his role in the press-dinner ceremony.
At press dinners, self-deprecation on the President's part isn't a shtick; it's the whole point. A press dinner is a sacramental occasion. The city's high priests invite the President and other luminaries--Cabinet secretaries, prominent legislators--to parade before them and ridicule themselves, confirming the caricatures the press has created in its daily work.
The clearest example, as Tom Bethell noted in these pages several years ago, was Nancy Reagan's now legendary appearance at the Gridiron, in which the First Lady dressed as a charwoman and sang a parody called "Second-Hand Clothes." The lyrics satirized her image, created by her audience, as an airhead Marie Antoinette.
Her groveling proved a sensational success. Her husband also understood: his jokes were routinely about long afternoon naps and an itchy trigger finger. The press still hated him, but they credited him with knowing how Washington worked. "He was a dunce," a press don once said, '"but at least he could laugh at himself."
THERE is no reason such accolades should be denied our current President. I have therefore worked up some remarks, completo with stage directions, that he can use when the next press dinner rolls around in a few weeks.
Thank you for that kind introduction, Strobe. Boy, was that a great dinner] Maybe I overdid it. I haven't eaten so much since 4:30 ! Actually all these stories about my huge appetite-- [Pauses, looks to dinner companion on right, points to dessert.] Strobe, you gonna finish that? [Slurps ball of sherbet into his mouth, swallows it whole.] Can't let food go to waste--there are kids starving in Somalia!
No, but seriously. Hillary thinks I've got a weight problem. The other evening she brought a friend up to see the family quarters. Her friend said, "What a beautiful sofa!" Hillary said, "That's not a sofa, that's the President."
Hey, I'm not saying I'm overweight, but when I sit around the White House, I sit around the White House.
But I gotta tell you, the White House is like a fishbowl. Secret Service around all the time .... But I've finally reached an agreement with those guys. The next time some girl runs up and tries to kiss me while I'm jogging, they can arrest her, but I get to wrestle her to the ground.
Hey, Hillary's great, isn't she? I feel like I can talk to her about anything. Right after the inauguration, I remember she was kind of thinking out loud. "Bill," she said, "do you think there will ever be a woman in the White House?" I said, "Sure--the first weekend you leave town."
Thank you so much. If I could just shift gears a moment, I think we all know why we're really here tonight. There's a reason the First Amendment comes first in our Bill of Rights . . .
But I'll let Gergen write the MOS. For some of us, that's the best joke of all.
COPYRIGHT 1994 National Review, Inc
The simple fact is that her comments were tasteless, inappropriate, and completely unnecessary. For that assesment, I don't apologize.
The simple fact is that her comments were tasteless, inappropriate, and completely unnecessary. For that assesment, I don't apologize.
Thanks for the post.
Where did I say that Nancy Reagan's song and dance routine contained sexual innuedo? I stated that both acts were humorous jabs at their husbands and their Presidents; and were done in an appropriate setting. LOL. You have one thing on your mind- sex.
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