Thursday, March 23

Nooners and Nutters

Little Ben Shapiro: "If the mainstream media ran the country" (caution: satire)

Peggy Sue Noonan: "What Nobodies Know (caution: Peggy Noonan)

Benji, stop me if you've heard this before. You're what? 21? 22? Pardon my confusion, but that paid Google link for your speaking services--do they come with pie?--still talks about you being seventeen. Anyhoo, precocious as we know you are, Ben, there's still no way you were reading newspapers before the Reagan Revolution was in full swing, so tell me how it is that you manage to sound just like your father in some late-70s Young Republican coffeeklatsch? The "liberal MSM" is one thing, of course, but Michael Moore calling soldiers "baby killers?" That canard is from the war your father didn't fight in, not yours. And we were jabbing a stick in the UN's eye even before your mother had to hide out from the forced abortion squads. Of course, we'd been doing that periodically since its inception, but by the time Reagan rolled around we were even refusing to pay for the stick.

And Peggy Sue, I'm loath to criticize a first effort in finding historical parallels that reside somewhere other than your own brain, but the result isn't much different. Spirited attempt, though, at insisting that the Partition violence came about a) because the natural European rulers of the Subcontinent pulled out and b) because the Muslims started it (okay, okay, you mention Sikh violence first, but you save the graphic quotes for the Muslim reprisal). Points for having read enough of the thing to quote it selectively.

By the way, Collins and Lapierre are the authors of the excellent O Jerusalem! which I recommend to you despite knowing your book report will leave out the Irgun. Can't recommend it for Ben, though, as any balanced treatment of the Middle East, or even a mention that the place actually existed between 73-1947 would probably go through his system like that taste of pork went through Gandhi's.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just think they'd make a cute couple.

punkinsmom said...

So the Peg’s point is that the titular leaders during the Partition were unaware of the approaching violence (but the historically-sanctified true leader, Gandhi, foresaw the violence because he was not blinded by his elitism) in the same way that the titular leader of the United States was unaware that toppling a sovereign government would lead to violence. Usually parallels are, well, parallel.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to be pedantic, but I believe it was the Buddha who was offered pork, and as it was a gift, had to accept it, which proved to be one of the few fatal cases of indigestion to make it into a world religion/philosophy.

Ray Bridges said...

Buddha, Gandhi, whatever. Aren't they the same person just dressed ... well, I started to say "differently" but they really weren't, were they. Hmm, back to the drawing board.

Doghouse, I'm so glad you have the stomach to read that drek and report back to us. You should get combat pay.

I just happened to catch Helen's question to Bush the other morning. I'm still waiting for his answer.