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The duck and jackass dynasty
Disclosure: I have never seen Duck Dynasty, nor do I intend to start. In fact, when the NCAA Final Four ends, I prolly won't switch on the TV to watch until the Hall of Fame game next August.Talk about bizarre. The writer, a business reporter for the L.A. Times, of all things, starts with Phil Robertson, calling him a bigot and ends up criticizing Bobby Jindal, Republican governor of Louisiana for his remarks in support of Robertson. Also, in case you were wondering, Hiltzik got his "facts" straight from a Think Progress press release. This article is the kind of insightful and deep analysis you come to expect from the professional left. By Michael Hiltzik I got the gist of the "Duck Dynasty" thing after my first and only viewing: bunch of rural jackasses who somehow struck it rich get brought into our living rooms to be laughed at by the rest of us aristocrats. This has been confirmed recently. A writer is calling Duck Dynasty the show that got away. It was intended to belittle the media's political opponents, but instead the basic decency of the stars have destroyed that. A&E is trying to regain control by chucking Phil Robertson out the window. Well, all right. When the archetype first appeared on television via the "Beverly Hillbillies" it was also enormously popular, but also taken as an illustration of how TV was living down to its condemnation by FCC Chairman Newton Minow as a "vast wasteland." A&E totally agrees and will do something about that when they finish distributing the profit they make from the show. In any event, A&E knew what it was doing when it put these people on the air, so its show of indignation in "suspending" one of them for speaking out against gays and the aspirations of African Americans falls a little flat. Again: Robertson did not "speak out against gays", rather he expressed a preference and his lack of understanding of that activity. What's truly ghastly, however, is the reaction of a couple of political figures. Sarah Palin's opinion isn't worth the eleven words I've just written to dismiss it.
Bigotry existed long before Phil Robertson got his mug in front of a camera, and will exist when long after the worms are through with you, Michael. The article writer's beef was with Robertson's observation that blacks were happier under segregation. They may or may not have been, but that was the man's experience. That doesn't make him a bigot. In the old days, news that public funds (via the Louisiana state film and television incentive program) had helped finance racism and gay-bashing of the variety espoused by Phil Robertson, the outspoken duck dynast, would have presented a moral dilemma and created a political embarrassment for a governor. Most self-respecting political leaders would have run away from association with such views; that's the essence, after all, of the "leadership" part of the equation. Not for Jindal. His only public statement on the matter thus far has praised Robertson as a member of a family of "great citizens of the State of Louisiana." He defends Robertson's views on the "it's a free country" principle, which as a debating point generally gets dropped by most people before the fourth grade. "Everyone is entitled to express their views," he says. After the fourth grade, we assume that the right of self expression shouldn't exist. In Jindal's seven-sentence statement, not a word of defense for gay people so crudely mocked by Robertson. Not a word to remind us that the life of black sharecroppers in Louisiana's Jim Crow era was not "godly" or "happy." Prolly because Jindal doesn't agree and wouldn't include it in his statement. In January of this year, Jindal lectured his fellow Republicans on the need to "stop being the stupid party." Remember? He talked about how the Republican brand had been damaged by its candidates' "offensive and bizarre comments." That was supposed to represent the launch of a new GOP outreach to communities that had been excluded by Republican doctrine, including the gay and minority communities. Republican doctrine is supposed to be freedom, free markets and human dignity for all, not just the aggrieved class. There can be no outreach if you do not hold to basic principles. But that was eleven months ago. Now, according to Jindal, Republicans are supposed to embrace offensive and bizarre comments. The party's transformation into a marginal and regional movement thus continues. Jindal has made himself the biggest jackass in the story, and his career as a national political figure the thing to be laughed at. Posted by: badanov 2013-12-23 |
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| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=382215 |