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.
Several things to remember:
1) I do not get out much and I am easily entertained.
(therefore I am easily impressed)
2) I DID say "matinee". I would NOT pay full price, unless somebody paid for my ticket.
3) Beer is served at the theatre I like. I am less judgemental when there is beer.
4) I NEVER listen to reviewers. And Roger hasn't been the same since hiss buddy died.
Caveat emptor!
(but i really think you will have a good time if you go with friends and don't take it too seriously....)
Then she shouldn't complain about the language the other side is using, given her posts.
Which should be blindingly obvious, except you are more interested in circular arguments than actual debate. You might want to look at Celtjew Libertarian's posts to see who someone can present the other side of the argument in a distinguished and civil manner.
But many of them used a lot of innuendo -- profane ideas without the profane language, if you will. Which was basically what Laura Bush's act was.
You might want to check your own posts. Oh yeah, many of them were deleted along with the thread yesterday.
In that light, Laura Bush's off-color jokes, in a forum intended for adults, were giving a metaphorical finger to the terrorists. She was, indeed, standing up for one of the main reasons that I voted for President Bush.
Kathleen Parker made the same point in her latest column:
"I was right there with them, grateful for the humor and appreciative as ever for Mrs. Bush's humanizing effect on the presidency and our nation. But beyond the jokes, my personal mirth was closely tied to another punch line — the one nobody said but that I kept thinking as she delivered one-liners: Good thing she ain't in Saudi Arabia.
Or the Taliban's Afghanistan. Or prewar Iraq. Or northern Nigeria today. Or any number of Islamic theocracies where women who disobey their husbands — or walk down the street uncovered or unaccompanied by a male family member — are flogged, beheaded or stoned to death, depending on the whims of the ruling fathers."
LOL. I see the Perpetually Disturbed Holier Than Thou group still can't let it go. It's sad.
I'm not whining. I'm LAUGHING.
You, on the otherhand, are angry.
Uh, bonfire, I'm not the one complaining about the language the other side is using while saying they need to get laid. It's called a D-O-U-B-L-E S-T-A-N-D-A-R-D. As in do as I say, not as I do.
You are complaining about the langauage the other side is using - as you coarsen the debate yourself.
You, on the otherhand, are angry.
You, apparently, must think it is fun to attack other posters who disagree with you. Such a lovely testament to your character, Howlin. It must do you proud.
"You might want to look at Celtjew Libertarian's posts to see who someone can present the other side of the argument in a distinguished and civil manner."
Must have been someone using your computer.
I don't know. This site is looking more like the Angry Men Who Want to Keep the Little Woman in Her Place forum. And we all know what that leads to. LOL
The PDHTT's??
You, apparently, must think it is fun to attack other posters who disagree with you. Such a lovely testament to your character, Howlin. It must do you proud.
Ah, pot, kettle?
You have friends?!
More importantly, THEY SERVE BEER IN MOVIE THEATERS OVER THERE???!!!
I'm teh envious.
:^)
LOL.
And such loving, generous Christian attitudes, have you noticed?
And we're told, five days in a row now, that the First Lady just isn't quite Christian enough. Or conservative enough. Or ladylike enough.
You know...the usual nonsense that the angry men spout about when they are unable to control their own lives. They try to control through typing. LOL
lolol That is funny. And shows that Mrs. Bush did a fine job for the occasion.
Please show me where I have attacked other people for their opinion on this matter. I am after a few people who believe it is OK to viciously attack those who disagree with them. Who say the posters who disagree have their minds in the gutter when it is a reasonable interpretation of the joke to conclude what they are saying. Who say the other side is obsessed with things equine when it was the First Lady who raised the topic in the first place. In other words, I'm against the kind of attack that we see on DU - shrill but with no substance -meant to stifle debate instead of encouraging it. That kind of crap was poison during the Terri Schiavo episode and it drove some good posters away. You may think that's a good thing. I don't.
And I've had enough of your circular nonsense as well. You may have the last word. Be sure to lobby Jimrob to get some of my posts removed so you can remain convinced that yours is the high ground.
If they were such "Manly Men", wouldn't they be at their jobs, building a deck, milking a horse or somethin'? Instead they are fussin' and hand wringing over a woman!!
No conservative uses this level of vitriol to attack a First Lady for benign jokes made within the context of a roast of her husband.
The jokes she told were for sexually well-adjusted adults who find nothing threatening to human sexuality within the realm of zoology and who understand the absurdity of respectable women, above reproach, attending a male strip event.
It is obvious that these attackers are using this benign event as an opportunity to demonize an administration they already despise.
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