Dear Camille She’s often an extreme libertarian, as well as being a supporter of Barack Obama; but Camille Paglia is still dear to conservatives — and not only because "feminists” from Friedan to Steinem to Ivins to Wolf have trashed her for refusing to swear allegiance to a dour, victim-hooded cult in which leftist ideology always trumps truth.
Indeed, a recent Salon piece in which "Readers ask, Camille dishes” proves the reasons for Paglia’s appeal to conservatives so well that there should be no delay in reviewing a few of the offerings served up by a brave, insightful, creative thinker whom (surprise, surprise) no Ivy League university has ever deemed qualified for a professorship.
Nancy, Harry, et al. Writing his Dear Camille from Balad, Iraq, Daine Zaccheo (who wisely places his trust "in God” and "his faithful servant, John Browning”) wonders how the Democratic Party will hold together, given Nancy and Harry (the party’s real leaders), the new administration’s "Clinton retread crew,” and the rest of Obama’s "bozos.”
How does Camille respond? Well, certainly not like the poisonous toadies of the liberal media from the NY Times to MSNBC, the stink of whose brown noses is matched only by the stench emanating from their sycophantic mouths.
Instead, she concurs with the soldier who admires the genius gunsmith from Utah, agreeing that "Congress has come across lately like a clumsy, flea-bitten bunch of ‘bozos.’”
Further demonstrating her honesty and independence as an observer of the social/political scene, Camille employs her knowledge of morphology and mammals (present and past) to characterize "whiny, sniveling” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as "a cadaverous horse’s ass of mammoth proportions.”
Dick Cavett & Katie Couric After praising Blaine Walgren’s excellent rebuttal of Dick Cavett’s argument that Sarah Palin’s speech is grammatically obtuse, Paglia, who has consistently defended Palin, takes her own shot at the "ideology-driven attacks” and "clotted liberal clichés” that constitute the ammunition used in the arrogant hit job done on Alaska’s governor by "the urban elite,” whom she mocks as "a bunch of tittering lemmings.”
Not surprisingly, the image of that cowardly pack of neurotically reflexive conformist rodents sends Paglia’s stream of consciousness running to Katie Couric, whom Paglia slams for dishonestly attacking the governor with "vicious manipulations of video clips.”
Then, revving up close to Category Five, Hurricane Camille slams the first Auntie News Anchor by (1) condemning Couric’s "dippy narcissism” (2) asserting that Couric is the "stupidest” journalist ever to have interviewed her in 20 years and (3) expressing her revulsion for "Couric’s small, humorless, agenda-ridden mind.”
How’s that for three honest blows against Auntie — and, by extension, against a whole bunch of pretentious, insidiously "agenda-ridden” Uncle News Anchors, past and present.
And how’s that for demonstrating the courage of one’s convictions without giving a bit of a damn for the blows certain to be returned by the pompous asses of Liberaldom, especially its pretentious Ivy League Brahmins and posturing media elites.
The Fairness Doctrine In response to Kara McGee’s denunciation of the "hypocrisy” displayed by liberals who support "modern-day censorship,” Paglia agrees that the abomination euphemistically called The Fairness Doctrine "should be fiercely opposed.”
She then continues with an insightful, creative riff on talk radio that includes the following:
"Liberal imitators haven’t made a dent on talk radio because they think it’s all about politics, when it isn’t. Top hosts . . . explore a wide range of thought and emotion [as they] skillfully work the mike like jazz vocalists. Talk radio . . .deserves the protection accorded to other branches of the performing and fine arts. . . Keep the feds out of radio!”
(We can be certain that Charles Schumer and other megalomaniacal, centralized power loving liberals will mock those insightful, libertarian, egalitarian concepts just as they do every other idea associated with Jeffersonian Democracy.)
Global Warming Properly skeptical of "experts” of all kinds, Jim Carroll opines that "CO2 emissions will turn out to be the biggest case of nonexistent WMD since Saddam Hussein’s nukes.”
To which, with her usual display of admirable common sense, Camille adds this: "We should all be concerned about environmental despoliation and pollution, but the global warming crusade has become a hallucinatory cult.”
"Hallucinatory cult.” How that term causes the mind to be flooded with super-sized images of the crusade’s high priest — yes, the former vice-president whose latest reinvention of himself has him storming about the world like a meteorological Elmer Gantry off his medication.
More importantly, however, the image of those psychedelic crusaders ought to prompt us to think about the entire Liberal Church, which purports to base its dogmas upon science but in reality bases them upon metaphysical notions that stand not as a testament to superior faith or intellect but as the apotheosis of arrogance, hypocrisy, and plain, old, stunning stupidity.
This incomplete review of what Paglia recently dished out needs to end here — if only because this writer is eminently unqualified to comment upon the Hollywood films about which Camille and her readers are so thoroughly knowledgeable.
And it will; but not before sending aloft a very modest expression of hope amid the slobberingly enormous gushers of the stuff that is all the rage these days:
As, with justifiably angry sweat flowing from their brows, the American people labor to repair the damage done to the nation by disgustingly venal big shots in both the private and public sectors, may congressional Republicans, who have been chosen by the citizenry to serve as the public face of genuine, main street conservatism, reveal just a little bit of the courage, honesty, thoughtfulness, spirit, and common sense exhibited by dear Camille Paglia. Just a little bit. |
