... ummmmmmm... yeah... okay. Whatever.
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.
LOL!!
Not a chance.
I merely pointed out the lack of logic in your ridiculous post.
Sorry I made you cry.
Bingo.
Just what I was going to say. I can hear it now. "Make jokes about my president. I'll kill ya."
Some people get their panties in a bunch over anything and everything.
Something is "funny" because there is an element of truth in it. I've no problem with the horse joke. It's as old as the hills. But, Mrs. Bush is certainly no desperate housewife. Mrs. Cheney certainly is not. And the thought of their attending a strip club with Condi, O'Connor and Ruth Buzzi is absurd. So, it really wasn't that funny. She may have bought some short term approval from the liberal glitterati, but she kind of drug her classy self through the mud a bit.
... ummmmmmm... yeah... okay. Whatever.
The fact that you could not even attempt to answer the two questions in my post, and instead leveled an attack and got personal, shows all there is to know.
Gosh, how can I get paid for my posts!! Please, where do I sign up?
:)
susie
And, taking the typical anti-Bush statements like "he can't pronounce nuclear" and sending them right back at the MSM/Liberals is a GREAT tactic. I applaud Laura.
Its a sad statement that Michelle's mind could go "there" first when this joke is told vs. the Farmers perspective of an idiot getting their butt kicked by an angry animal. Which is where the mind used to go when this joke was told.
I take it Deadwood is out of the question?
I watched "South Park" a couple of times and it can be funny but it is just a little too raunchy for me.
I have never heard a dirty word from either of my parents and am happy to be able to say that.
I have to admit that I'm no South Park Fan -- what little I've seen wasn't that funny to me.... But Team America had falling out the seats and singing "America! F***, YEAH!" all the way home. I plan to by the uncut DVT version Very Soon.
I guess, though, I'm more of a Benny Hill Republican, a bawdy Scottish folk songs/Robert Burns Republican, a Monty Python Republican (hmmm....I'm starting to sound a touch British here), an Airplane! Republican, a Whose Line is It Anyway? (American version) Republican, and, perhaps above all, a Marxist Republican (of the Grouchoist/Harpoist tendency).
"I'm sure we all get the same one."
No we don't. Not until the flap here on FR did I get that mental picture. Because the extremists were INSISTING it was a dirty joke.
Last night I read the joke to my teenager and she thought it was funny. Then I asked her what it meant. She GOT THE JOKE. When I told her what SOME people ASSUMED it meant; she couldn't believe it!!
So, no....most people KNOW it's not dirty. Even KIDS!
"but I do think that those who see this as having some sexual overtones are not entirely out of line"
Thirty years ago you would have been labeled a pervert.
What was peverse 30 years ago is normal thought for a lot of people now, or so it seems based on the continued attempts at justifying their sexual innuendo concerns.
Of course it is. They can afford to have the strippers brought in for a private party.
I love Burns although I have read that he really did love the ladies. Maybe a little too much.
What liberal rot! You received the correct answer to your "questions": the observation that they were your own failed attempt to place words in another's mouth, solely for greater ease of scoring cheap rhetorical "points."
You're simply sulky, now, because you weren't allowed to get away with it, is all.
Not that I blame you, mind.
Sir, regular strength Midol is funny, but the MAXIMUM STRENGTH version is over the line! :(
You haven't seen any Marx Bros. movies as of late, have you?
OK, that was 70 years ago, but the point stands... Actually 30 years ago was 1975, by which time "Deep Throat" was a household phrase.
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