That's good, very good. Get him involved in sports, and you'll avoid little faux pas like this one below:
"But Mother.."
"Father lad, father"
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.
Why do you feel it necessary to engage in such non-specific posts and impunge the motives of those you disagree with?
Posted by 3 people. :-)
First off, between the libertarians and the values voters there were a whole lot of other voters. Values voters were, from what I can tell, about 35-40% of Bush's support. Significant, sure, but not a majority.
The framers of the Constitution were a pretty wide range. Madison, I believe, had got in trouble for writing bawdy verse in college and still had a liking for it. In any case, campaign songs of those days -- political speech -- could get real raunchy. Jefferson and Sally Hemming for example.
As for WW2, I don't know if porn had an effect one way or another. But Airplane nose art sure had a positive effect on U.S. morale -- and a lot of it involved nudity, if not out-and-out porn.
Maybe we have too much time on our hands?
Or overactive imaginations? ;)
LOL.. mayve so, but this is overkill, isn't it?
I have a manicure/pedicure appointment to keep in a little while, so I'll not engage in the fueding.
"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"
As a white male, I find your opinion here to be most humorous and dead-on accurate for many men who are, quite simply, afraid of women.
Afraid of women who are their bosses, afraid of women in power, etc. Just flat-out afraid. It's easily masked by 'macho' fem-bashing stupidity that they label 'conservative values', but it's fear all the same.
I'm glad I pinged you!
"Some people LIVE to be offended, imo."
Sadly, many of these folks were the ones emailing that "Bill of No Rights" (The "You Don't Have the Right to Not be Offended" take on the Bill of Rights) during the Clintax Error, er, Era. When it comes to practicing what they preach, miserable failure is the result.
I'm glad you pinged me too, Blzbba. Thank you.
I understand your avoidance of the question.
Peach wrote:
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
What am I avoiding? You're making a slur against some posters by inferring that they are Democrats. Where is your evidence? What have they posted other than a specific criticism of Laura Bush's routine? Do you always find it so easy to impunge the motives of others?
I'm not entirely being funny.
Sometimes humor is best if there is a grain of truth.
And your relative may be super-left, but he's not COMPLETELY wrong.
I'd consider myself as a "values voter" but the values I was voting for were courage and integrity and loyalty, not priggery and prudery.
The MSM willingly misinterpreted the values votes and gave them more weight than they should have by both mis-defining values and splitting "war" and "terrorism" into 2 separate issues.
Bravo! Well said, Michelle.
That's pure eloquence!
If you are this ignorant you need to bring yourself up to speed. Reread the threads pertaining to the event.
When was the last time the Republicans won an election without us so-called Religious Right?
I am thinking Eisenhower....maybe you know better?
I guess the Religious-Right, or the Taliban-Christians, played no role in taking back the Congress for the first time in 40 years?
I would like to know your comments on this....maybe I am missing something.
Okay...for everyone else reading this...this is just a question to a certain poster with a little bit of my opinion, it is only my opinion, you may disagree with my opinion, that is fine, no need to post snide comments.
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