Posted on 04/24/2008 5:17:29 AM PDT by SJackson
Reminders of the mainstream media’s egregious political double standard vis-à-vis liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, come on an almost daily basis – the latest being last week’s New York magazine, the cover of which features a head shot of John McCain smack in the middle of a concentric-ringed bulls-eye board accompanied by this charming teaser copy: “Target: Bush-Backing, Surge-Loving, Economically Clueless Geezer.”
Just try to imagine the frenzy of outrage that would ensue if a right-wing journal – the only realistic analogy, as a glossy upscale mass-market magazine catering to urban conservatives is beyond the imaginative powers of even a Tolkien or an Asimov – were to put on its cover Barack Obama’s face in a bulls-eye, along with the words “Target: Jeremiah Wright-Backing, Surrender-Loving, Foreign Policy-Clueless Slickster.”
The scenario is preposterous, of course, but if it did happen, the liberal blogosphere would suffer a nuclear meltdown and publications like … well, like New York magazine would immediately commission articles on such an incendiary, and potentially tragic, choice of words and imagery and what it says about the scary intolerance – the “bitterness,” if you will – of Red-State America.
Meanwhile, The New York Times would torture readers with a numbing slew of front-page news and “news analysis” pieces (think Augusta National Golf Club circa 2002-2003) on American bigotry, Republican sleaziness and the approaching racial apocalypse; a string of tremblingly indignant editorials – as only the Gray Lady can do tremblingly indignant – on conservative hatemongering and the national healing that would come with a Democratic administration; and at least one column each on the new intolerance in political discourse from Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd, and even Anthony Lewis, the latter eminence brought out of mothballs for just such occasions.
Speaking of double standards, Obama’s condescending remarks about middle-class small town voters and their values are, of course, a precise reflection of what liberal elitists have been thinking and saying for decades (with relative impunity in the private sector and on college campuses but great cost at the presidential ballot box), even though similarly sweeping – and demeaning – generalizations about any subgroup on the liberals’ endangered species list invariably result in an explosion of self-righteous denunciation of the sort outlined in the preceding two speculative paragraphs.
There’s something in the liberal mindset that causes otherwise intelligent and rational people to view small towns and their residents (in fact, anyone – anywhere – whose political, cultural and religious values are commonly thought of as small town or traditional) with inordinate fear and loathing.
It’s why Hollywood, the epicenter of pop-culture liberalism, has long portrayed “townies” in a more or less sinister light and more often than not in need of some manner of amelioration provided by their big-city superiors.
In his 1979 book The View From Sunset Boulevard, Ben Stein devoted a chapter to “Small Towns on Television.” While a few of the writers and producers Stein interviewed had some positive things to say about small towns, the general attitude was highly negative and derogatory.
“There are a lot of dumb, violent people in small towns,” declared the producer Garry Marshall (he of such brainy fare as “Happy Days,” Laverne & Shirley,” “Mork & Mindy” and the intellectual feast called “Joanie Loves Chachi”).
One unnamed producer told Stein that small towns are “the kinds of places where the Ku Klux Klan could grow today … right now.”
Asked whether she saw small towns as “frightening,” the late producer Meta Rosenberg “at first said ‘No,’ and then added, ‘Jesus, they did vote for Nixon.’”
Indeed they did. As, in 1972, did the majority of Americans in 49 of 50 states. Twelve years later, Ronald Reagan, another Republican reviled by the left, scored another 49-to-1 knockout (with Minnesota taking Massachusetts’s place as the lone entry in the losing column.)
In the eyes of liberal elitists, unless we pull the Democratic lever, we’re all small-town Americans.
(Note to readers: This column was also posted on Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog, where the Monitor’s alter ego is a regular contributor.)
Hey, don’t forget me — I’m a hopeless gun-clinger.
The liberal derangement is complete.
I think they used to know when they were spouting absolute biased bunk. Now I think they actually believe themselves, they are so insulated in their little Liberal Bastions Bubbles.
They are becoming dangerously rabid.
They are the Nazi/Commie personalities among us. All they need is that one more chink knocked out of the laws that protect us, out of our Constitution, and we will become a totalitariat.
I also have a visor hat upon which I painted:
"Typical White Person"
So I am set to go anytime I go out in public. The reaction runs about 95% thumbs up - the you-know-who's just scowl and walk away...except for one addle brain who actually said, pointing to my hat: "THAT'S RACIST!"
I smiled and answered: "Wasn't it, though."
That really got him riled...but all he could manage was a sputter as he walked off to the hoots of laughter from others on the scene.
There IS a small town America. It’s where I live... by choice..... for a reason.
It’s a more profound and authentic expression of America and Americans than the trumped-up, Hollywood-generated slice-of-life that the MSM never tires of shoving down our throats. In fact, the trumped-up, Hollywood-generated media statement earned us the abysmal social/political/cultural rap Europeans and others now believe about America and have successfully beat us over the head with for so long. Thanks Liberals and MSM enablers!!!
By that scenario, I should judge all Europeans (for example) by the behavior and attitudes of their capitol city population…. By never going to small towns and hamlets anywhere but believing that Berliners, Parisiennes or Londoners represent views of the entire population of their respective countries… I would be as wrong about them as they are about us in believing the MSM hype about this country. AND unfortunately, in their few and biased dramatizations of small-town America, Hollywood has forever portrayed us as the cast of ‘Deliverance’. Thanks Hollywood!!!
". . . powers not granted to the United States were reserved to the States or to the people."
"Racists!"
Yes, if you believed the Tenth Amendment and opposed handing over all powers to GS-12 federal government employees in Washington you were a racist and you were using the Tenth Amendment as just another way of saying the N-word.
2008:
Yes, if you believe that the First Amendment protects your right to criticize and oppose a liberal black man you are a racist and you are using the First Amendment as just another way of saying the N-word.
(Your right to criticize and oppose blacks applies only to conservative blacks.)
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