For those of you who thought this past election’s results might shake cons out of their collective imaginary reality, 
I present this column from National Review’s Jay Nordlinger:
It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.
Apparently Nordlinger was asleep in 1999-2004 when conservatives and the mainstream media tag teamed to create caricature versions of Al Gore and John Kerry. For those two candidates, conservatives like Rush Limbaugh created some sort of alternate reality – one in which Gore was a “serial exaggerator” and Kerry was a phony war hero. And it stuck. The mainstream press lapped it up and amplified the conservative spin.
These things take hold when the pols don’t fight back, and that was the fatal flaw for Gore and Kerry. It’s not as if the right didn’t try the same thing with Obama. For months they pushed the idea that he was the scary other – a secret Muslim who hates America and aborts babies for fun. Oh, yeah, not to mention his militant scary wife. Or something. The problem with the con spin this time was twofold: Obama fought back and the caricature didn’t even remotely resemble Obama. I smiled every time Sean Hannity & Co. tried to make out Obama to be a threatening Nation Of Islam style scary person, because whenever Barack Obama speaks its generally the kind of person we want as our next door neighbor (and the sort of guy more Americans than ever in history voted in favor of to be their leader). Obama didn’t take it lying down and he didn’t resemble the caricature.
In the case of McCain and Palin the shoe fit. McCain had serial senior moments, and Sarah Palin is an idiot of the highest order. It wasn’t a diabolical liberal plot that Tina Fey was able to participate in a comedy sketch where Sarah Palin’s actual answers to questions were 90% of the material. Fey didn’t lampoon Palin so much as echo her actual words. The comedy and failure were baked in.
Like many conservatives, Nordlinger leaps to blame America.
A country that believes that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo is a country with its head up its . . .
That’s awesome how he absolves Cheney, Palin, Bush, etc. of their sins. Its us silly Americans who are doing harm by committing the cardinal sin of noting things as they are. Nordlinger and his ilk live in a world where Dick Cheney’s historical unpopularity aren’t a result of America taking a good look at him and retching. No, Bill Maher made fun of Dick Cheney, and like when John McCain invented the Blackberry. he created a phony version of lovable teddy bear Dick.
Or something.
That should be *the* Tslking Point for Progressives: Quote the Conservative directly and follow it with “Why Do Conservatives Hate America?” …because they do. Hate America. They hate its Republic because the majority can vote its interests (which aren’t always the same as those of the Conservatives). They hate its diversity–odd, since that Diverse Nation was what welcomed them or their ancestors. They hate its institutions, because those institutions aid ALL Americans, including those “Other People”—don’tcha know you’re only s’posed to help White European Americans?
So….Say it often, say it loudly….and say it *again*–Why Do Conservatives Hate America?
Nordlinger’s thesis is all the more amusing in light of the perpetual wingnut whinging about the nonexistent “reinstate the Fairness Doctrine” juggernaut. What Nordlinger is insisting is that unless and until conservatives have complete and total control of every mechanism by which thought can be transmitted (schools, universities, newspapers, magazines, cable news, movies, and even comedy shows… oh, and don’t forget music – will.i.am and the Dixie Chicks need to shut up and sing!) their ideas simply can’t get a fair shake. But it’s those damn liberals who are the digital brownshirts!
It’s even more depressing reading the entirety of Nordy’s column, because after his hysterical exegesis about Jon Stewart’s mind control powers, he goes on to discuss such weighty issues as mocking some Indian guy with a scatalogically funny name, Hugh Hefner’s dating habits, and giving a hearty “F*** you” to retiring Sen. Voinovich. Christ it’s as if the entire staff of NR are 4th graders on South Park.
Oliver,
scroll down four posts.
Christ it’s as if the entire staff of NR are 4th graders on South Park.
They’re not?
Anyone who denies that Palin is a bimbo, is himself suffering from a severe case of recto-cranial inversion.
Advantage: Reality.
(Actually SNL and Maher are pretty flawed if relatively reality-based. J-Stew’s very good, with and Onionesque record.)
justadood must be the lead-lemming. He has spoken……..now follow!
Actually, I think that it is necessary and helpful that satire (in the case of Colbert and Stewart) is used in order to combat the branded images of candidates during election time. Elections are nothing more than branding campaigns to try and sell us a candidates image. Lampooning this process on comedy shows and in pop culture is a natural way to gather some interesting insights into the political process.
They political figures are sold on perception (remember people thinking that Bush would be a great guy to have a beer with) so it is natural for society to “rebel” against this notion and seek some truths that can only be found when you take some characterizations to the extreme.
Speaking of lemmings, how’s that McCain as president thing working out for you?
Oh right….
“Speaking of lemmings…” Part II
75% of Republicans have a positive opinion on George W. Bush.
75%!
GOP = Lemmings.
Sounds like their appeal is just becoming more selective.
A lot of humor is about poking fun at those in power. Republicans can’t do humor because most of them are, at heart, sycophantic boot-lickers and toadies. They’re simply incapable of it.
And any human being who thinks Bush II was a good president, even while in objective terms we enter what might be another Depression, is either a) stupid or b) lying to themselves and in danger of having their heads explode.
There are those who will protect his legacy because for them objectivity = advocating the midpoint between a society’s two political extremes, wherever it happens to fall.
First; the “Right” don’t hate America. The “Right” LOVES America as the “Terminator” as “John Wayne” as “General Custer” – the RIGHT loves the American Myth. It’s the American Myth that HATES America.
Instead of “love thy neighbour” it’s “do unto your neighbour before your neighbour does unto you.” Instead of Unions, middle class wages, universal health care and industrial jobs you get a frantic race to the bottom – all so that the top 1% can EARN more yearly income than the bottom 40%. A race to the bottom so that the top 1% can OWN close to 65% of all the wealth.
WHY do NORMAL Americans LET THE TOP 1% DO IT…SIMPLE…The RIGHT has convinced at least 52% of the bottom 98% that the American Myth is what they should aspire to.
The American RIGHT isn’t the problem – the American LEFT is the problem for not being able to convince their own WORKING CLASS, MIDDLE CLASS brothers and sisters that for ONCE in their shitty lives they should vote for THEMSELVES instead of the 1% that OWN their hearts, minds, and sorry asses all because they’ve put the American Myth ahead of their children’s education and health care.
Obama gives us a BRIEF 4 or 8 year window to try and reverse the minds of American’s fools.
As to the RIGHT thinking the LEFT has won the battle to frame the “Labeling” of concepts and people…this cycle…for the first time in well over a generation…they are correct…FINALLY we have defeated the penetration of Right Wing Radio.
For YEARS their lies and misinformation went unchallenged day after day, week after week, year after year. Now we CRUSH them – every single day we nip their lies in the bud. Maddow, Stewart, Olbermann, Colbert, Maher and others tear their distortions to pieces. The Amercian people – the American LEFT FINALLY have the tools to desrtoy the LUNACY of Right Wing apologists.
Four or eight years – that’s all you Americans have to change your future, to change your children’s future.
Good luck – you’ll need it!
Mylegacy: word.
But for real perspective on what we’re up against vis a vis our ignorant, complacent populace, see Harper’s Magazine’s editorial “A Quibble” (unfortunately not available online). Our illiteracy, anti-intellectualism and laziness are topping all previous generations’, and only Obama stands between us and a continued downward trend. The writer of the editorial is himself pessimistic.
Is Obama savior enough? Is he merely a pause in our descent or the beginning of a reversal?
A financial crisis isn’t the only one facing us. Impossibly enough, our educational crisis (for what else can you call a populace that votes against itself, time after time, but STUPID?) is even bigger.
“A country that believes that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo”…
…is a country with its head firmly stuck in reality.
Nordlinger and one or two others at NR are clearly not idiots so what is their motivation. With some, Goldberg, York, Kudlow, Lowry, it’s clearly the money. There’s a market for this crap so they provide it and make a nice living thank you very much. In other words Limbaugh and Fox News writ small. Then of course you have the out and out fruitcakes like Steyn and McCarthy. But there are some bright people and some of the things they say are just juvenile.