The GOP - What Now?

[Black Sheep]

Here's a really good article that offers some introspection into the Republican party and the conservative movement, and how the mainstream media shapes the perceptions of the uneducated and misinformed general public. The following quote from Jay Nordlinger of National Review sums up a fact that was evident during the campaign, and has been a growing factor for the past eight years:

“It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.”

Big Hollywood Blog Archive Why We Fight

No example of this bias could be more obvious than the current coverage of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's sudden emergence from being an obscure New York socialite to Senatorial candidate. This woman is politically inept, has no experience at anything except part-time fundraising from other wealthy socialites, and when interviewed struggles to put together coherent thoughts and sentences. Yet how many deriding impersonations of her have we seen by Tina Fey on SNL? Zero. How many journalists have been hounding her children and digging into their private lives? Zip. How many grinding interviews has she done with Charlie Gibson or Katie Couric? Nada. Granted, the Jr. Senate seat from NY is not on the same level as candidate for VP, but it's still pretty high profile considering the current occupant.

The "American Idol" public seems infatuated with shallow clowns like Fey and Stewart, and they mistakenly assume the edited clips and insipid routines from these late-night entertainers are factual. At this point conservatives don't have anything to counter this force except talk radio, which is not visual media. However, as Klaven points out in his article, the Republicans should not concede these points to them. The GOP needs strong leadership now more than ever, and right now they don't have it from anyone in congress. Maybe somebody like Sen. Bob Corker (R) from TN will rise to the top in the months to come. Maybe some conservatives in media will rise up to take on these liberal late-night milksops, point out the fallacies in their mockery and ridicule, and expose them as straw bidders for the Democrats (I realize this is a pipe-dream; can anyone think of just ONE conservative comedian or satirist on TV?). Meanwhile, we'll sit back and watch as the Obama honeymoon runs its course and pray there's at lease some legislative balance in congress for the next two years.

 

[Pilgrim]

“It seems to me that the Left has won: utterly and decisively. What I mean is, the Saturday Night Live, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher mentality has prevailed. They decide what a person’s image is, and those images stick. They are the ones who say that Cheney’s a monster, W.’s stupid, and Palin’s a bimbo. And the country, apparently, follows.”

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years, especially the past eight. I used to like Sat. Night Live years ago when they had talented actors and writers like Steve Martin, Dan Ackroyd, John Belushi, etc. Their material was always very good and their political satire was even-handed and based on facts of the day. The current group of hacks are simply intolerable. It speaks volumes about their uninformed audience when they take as fact that Tina Fey's supposed "quote" from Sarah Palin - "I can see Alaka from my house" - is assumed to be factual (Palin never said it). Political satire will always make candidates fair game, but their portrayal of Palin was an all-out political ploy to trash not only her character, but that of her family.

As for John Stewart, I just don't comprehend what the attraction is with this obnoxious little jerk. He's not amusing, and the material he uses to lampoon conservative politicians is almost always based on outright lies or edited half-truths. When dealing with the liberal candidates he's poking fun in a light hearted manner. If it's a conservative, more often than not it's character asassination.

How do I know about the details of these shows you might ask? I'm unfortunately exposed to them when at home because my bleeding-heart liberal wife never misses an episode of either show. I'll spare everyone my rant about "The View".

But I digress - my point is that there are too many people that don't keep themselves informed about politics and current events from a variety of sources apart from the mainstream media. These people actually believe what they see on these simple-minded late night productions to be factual, and they let these impressions influence their vote. They have no idea what the candidates are really like or what their actual records are. Consequently, we get people like Barack Hussein Obama for president and Al Franken as senator.