If Sarah Palin crashes and burns this campaign season, it will be a pity for many reasons, not least because we will no longer have the opportunity to read clarifying missives like the one Mark Steyn received today from a reader in Washington state:
This abortion prohibitionist hag won't cut it among women with brains. And BTW she is a good example of reproduction run amok. 5 kids; 1 retard. I wonder if the bitch ever heard of getting spayed.
What were some of you saying about the right wing starting the culture war? Tell me more. I especially want to hear about the belligerent little retard.
UPDATE: Some of you in the comboxes are wondering why I would publish this sort of thing. One of you coined the phrase "the pornography of outrage" to describe it (it's a great phrase). You all will recall I published a few months ago an e-mail I received as part of a chain, informing readers that Barack Obama was a secret Muslim terrorist who would sell this country out, etc. I published it as an example of an ugly, rage-filled sentiment that was present in the body politic, and that should be denounced. And I denounced it. It is my presumption that none of the liberal readers of this blog subscribe to the rancid views of Steyn's correspondent, but I believe that less in-your-face version of that line are present in our culture, and will inform the voting and activism of a certain number of people this fall. When many of us on the pro-life cultural right see and hear some of the attacks on Palin, we see and hear politer versions of what this cretin wrote.
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Steve, I was only trying to live up to my, er, "reputation" by Googling your brains out in public ["Crunchy Con is posted before a delayed monitored audience" - Ensemble-sitcom intro-voiceover, after, e.g., Cheers].
And by the way, you look *gorgeous* this evening - "in a virile sort of way, you understand," to quote Benny Hill's cowboy character...
The anonymous troll comment displayed so prominently offends me and it makes me sad to think we have so many simple-minded hateful people.
As far as representing the Democratic party base, I think that's laughable.
As far as starting the culture wars, I've got a history-flash for anyone who believes the culture wars are something new: go back and read the history of this country. Bitter divisions during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, etc. Within 12 years of the country's founding, there were already 2 major rebellions that had to be put down.
Americans have perhaps been united exactly once in our history: World War II. And even then I've heard stories from my in-laws of people privately celebrating the day FDR died.
Political hacks today give themselves far too much credit if they think a "culture war" is a new creation. They could perhaps be ashamed of the particularly thoughtless, crude way it has been conducted of late, though.
I did the math, the better to "get" Sarah Palin, as the hopeful host puts it:
# of posts from Palin announcement August 29 morning, through August 31: 23
# of posts Palindromic: 12
52%
# posts September 1 - September 6, c. 8:30 pm: 65
# posts Palinophile: 37
57%
Home page = 10 most recent posts, c. midnight Saturday, September 6 - 8:30 pm
# posts Palinicious: 6
60%
THE PUNCH LINE
Q. Do we "get" Sarah Palin?
A. You're soaking [alt: choking/smoking/toking/poking/croaking/joking] in it.
The finger-to-nose grapevine among Vegas bookies has it that as ascending-from-momentum Palin-post percents the week ahead are destined to see Our Working Boy's eyes roll back as he peg-climbs his way up, gym-class-style, just shy of 70, he'll collapse breathless and flushed, and over a smoke-for-old-times afterward discover the world without end he left behind, Already In Breakneck Regress...
"Homosocialists do good research. Thanks [Lahti Da] :-)"
Steve, that is the funniest line this year. In addition to Scott's source, my source was a Jan 6, 2008, Newsweek (on line?) article.
"Cleveland, Honey...: I do like you. A LOT." Scott Lahti
Alas, my Queen, the cockles of my heart have been purloined by a veritable cross between Ann Coulter and Pamela Anderson: the temptress, sigaliris.
Not that it need matter for our kabuki herein, Sweetness, Angelcake, but as a ramRod straight man in what we quaintly call "real life",*
*While we each take our star turns as the other's straight man *here*...
I'm not at all insulted to have been taken otherwise [just as long as you take me *somewhere* - Ed.] - however, regarding the larger-than-life punetic license with which you choose to *analogise* by gilt my sometime-sister from a blog elsewhere - sig - I can't vouch for a like equipoise in emotion: she can be a real screamer, trust me...*
*Or so I have read [after Spinal Tap]
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