It's kind of strange to think of William Safire as "The Lord God Bird," that elusive giant-crested woodpecker long thought to be extinct, the mere thought of whose majestic visage passing through the mists makes ornithologists hearts turn over. But the idea of Safire as the prehistoric giant bird sets up a nice analogy. As William Safire is to "The Lord God Bird", the NY Times's newest conservative Op-Ed columnist John Tierney is to ... Woody the Woodpecker.
Of course, these comparisons are offensive to all bird-kind, and I offer my most heartfelt apologies. But even William Safire managed to reserve for himself a modicum of dignity, even if was just the magesterial way with language he had as he lied and misrepresented the truth. Tierney's columns manage to come off as a ludicrous sputter. In his latest, Tierney begins with a faux-erudite reference to Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenie before the Trojan war in order to get the winds to fill the Greeks' sails. Laura Bush's sacrifice of her dignity before an audience of Washington insiders was also bound to get some wind blowing.
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That Laura Bush could joke about horse's dicks and Chippendales, says Tierney, puts to lie the Left:
Mrs. Bush's performance, and her husband's reaction, wasn't a shock to the reporters who cover the White House. For years they have tried to convince their friends outside Washington that Mr. Bush is actually not a close-minded dolt, and Mrs. Bush is no Stepford Wife or Church Lady. ...
But how does a joke about a horse's dick, and W's smiling acquiesence prove anything about his character? Because Bush and Laura can butter up the Washington Press Corps by telling frat jokes, are we seriously to believe he's not also crassly exploiting and manipulating the morals of the middle of the country a la Thomas Frank?
In his attempt to counter that argument, he unwisely brings up Frank and opens himself up to ridicule for a crass misinterpretation of Frank's thesis. It's true, as Tierney says, that middle-class Americans are moving from traditional blue-state regions to traditional red-state ones, but as they move, most of them take with them their Democratic values. He's also right that Republicans are in many ways responsible for the transfer of jobs from blue to red areas. This has been done by a gerrymandered Republican congress by starving urban areas of government funding and showering government pork on states like Mississippi.
Says Tierney: "If you live in a blue-state stronghold, a coastal city where you can go 24 hours without meeting any Republicans..." Speaking of stereotyping ... I don't know which city he's talking about, but I'd challenge any city dweller to go 24 hours without running into a Republican. In New York, we need only look to our mayor, or our governor, among a host of others.
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