PrintDecember 2, 2007
Likening Republicans to beasts (updated)
A new fad appears to be aborning among liberal commentators: likening Republicans to various beasts. Ron Brownstein's current "Political Connections" column in the National Journal, a conventional-enough analysis of the race among GOP contenders for the presidency, concludes with this gem:
There's plenty of stinging ahead before one scorpion crawls from this bottle.
The GOP candidates are scorpions?
Could this possibly be the same Ronald Brownstein who one month ago published a book entitled The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America? Is this bestiary metaphor what Brownstein has in mind as non-partisanship? Just wondering: to what animal has he likened Hillary or Obama?
Just a couple of days ago, Erin Burnett, reading the "news" on MSNBC's Morning Joe show, twice called President Bush a monkey: once as "the monkey" and then as "the monkey in the middle". See it for yourself here.
Liberal journalists are well-known to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to employing new gimmicks of the moment. Rush Limbaugh hilariously compiled clips of liberal TV commentators hastening to employ the word "gravitas" when it was first deployed by some partisan war room as a means to denigrate then-candidate Bush by suggesting he needed a running mate with that quality to balance his own putative lack of same.
I am tempted to employ the phrase "herd behavior." But for obvious reasons, I will refrain for the moment.
If the MSM holds true to form, Rush will soon be able to compile a menagerie of beasts in sound bites, as liberals seek to denigrate Republican candidates.
Hat tips: Richard Baehr and Ed Lasky
Update: Poet Russ Vaughn writes:
Update: Poet Russ Vaughn writes:
Regarding the issue of Republicans being portrayed as beasts: we should exercise a bit of political jujitsu here by accepting the weight thrown at us, and, using truth as a fulcrum, throw these vicious, liberal pantywaists back on their butts.
Hell yes, we conservatives, we Republicans, are in fact beasts. We are the fearsome lions guarding the gates of freedom; we are the vigilant eagles watching over the world, ready to sink talons into the serpents of tyranny; we are ursus horribilis, a terrible mother bear, willing to fight to the death to protect our offspring.
And yet, we are also that different beast, the porpoise, an intelligent, self-aware beast, able to swim in a turbulent political ocean, which we view as a sea of opportunity, with the sense to make our environment work for us and our progeny, with a minimum of controversy and turmoil.
Lions, eagles, bears and porpoises have neither serious thought nor significant concern of the inconsequential stings that liberal scorpions may inflict from time to time.
Hell yes, I'm a conservative, Republican beast, and I'm damn well proud to serve humanity in that capacity.
