I too am both bored and disgusted with the so-called dialogue, currently a blip in the national discourse, about flag lapel pins. But it once again highlights the real one-sidedness of discussion -- specifically, that one side has a glut of voices willing to be as vile as possible, whereas the other side has this irritating compulsion to almost always take the high road. Note to Senators Obama and Clinton, as well as to the few Jack Caffertys (so professional!) and Jon Stewarts (so self-deprecating and fair!) usually working our side: That schtick don't work.
Every time a prominent liberal or Democrat takes a noble, morally superior position, to which they seem always to aspire, it blows up in their faces. On KGO this morning, Ed Baxter and a guest (a former Nixon employee!) discussed the flag pin issue, and Obama and Clinton's quotes (Kennedyesque and slyly dismissive, respectively) seemed to play right into typical centrist/lazy corporate journalist hands. At one point, even after the guest all but admitted that for years Republicans had been hiding behind ostentatious displays of patriotism such as the flag pins, he and Baxter seemed (almost purposefully) to miss the point made by Obama and the point implied by Clinton, and chose instead to accuse Obama of making the flag-flaunting a partisan issue ("Why can't we just wear the pins and say, 'I'm an American and this is America' without making it a partisan thing?"), and even had Chris Matthews-esque fun with Senator Clinton's response of "Sometimes," to whether she wears the pin ("Yes, of course she'd say that." Flipflopconventionalwisdomnudgenudgehawhaw.)
Senator Obama in particular needs to do more than thicken his armor, he needs to sharpen his claws. When asked a question that reminds one of the Republican penchant for using bunting to hide a whole host of evils, it's not enough to tastefully echo Sinclair Lewis and exhort potential voters to pay less attention to what he's not wearing. It's time to make the opposition and the Maureen Dowds and Tim Russerts afraid of him for a change. It's time to openly quote Sinclair Lewis, and accuse the Republicans of using the stars and stripes as a shield from behind which to launch an entirely un-American agenda, replete with torture, indefinite detention, extraordinary rendition, Constitution-shredding, and everything else their putrid little conservative brains have thought up. It's time to make our own accusations of treason.
It's beyond time for more of us to get as nasty with the opposition as they've been with us.
To wit: Somebody should have mentioned to certain airship manufacturers that lithium, though one of the lightest elements in the periodic table, isn't the ideal buoyant filling for certain bags of gas. Nevertheless, der Zeppelin Limbaugh continues to limp along a few hundred feet above the earth, sagging, inebratiedly lurching, but never quite crashing. Sure he's helped by the usual suspects, his fellow right-wing bags of hot air, as well as by the refusal of the corporate media (of which he is a part) to pay more than glancing attention to what would be in any other public figure career-killing character flaws, but he's also aided by a secret asset: opposition that has for too long remained far more civil to him than he deserves, considering his track record. Outside of Al Franken, The Rude Pundit, and a few flyspecks such as yours truly, we have -- what? -- Keith Olbermann sternly wagging his finger.
We need the few schoolmarms we have -- the smart and justly moralizing Glenn Greenwalds have their place and provide a valuable service, and indeed we need more of them -- but what we really need is a multimedia echo chamber as vicious and relentless as a school of piranhas, or as the Right's. We need teeth (and not a moment too soon, judging from this very lame defense of Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" smear by John Gibson and Ann Coulter; there is definitely blood in the water.)
I understand it's difficult: everyone knows he's a drug-addicted, hypocritical liar. Even his fans. Nothing's been able to shoot down this bird, despite all the ammunition provided: chickenhawkery, the vilest expressions of racism, Oxycontin (and the God Mammon knows what other drugs), sympathy for domestic terrorists.
But there's one story I wish had really stuck, and it's one that bears repeating: In 2006, Rushie-poo was busted coming off a flight from the Dominican Republic because a bottle of Viagra on his person was labeled as a prescription for his doctor. Big deal you say (and as many of his right-wing apologists did), but here's the disgusting meme that needs perpetuating: When a balding, middle-aged, gluttonous, porcine white guy vacations with a bottle of Viagra, it's because he's going as a sex tourist. When a sex tourist chooses the Dominican Republic or Thailand over, say, the Netherlands or Nevada, it's because he wants to fuck little brown children. He wants to sweat over and thrust his half-limp johnson into poverty-stricken tots whose situations and pimps give them no choice but to say "yes" to whatever the wealthy, drug-addled, horrifyingly real-life Eric Cartman wants.
Yeah, that's the swell kind of guy we want beamed over the airwaves by American Forces Radio, subsidized by the American taxpayer.
See, when you read his books, when you listen to or purchase airtime during his shows, when your business buys commercial space on his web site, or when you defend him in public speeches or in conversation (Gibson, Coulter, et alia) for any reason, you are abetting and supporting pedophilia and sexual slavery. How does that taste?
(Considering those are also my tax dollars, I can honestly say it tastes a little bit like rancid pork.)
I guess what I'm saying is, where are more blog posts, columns, and on-air editorials in this tenor?
Here's a current opportunity for meanness: the Republican response to Democratic criticisms of George Bush's handling of the SCHIP issue wasn't a defensive response, but a typically offensive one: "How dare you exploit children in your ads for partisan gain?" they ask with feigned indignation. Nobody should be defending that, or even stopping at "You guys do it, too." We should be attacking in return: "So what if children are used in ads to benefit children, and in the process, some politicians get a boost? George Bush's career is in part predicated on killing children outright; here, by depriving them of what they need, and abroad by simply bombing, shooting, and burning them. Which side would you rather be on?"Labels: analyses, common sense, evil, jingoism, wingnuttery, your corporate media
