Conservatives embrace political correctness, stupidity

One of the more profoundly annoying things to come up in recent weeks has been the whole manufactroversy about David Letterman (a comedian) making a joke. If you're not familiar with it, consider yourself lucky.

If you're one of those people and want to maintain your blissful ignorance, please stop reading now.

See, I would have happily avoided writing about this if it weren't for yet another neuron-apoptosing editorial by (unbylined, but presumably) Jeff McMenemy, wittily titled Liberal media slow to scold Letterman for Palin comments.

Okay, let's get this over with...

If you don't believe a double standard exists in much of the mainstream media when it comes to how inappropriate or tasteless comments are treated, just consider the case of late-night talk show host David Letterman.

Letterman, before referring to what he described as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "slutty flight-attendant look," made a truly tasteless and classless joke early last week about the governor's 14-year-old daughter, saying she had been "knocked up" by Alex Rodriguez during a trip to watch a New York Yankees game.

Wow, lies right off the bat. That didn't take long.

Let's look at the actual joke, delivered as part of a top-10 list about Sarah Palin's trip to New York:

One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game. During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.

I don't know about you, but when I first heard about that I assumed it was about Bristol Palin, who is Sarah Palin's famously knocked-up daughter. That is, in fact, who the joke was about, according to Letterman.

Clearly, it's also about a baseball player that I know little about, but I guess he's sort of sleazy? Arguably, the joke is more at his expense than Palin's. I wonder why nobody is coming to his defense.

But since Palin was at the game with her 14-year old daughter Willow (a fact that wasn't exactly common knowledge), all the deeply politically correct conservatives decided that Letterman was actually making a joke about statutory rape. Even though he wasn't. But when has the truth ever stood in the way of manufactured outrage?

Anyway, Letterman apologized and made clear his intentions, but Bible Spice was more interested in using her 14-year-old daughter as a political tool (which is totally not unethical) than accepting that it was a joke that went a little wrong and moving on.

So there's the background. It pretty much invalidates McMenemy's entire rant, but let's just check out what he has to say anyway. I'm sure it's enlightening.

Palin called the liberal-leaning Letterman "pathetic," and her husband quite rightly said that "any jokes about raping my 14-year-old are despicable."

Well yeah, that would be despicable. Not really relevant though, since Letterman didn't make any such joke.

McMenemy:

And if you think such a joke is harmless, please take a moment to consider how you would react if someone made a joke about "knocking up" your teenage daughter.

I suppose that would depend. If it was about my very knocked-up 18 year old daughter, I don't think I'd have a whole lot to complain about. But I'm not desperate to keep my name in the news for a 2012 presidential run, so maybe that would change things.

But while other less liberal talk-show hosts, like Don Imus for example, have been summarily fired from their job and attacked by the liberal media when they made tasteless comments, many were slow to respond correctly to Letterman's tasteless joke and basic lack of decency.

Here, McMenemy is whining about not enough people whining. About a joke on a late-night comedy show. Which didn't mean what he has decided it means.

I wonder how quickly McMenemy condemned Bill O'Reilly when he said this:

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

... and then later dismissed it as a "satirical riff."

I bet Pope McMenemy, scourge of tasteless jokes, was right on top of that!

It hurts to go on...

But as slow as much of the mainstream media was to respond to the incident, Letterman was even slower, waiting a full week before he apologized for a "bad joke" that couldn't be defended.

But when he apologized on Monday night, Letterman still insisted he was making the joke about Palin's 18-year-old daughter.

Well, yeah. Of course he was. That's why people laughed (jokes about raping 14 year olds don't get a lot of laughs). That's how it was intended, and that's how it was taken by virtually everyone who heard it. The manufactroversy came later.

Also, it's worth noting that the apology a week after the joke was the second apology. The first came pretty quickly, but I guess Palin wasn't ready to stop exploiting her daughter for political points yet.

We find that claim to be unbelievable, but even if it is true, does that really make things any better?

"Unbelievable" is used in a nonstandard way in this sentence. It doesn't mean something that can't be believed, it means something that McMenemy chooses not to believe. Because he's a dipshit.

Anyway, yes it makes it better! Bristol Palin was knocked up! That's widely-known, and is the reason she goes on tv advocating... ummm... abstinence. Because it worked so well for her!

I'm also pretty sure that 18 is the age of adulthood (and consent, many places) in this country. That makes a huge difference. It's not a joke about a girl having sex, it's a joke about a woman getting knocked up. Even though she actually became pregnant before she was 18. Hmm... Levi has some 'splaining to do!

Enough of the intentionally-misrepresented comedy bits though, let's get to intentionally-misrepresented media response.

The big issue here is not whether Letterman should be fired -- that's up to his advertisers and his viewers -- but why so many in the media think it's OK to cross all lines of decency and verbally attack 14-year-old girls, as long as they're the daughters of Republicans.

Oh, there was still some intentionally-misrepresented comedy bit in there. Oh well.

Regardless, nobody in the media thinks that! Even this joke, which wasn't about a 14 year old, has gotten all kinds of media attention. Far, far more than it should have.

We're glad that Letterman has finally apologized, but we find it troubling that the same liberal pundits who have gleefully attacked conservatives when they make tasteless comments, remained silent after Letterman's comments.

Damn right! Those faggy liberal pundits should recognize the difference between a late-night comedian making a joke that went wrong, and prominent conservative pundits using eliminationist rhetoric that they later dismiss as "satire."

See, when Ann Coulter includes a line like like "I think our motto should be, post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'" in a speech to CPAC, and then follows it up with "You know, ok. I made a few jokes — and they killed 3000 Americans. Fair trade." that's an hilarious joke! Ha ha ha!

But when David Letterman (an actual comedian) makes a joke that right-wingers interpret incorrectly, that's a terrible affront to civility. People should be outraged!

Stupid liberals, don't they know that the only funny jokes are ones that denigrate Muslims or feature some sort of violent rhetoric? Jokes about celebrities having sex are just wrong!

Of course, no McMenemy piece is complete without an appeal to "civility":

And we hope that all political discourse, whether it's a serious political debate or just late-night jokes, will remain civil above all else.

Yay, civility!

Here are McMenemy's allies in the fight for civility. Enjoy.



Now that's funny!

Yet Another Abstinence Clown!

Oh my. This is just remarkable.

It's an article from the Catholic News Service. In it, leaders in the Catholic Church whine about people making fun of the pope. Apparently, mocking decrepit old virgins in fancy dresses and funny hats is a sin or something.

Mockery is not acceptable in public discussions, especially when the subject is the pope, said the president of the Italian Catholic bishops' conference.

Oh, this is going to be fun...

"We will not accept that the pope, in the media or anywhere else, is mocked or offended," said Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa, opening the spring meeting of the permanent council of the Italian bishops' conference.

Bad news, Angelo! See, you really don't have a choice.

While it's pretty unlikely that I'll ever have the opportunity to directly offend the pope, I can (and do) mock him pretty much whenever I feel like it. In fact, anyone can go right ahead and mock the pope, at least in countries where freedom of speech is respected.

What's even better than the ridiculous "you must not mock this old fart" complaint is that they're complaining about people criticizing the pope for things he absolutely should be criticized for!

He said the public criticism began in January when the pope lifted the excommunications of four traditionalist bishops belonging to the Society of St. Pius X, including a bishop who denied the extent of the Holocaust, and continued into March when Pope Benedict said the distribution of condoms was not the key to stopping the spread of AIDS.

Ethics quiz! Which of these is the most evil?

1. Making fun of some guy.
2. Giving support to a bunch of blatant anti-Semites.
3. Lying to millions of people who believe you to be infallible, and in so doing discouraging them from doing something that could save their life, thereby condemning at least some of them to disease and eventual death.

Now, I'd personally rank #3 as the most evil, with #2 being pretty evil, but not deadly, and #1 not even really qualifying as "evil" at all. But I don't get my morals from an ancient PR pamphlet for a nonexistent deity, so I could be wrong.

What does the cardinal have to say?

The cardinal said the Italian bishops would continue asking people "to never abandon the language of respect, which is an indication of civility" even when they disagree with him.

How handy, I just had a quick post about civility. Thanks for proving my point!

The pope represents "a moral authority" in the world, which his March trip to Africa highlighted once again, he said.

That would be the trip on which he claimed that condoms "can even increase the problem" of AIDS.

I guess I'll need someone more deeply schooled in the Catholic faith to explain to me how that statement isn't a lie. Because I'm pretty sure lying is considered immoral even within the Catholic church. I'd have to check my Bible to be sure, but I think there may even be a commandment or something about it!

The bishops defended Pope Benedict as "the most loved and respected spiritual leader of Catholics all over the world." They argued that the world had received with respect his views on the recession, terrorism and moral issues such as AIDS and abortion.

The pope has often urged the world to become "more God-fearing while building a society based on humanitarian values and moral principles of life," they said.

Apparently "principles of life" is some sort of secret code for "dying from a horrible and totally preventable disease, just because this old Nazi is scared of vaginas."

But enough of this silly press release. Let's get down to business: how does the pope compare to Derek the Abstinence Clown?

Well, they both dress ridiculously! If anything, the pope dresses even more ridiculously than Derek.

Benny the Abstinence Clown

How about skills? Derek can juggle pretty decently. I'm still trying to figure out what skills the pope might have. If he can juggle, he keeps it to himself. Is being really fucking scary looking considered a skill?

I'll call it a draw. The pope must have some skill to get elected pope, right? He probably throws great parties in his rectory or something. Oh, I know, he gives a hell of a salute!



How about sexiness? Well, obviously the pope was a total hottie back when he was a young man. Derek the Abstinence Clown is still relatively young, and is not a hottie at all.

However!

Derek the Abstinence Clown preaches about abstinence, but it's possible that at some point he actually found someone stupid/desperate enough to fuck him.

Not the pope, though! Benny the Abstinence Clown would lose his job if anyone were stupid enough to fuck him. Luckily, he looks like a moldy piece of beef jerky these days, so he's probably safe.

Looks to me like Derek is winning... wait... HOLY CRAP WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS???



I take it all back. Making fun of the pope is dangerous!

The problem with civility

I've written and discarded multiple posts about the term "civility" and the way it's used as a weapon to silence dissent.

I touched upon this briefly in my post about "bipartisanship", but never felt I could get what I was trying to say about civility across clearly enough to justify a post of its own.

Yet today, I find Coturnix commenting here, and he expressed it almost perfectly. So I'll just quote him:

The call for civility is the method for the privileged to exclude the outsiders from conversation, because the only way to shock them out of their privilege is to tell them to fuck off.

Dammit, I wish I had said that.

No more mystery

Remember that post I made a few days ago? The one immediately beneath this one? If not, I recommend you read it now or nothing I say in this post is going to make much sense. Or maybe it will. Either way, I'm bored with it now and am just posting this so I can move on to something more interesting.

Anyway, some of the mysteries in that last post are now not so mysterious. I've had some polite discourse with the formerly mysterious Brian S. Murphy, who is Nathan Bech's Volunteer Coordinator. Pleasantries were exchanged, tales were told, etc.

Contrary to what I had speculated about, my annoying commenter "BSM" was not Mr. Murphy (who is quite civil). My bad!

On the other hand, BSM is a supporter of Nathan Bech (albeit informally), swiped most of the comments directly from a policy paper written by Brian S. Murphy, used BSM as a name to somehow "credit" Mr. Murphy, and contacted Mr. Murphy to brag about the commenting, at which point a chiding was presumably administered.

So while it wasn't a direct connection, there was at least some connection there. Mr. Murphy had basically been identity-thefted! Though most identity thieves don't brag about it to the victim. This is a shame, because it would make catching them a lot easier. Still... Not cool, BSM!

Of course that was only one element of the whole weirdness. There was also the matter of the Phoenix blog. And that was the real Brian S. Murphy commenting!

I chided him in my post for not disclosing his affiliation, and he conceded the point in email:

I will make sure that we include our affiliation when we comment on a blog. It's a fair criticism of something that wasn't intentional. I don't think it gets to our honesty at all. You made a good point and we'll modify what we do going forward.

So that's good, and gives me little to complain about here.

There was also discussion about who's behind Bech's Wikipedia page. I'm not going to go into details about that one, but will give you the gist.

The story given to me by Mr. Murphy indicates that while it indeed was someone with a political agenda, they weren't officially with any campaign, and indeed support neither Bech nor Olver. They also sound like sort of a dumbass.

There was more to the emails than just that, of course. I got a lot of campaigny talk about what Nathan Bech is about and what he believes and so forth. Which is all well and good, and I will perhaps talk more about it at another time. Some of it's good, some of it's just plain baffling. I also might do a Q&A thingy with Bech at some point. We'll see.

Brian Murphy was quite pleasant in representing Bech. His emails were well-written, and not super make-fun-of-able. He also came off as pretty sincere. The kind of guy you can have a civil conversation with, even if you disagree.

So, some mysteries are cleared up, some speculation is put to rest, and after my pleasant email exchanges with Mr. Murphy I must be feeling good about Nathan Bech, right? Maybe I'll lay off him for a bit? Only time will tell!

yeah, I'm writing another post about him now...