Wingin' It

Salon.com has a column called Wingnut in which a right-wing nut (oh! that's why!) writes a column in defense of the indefensible, and it does make interesting reading. For the same reason, I can listen to the Rush O'Hannitys of the world and read the Buckleys, if only for self-amusement purposes. It's one of my cherished beliefs that these people no more believe in the inanity they put forth than Craig T. Nelson thought he was really the football coach at Minnesota State. That's where our troubles begin, when people can't tell the difference. When Robert Young was TV's Marcus Welby MD, people used to stop him on the street for medical advice. He capitalized on this by doing commercials for painkillers with the oft-repeated opening line, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

Hey, that's good enough for lots of people, I guess! And if not, call Mariska Hargitay and have them arrested.

But someone wrote to this Wingnut and asked how the right wing, with their breast-beating (!) overweening moral indignation about the sexual peccadilloes of others, can advance the likes of twice-divorced, thrice-married Newt "Newt" Gingrich as a possible 2012 presidential prospect. Oh, it's easy, he writes back. You see, the right has long been the party of traditional American values, and forgiveness is one of those values, so you see...

What I see is a group of people who were ready to toss Bill Clinton out on his ear because he got a little busy. They forgave him right up to a stupid time-wasting impeachment.

I smile when I think of the mini-ruckus raised in some quarters after the Smothers Brothers referred to Ronald W. Reagan as a "known heterosexual." People were actually writing to the authority on such matters - Vernon Scott's "Personality Parade" column in Parade Magazine - asking how they could get away with such calumny. There is nothing wrong with speaking the truth.

Here's some more truth - if SC Governor Mark Sanford had been thought of as a possible presidential candidate next time, he more or less told his supporters and his chances to take a hike. The state legislature down there repudiated his plan to reject the federal stimulus money - "Imagine, all them Yankee dollars flowing down here to this sovereign state! Great balls of fire! Hot A'mighty!" - and so he disappeared. He literally took a hike, "along the Appalachian Trail" (mainly the part that runs through Buenos Aires), leaving the business of his state in unknown hands.

I guess he misunderstood the part about when the going gets tough, the tough get going. They didn't mean it that way, Guv'nuh!