Viewpoint has long thought that the political left in this country had lost it's sanity and certainly lost whatever class it might ever have had. Three reports from Mark Steyn reinforce the conclusion. The first tells of a play, first published in The Nation, which subjects both George and Laura Bush to withering ridicule. Steyn's description includes this passage:
As the play goes on, however, Mrs. Bush becomes increasingly distressed by the children's deaths - and the brutality of her husband's acts, both in Texas and the White House. She tells the children about her favorite author, Dostoyevsky, and how he narrowly escaped execution. "If my husband had been in charge back then, Dostoyevsky would've been dead for sure," she says. "My husband, he executed everyone they told him to, everyone they let him, I should say, my God, a hundred-and-something people and he never even missed his early, early bedtime, nor for that matter, from what I could see as I sat up reading and rereading Dostoyevsky, ever even stirred in his sleep!"
No doubt this was boffo with the East-Side crowd that was in attendance and for whom serious thinking about moral questions just makes their heads hurt. Admittedly, it's much easier and lots more fun to have one's own superficial judgments reinforced by collectively holding the man who does have to make difficult decisions in derision. Small people have always tried to tear down their betters in order to make themselves feel more important.
The second report was on a Paul Krugman article for the New York Times. Krugman's columns during this election cycle have often bordered on the bizarre and have frequently been well across the border of nasty and vile. This one manages to be both, a not uncommon achievement for Mr. Krugman.
Krugman says he believes the United States needs a "mega-Watergate" scandal to uncover a far-reaching right-wing conspiracy, going back forty years, to gain control of the U.S. government and roll back civil rights....Krugman told the crowd that the president is simply a front man for larger and more sinister forces.
"There's complete continuity going back, really, I think - but this is my next book - you really need to go back to Goldwater. A lot of this has to do with civil rights, and the people who don't like them."...Krugman described the conspiracy as "the coalition between the malefactors of great wealth and the religious right." He offered no further details about who, precisely, is in the conspiracy but said that "substantial chunks of the media are part of this same movement."
"The answer, I think, my great hope now, is that we need an enormous unearthing of the scandals that we know have taken place," Krugman said. "We need a mega-Watergate that rocks them back."
Krugman offers no evidence to support his claims, but of course, even if he did, and someone refuted it, that would only prove that the skeptic is part of the conspiracy and that the conspiracy is too insidiously clever to allow itself to be exposed by evidence. Besides, as among true believers of any stripe, evidence is irrelevant. One knows in one's heart that it's true, and in a post-modern world where truth is subjectively justified that's the only proof one needs. This is all so nutty as to be absolutely hilarious if it weren't impolite to laugh at the tragedy of a man losing his sanity before our very eyes.
The third report is yet another illustration of the coarseness of those on the left who seem to be incapable of engaging in political discourse without wallowing in verbal sewage. The event was called The Big Tent Extravaganza sponsored by Planned Parenthood. It was billed as a celebration of unity between members of both parties who support a woman's right to an abortion. Steyn writes:
Comedian Lewis Black, had a message for GOP delegates who might hold other views. It is un-fu**ing-believable that since the time I was 15 we have been having to argue this sh**," Black said. "There comes a point where you say, f**k you, enough is enough. There is no argument. It's not your body, a**hole. Shut the f**k up."
The lesbian comedian Suzanne Westenhoefer said of religious conservatives, "I support any religion that brings people up. Anything that brings people down, your ass is mine. That's f**king bullsh**." Westenhoefer also described her fundamentalist sister as "a whack-job Christian," and added that "Mormons are whack jobs, too." And she launched into an extended discussion of the actor Mel Gibson and his movie The Passion, saying, "He's a f**king a**hole."
Singer Lou Reed, who played an elegiac song on the death of John F. Kennedy, wore a BUCK FUSH t-shirt. And the crowd wildly cheered criticism of the president and yelled out slogans like "Fox News sucks!" - all standard fare at protest events this week.
These are the sort of individuals who despise Bush and support John Kerry. This fact by itself should tell us almost all we need to know about both men.