Jimmy Akin

Hillary Clinton is being treated as if she’s a political supergenius.

Y’know, you hear all those stories in the press about how she’s "cleverly repositioning" herself to fool voters into thinking that she’s not a shieking, hard-left harpy in anticipation of the 2008 elections, in which she will be a virtually unstoppable juggernaut because she’ll have pulled the wool over the American public’s eyes so completely that we won’t remember she was ever a hard-left harpy and won’t notice all the hard-lefties supporting her in 2008 giving each other all the "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" signs as she says things to further her non-hard-left harpy image.

What a supergenius politician!

OR IS SHE?

On the other hand, not everyone is as comfortable with unrestrained vulgarity as South Park conservatives are.

One particular group that feels less than joyful when vulgarity is being pumped through their TVs are parents with children at home.

Whether South Park conservatives will get less comfortable with filth as they morph into parents is an open question at this point. But what is certain is that an awful lot of parents out there are not comfortable with the tidal wave of filth that is crushing their children thanks to the crudification of TV, movies, and music in our culture.

That kind of thing can have negative political consequences for you if you’re a political party cozying up to Hollywood and other culture poisoners.

SO SAY ONE DEMOCRAT REGARDING HIS OWN PARTY.

EXCERPT:

If the Democratic chieftains in Washington really want a window into why heartland residents are tuning out our party, they should stop huddling with loopy linguists from Berkeley like George Lakoff and just start reading Frank Rich’s commentaries in the New York Times. There they will find a perfect distillation of the arrogance and narrow-mindedness that typifies the cultural thinking of our elites–and turns off red-state voters.

In the view of Mr. Rich and his acolytes, freedom in our culture has been "under attack" ever since 9/11. Indeed, Mr. Rich has argued that this attack is being led by "new Puritans" who want to "stamp out" all that is "joyously vulgar" in American culture and who are fomenting a "government war against indecency" to get the job done.

Once you get past the absurdity of Mr. Rich’s hyperbole–vulgarity, joyous or otherwise, is hardly in retreat–the implications of this mindset and the battle lines it establishes are clear. On one side are the forces of freedom, tolerance, diversity, modernity; on the other those of repression, intolerance, conformity and zealotry. And if you’re not exactly enamored of watching titillating stunts and ads at the Super Bowl with your 6-year-old, you’re part of the TV Taliban.

GET THE STORY.

There’s a new term you’re probably going to be hearing a lot of (if you haven’t been already): South Park conservatives.

The idea of South Park conservatives is that they’re, well, conservatives who like the vulgar cartoon show South Park, which skewers politically correct nonsense on a regular basis.

The reason you’ll be hearing a lot of the term is that some folks have been arguing that there are an awful lot of South Park conservatives, and since they’re younger (on average) that most voters, they represent the wave of the future.

HEREZA STORY FROM TECH CENTRAL ON SOUTH PARK CONSERVATIVES (CHT: Southern Appeal.)

The saga of South Park conservatives is also the focus of a new book by author Brian C. Anderson. He writes about them in

THIS BOOK ADVERTISEMENT THINLY DISGUISED AS NEWS ANALYSIS.

EXCERPTS:

For decades, with few exceptions, a liberal sensibility dominated American humor. From Lenny Bruce to Norman Lear’s "All in the Family" to today’s "Will & Grace," the laughs came at the expense of fuddy-duddy conservatives and bourgeois conventions.

But new media have allowed a new kind of cutting-edge humor to emerge, one whose primary target is the Left.

The anarchic, vulgar archetype of this anti-liberal spirit, which gives my book its title, is Comedy Central’s brilliant, and wildly popular, cartoon series "South Park," depicting the adventures of four foulmouthed fourth-graders.

"South Park" sometimes shows a socially conservative streak — one episode actually mocks pro-choice extremism, when Cartman’s mother, Liane, decides to abort her son — then in the third grade.

She goes to the "Unplanned Parenthood" clinic. "I want to have an abortion," she tells the receptionist.

"If you don’t feel fit to raise a child, then abortion probably is the answer," the receptionist tells her. "Do you know the actual time of conception?"

Liane: "About—eight years ago."

"I see," the receptionist says, "so the fetus is?"

Eight years old, Liane says, matter-of-factly.

"Ms. Cartman, uh eight years old is a little late to be considering abortion," says the receptionist.

Liane registers surprise, and the receptionist elaborates: "Yes — this is what we would refer to as the ‘fortieth trimester.’ "

"But I just don’t think I’m a fit mother," Liane laments.

"Wuh? But we prefer to abort babies a little earlier on," the receptionist notes. "In fact, there’s a law against abortions after the second trimester."

Later, Liane discovers, to her horror, that the word "abortion" means termination of life — and not the same thing as "adoption," as she had mistakenly thought — she abandons her plans.

GET THE STORY.