I think the left has utterly lost it. Or at least a much-too-sizable contingent.
Yesterday, while waiting in line at Taco Bell for what seemed like much, much too long (I suspected they were assembling food molecule by molecule) I was tuned into 'progressive' (oh, the irony) talk radio. What I heard made my jaw drop.
Background:
- Reporter photographs soldier in Iraq smoking cigarette. Newspapers run photo of said soldier.
- Soldiers cuss while trying to kill and avoid being killed. Media records this activity, and plays it for families, bleep-free.
Reaction from left, as measured by this particular talk show:
- George Bush, having received money from tobacco companies, did this to try to get your children to smoke. Action item: How can we get soldiers to stop smoking right where embedded photographers might see them?
- George Bush, that foul-mouthed man, is trying to corrupt the ears of our innocent children. Action item: How can we force this horrible, corrupt administration to stop letting these soldiers use the F-word right where embedded press members can hear and record them?
No. Way.
As the host, and caller after caller spoke their mind, my reactions alternated beween gales of disbelieving laughter, anger at the blatant hypocrisy, and utter, total logical disbelief.
Hard as it may be to believe, I had been clearly expecting too much from some of my fellow citizens. I had clearly thought too highly of them.
Yes, of course. George Bush sent secret orders to our boys at the front line:
Re: Prosecuting Fallujah
To: First Cav Div, 2nd Brigade
From: President George W. Bush
Date: November 10, 2004
Men, as you risk your lives in Iraq, and particularly in dangerous urban combat in Fallujah, I want to remind you of an important value we all cherish: Freedom. But I want to remind you of something even more important, and the goal of freedom itself: Smoking.
As you know, tobacco manufacturers have contributed to my campaign. Rove says I must pay them back or else ... uh ... he wasn't so clear on that part. Anyway, I want to remind you to SMOKE. A lot. In front of the press, if possible. If there are non-smokers, try to keep them away from the cameramen. Or at least ask them to fake it.
Don't worry so much about killing insurgents, or saving your lives. Remember, the key and most important element in this battle will be to SMOKE IN FRONT OF THE PRESS as often as possible.
Rove says he's already got ways of forcing the newspapers -- those guys just hate us! -- to run the photos once the newsmen snap them.
There it is, absolute proof. All ready to print out and fax to Dan Rather's eager little hands, eyes, and camera lenses. Sorry I don't have the other memo instructing soldiers to cuss excessively in front of the press too.
Next thing you know, the press will start running uncensored footage of dismembered bodies, and it will be depicted as a plot by the Bush administration to bring back the gore-loving days of ancient Rome. How can we get the Bush administration to make people stop dying where the press might see them?
The faux-moralistic outrage of the lefitsts calling in was absurd. Their children! All this in front of their children! The press, of course, has no responsibility to select appropriate footage, beep out obscenities, or warn the viewers to hide their precious little urchins' eyes from the nasty Bush-controlled newsmen.
"Rain, this is going to be too graphic. I want you and your sister to go to the other room and play Grand Theft Auto. Or watch that new Brittney Spears video we bought you. Or Showtime." "Awww, mom..."
John Kerry uses the F-word profusely in public, including in interviews with the press. (Such as his interview with Rolling Stone, and the recent Newsweek article I blogged about.) Whoopi Goldberg makes repeated explicit sexual references to her body parts at an official political event, and Kerry's reaction is to say her words positively depict the heart of America. The press says nothing. No, not a problem.
Meanwhile, across the nation, Democrats rail about how another four years would allow George Bush to shove his oppressive, moralistic, puritanical theocratic values down everyone's throat. He's an awful guy because the FCC fined Howard Stern. How dare CBS get a fine for Jackson's breast?
They take to the streets in their rage, cursingly wildly at suspected Republicans, wielding signs in public which proudly display the F- and S- words, and warning darkly that Bush is trying to take away our right to free speech.
Then, a soldier is shown cussing and suddenly some of them turn into Carrie Nation, crusading against obscenity. But instead of attempting to teach the press some manners, their urge is to control the behavior of every single person a camera might capture.
I have no idea how extensive this contingent is. Perhaps it's just the people I heard calling into the talk show. Right. But whoever they are, they're big enough that Lileks seems to have noticed too.