The bullies on the left
McKinnon may have been giving that advice to President Bush, but failing to respond and defend ones values allow the false premise of the left to become accepted wisdom. It did great harm to Bush and the Republicans and we are still paying a very high price for failure to engage and rebut these attacks.Saul Alinsky taught two generations of American leftists to use ridicule as a potent political weapon. When the left infiltrated America's entertainment outlets, the practice achieved industrial scale.
As I read about the ongoing controversy about David Letterman's vicious attack on Sarah Palin's 14 year old daughter, my first thought was that I wasn't surprised. I have always found Letterman to be a bit of a misogynist. In recent years he has also been increasingly unfunny.
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I recall a comment years ago, I can't remember who it was, about how irony that lacks engagement can be very potent but ultimately turns sterile and destructive. That seems to describe what has happened to Letterman to a tee. In addition, like almost every other comedian today, Lileks notes the dictates of political correctness must be followed.
Yes, reading too much into it. Really, it's just a rote slam: If your mother is a loathed politician, and your older sister gets pregnant, famous old men can make jokes about you being knocked up by rich baseball players, and there's nothing you can do. That's the culture: a flat, dead-eyed, square-headed old man who'll go back to the writers and ask for more Palin-daughter knocked-up jokes, because that one went over well. Other children he won't touch, but not because he's decent. It's because he's a coward.
Lileks is also correct that in many ways it was a rote slam, what we have come to expect. Some people were surprised that such 'comedy' could be found on network late night shows that play to Middle American audiences. Many are upset that the minor child of a politician, a group usually considered off limits, was the target. But is it really so surprising?
For years now much of our comedy has gotten increasingly mean. It laughs less and less at the contradictions inherent in the human condition and increasingly picks out and personalizes targets to demean and humiliate. In the world of the comedian-cum-bully, wit has been replaced with name calling and the wry irony of the nerdish observer with the swagger of the schoolyard bully who decides who is among the in group and who are "them", the outcasts to be made the butt of every mean spirited politically correct joke. Name calling is the stock in trade of the bully. So is telling the target who protests, "What's a matter, can't you take a joke?"
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Bullying and name calling passing as humor, on the other hand, is all about exerting control over the audience. The schoolyard bully determines the social order. His targets are shunned both by those who are in the in clique and those who fear becoming the next target of scorn. The comedian-cum-bully has a secondary target as well. In addition to exerting control over the political landscape, he seeks to instill self doubt in his target. For in the realm of the bully, people come to believe that the targets did something to bring it on themselves. This is especially true when the target doesn't effectively fight back.
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Chalk this up as another issue on which the grass roots may be well ahead of the some political insiders.
"If the right goes after Letterman, they make him look big and themselves small," says Mark McKinnon, a former campaign adviser to George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Defending a 14 year old girl from an unprecedented attack of a known misogynist makes her protectors look small? No wonder the Republican brand has shrunk. If Mr. McKinnon won't defend our children, what will he defend? His all important right to be invited to appear on Meet the Press?
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I am glad to see Sarah Palin defend herself and her daughter. Not allowing yourself and your family to be diminished does not make you look small. It shows the world that you will fight for what is right.
I think Letterman thought it was all right to make a tasteless joke at Willow Palin's expense partly because her mother is a Republican. Remember when David Shuster said Chelsea Clinton was "pimped-out?" He was forced to apologize, and at that time Chelsea was in her late 20's. The outcry was much more strident in Chelsea's case, and look at the political party her parents belong to. Democrats are all for tolerance unless it's directed at Republicans. Then it's considered a target.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, Letterman didn't even marry his child's mother until said child was 6 years old. He also goes to great lengths to keep his family out of the limelight, yet feels others' families are fair game. What a huge hypocrite.