Thursday, June 30, 2011

"If I've Insufficiently Debased Myself, PLEASE Tell Me"

I was speaking with two different friends about the Mark Halperin commentary.
  • The manner in which he got in hot water, 
  • his subsequent indefinite suspension by MSNBC for words much tamer than those used about  GW Bush on the same station, 
  • and then his obsequious taking on all the "blame" for stating with what half the country sees.
and it suddenly dawned on me. What if the whole incident were staged? We know that MSNBC is the lowest of the low, in both ratings and moral turpitude.  Look at how much press this has sparked and recall the axiom: when one is dying to be noticed, the only bad publicity is no publicity.

And that led to one more deeper thought: What if the whole incident were staged in order to set a new Politically Cowering standard by example?

The danger, my friends, is that this is the next step to establishing doublethink. Statism is ramping up. Here's how I updated my last post.

Mark Halperin's excessive obsequiousness in apologizing to Obama suggests he knows how much danger he is in. It's a performance that stirs memory of the fearfulness of subjects under the Soviet Union.

His overwrought display of contrition for daring to say a belittling word of our president -- not our dictator yet -- seems staged. It's as if Mr. Halperin is helping set the new high standard for decorum towards any president of these United States. If that were his intent, then we may be rapidly heading down the road to complete political censorship reminiscent of the life and death matter it was in the Soviet bloc.

This, my friends, is why we must speak out boldly now, as Americans have always done, as I have done with my headline. Were the entire dextrosphere to agree that Obama is indeed behaving like a dick, especially in forcing Mr. Halperin to go through this unseemly spectacle of obsequious contrition for a minor disparagement of this very dangerous marionette currently occupying the White House, maybe we can buy some more time.

3 comments:

  1. When was the last time someone got suspended for observing that the Emperor had no clothes?

    I remember a lot of bad things said about Bush (not all of which were untrue), but I don't remember anyone having to grovel and atone for it; usually they got cheered by the left.

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  2. Precisely Bob.

    Once we conclude from the evidence that this was a staged event, Heinlein's razor suggests they did it merely for publicity.

    But in these dangerous times, I opt we presume they did it for the worse reason: another incremental step towards Orwell's vision.

    Later, should the consequences pan out to be less sinister, then we can back off on our watchfulness and be relieved.


    Oh, and thanks for thinking of the word grovel. I chose to settle on obsequious, after suffering "it's on the tip of my tongue" for quite some time.

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  3. The word "grovel" came immediately to mind when Obama's name was mentioned; isn't that what he does to royalty from other countries?

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