I have to be delicate with this post. After all, I do have friends who are fiscal conservatives and we do agree once in a while. I also have a friend or two who are social conservatives. We can’t talk politics at all, period…or we won't be speaking for three years.
However, with all due respect to my conservative peeps, I can’t resist responding to this week conservative bloggers and web pundits who have taken great umbrage with recent comments Cher made about Republicans. Me thinks she may have hit a nerve.
Not surprisingly, I see great credibility issues in the responses – which have been almost uncontainably feral.
Remember back in the 80s when your friends’ parents used to say the evils of the economy were rooted in the ideas of Franklin Roosevelt and all his socialist programs? Today democrats believe the evils of the economy are rooted in the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his trickle-down economic theory. Now, Reagan was a celebrity before he was a President. This will become important later.
http://politikditto.blogspot.com/2009/02/obama-cultist-cher-wonders-why-anyone.html
Politikditto's major rebuttal to Cher’s comments are
“I mean does anyone under 30 even know who Cher is?”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,489526,00.html
RNC mouthpiece, Fox “news” took the same tactic:
“Don’t remember who Cher is…?”
This humorous tactic has no rational credibility. If Cher is a has-been whom no one remembers, then why are y'all reacting to it all over the blogosphere? And while we're at it, why did her last tour break so many records? Why is her Vegas show selling out every night? Why is she constantly followed around whenever she goes shopping by the likes of TMZ and other Paparazzi – because stories about what she’s buying don't interest anybody?
Why are you still talking about her then?
http://www.mrc.org/BozellColumns/entertainmentcolumn/2009/col20090209.asp
L. Brent Bozell III, his column's first line says it all:
“Beware celebrities getting involved in politics” and goes on to say, “Celebrities aren’t expected to make sense, they’re only expected to be famous.”
THAT’S why Ronald Reagan never made sense! He wasn’t supposed to. He was a celebrity. Thank you for clearing that up for us. Conservatives have no credibility asking celebrities to refrain from talking politics. Why? Because they consistently don’t complain when conservative celebrities are doing the talking on politics: Ronald Reagan (whom they’ve canonized), Charlton Heston and Ted Nugent were never asked to “shut up” by conservatives.
Later Bozell says,
“Let’s take Cher, the singer who can’t honor her promises to retire…”
This retire comment is another way of saying, “please just go away” so I don’t have to listen to your opinions, which I disagree with. It’s very similar to Rush Limbaugh last season telling liberals to “shut up…until you win an election, shut up!” Well, now that the losing party is not shutting up, they lose credibility asking the rest of us to shut up.
Bozell then criticizes Cher recent protest for Billy the elephant and complains about her involvement in the abortion-discussion film If These Walls Could Talk which, by the way, had both pro-life arguments and pro-choice arguments in each vignette:
“Like many a Hollywood liberal, Cher’s sympathies for animals don’t extend to human babies. She starred and helped direct a pro-abortion film for HBO in 1996. She told Newsweek at the time she was passionate from personal experience: “Our mother almost died from an illegal abortion when I was little. Our grandmother had a desperate coat-hanger abortion when she was young. I had four miscarriages before I got pregnant with my daughter. I had two abortions. Legal.” She was upset there was still an abortion debate. “If men had babies, we wouldn't be having this conversation. It would be a done deal.””
Bozell has absolutely no moral credibility here. To paraphrase him — Like many a conservative evangelical, sympathies for the possible suffering of the unborn don't extend to the sufferings of the living. In the last eight years, major evangelical conservative organizations have thrown all their heft, arguments, and money behind things they are against, against abortion, against gay marriage, against stem cell research. They have not yet established any strong message or support to end suffering for servicemen in Iraq who lack equipment, the suffering of veterans who lack services, the suffering of the poor, the suffering of animals (even pet abuse initiatives), the suffering caused by “playing God” with the death penalty that sometimes puts to death the wrong guy, the suffering of children without adequate health care, or any real love thy neighbor initiatives. Correct thy neighbor initiatives only.
http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2009/02/cher_denounces.html
Bill O’Reilly called Cher a pinhead; this Moonbattery article is titled “Cher Denounces Republicans, Praises Moonbat Messiah.” Other bloggers called Cher “stupid” and an “airhead.”
Moonbattery says,
“Typically of dreary has-beens trying to seem relevant in the cesspool of our entertainment industry, Cher is heavily into BHO…"
Typical of these responses is name calling. Which doesn’t bring with it inherent credibility — ever. It’s sort of like a last-ditch effort to assert yourself.
"For his first miracle, the Moonbat Messiah will blow over $1 trillion on liberal pork, despite the country being nearly broke… A primary reason this country appears to be headed for decline is that narrow-minded leftist cretins like Cher control our mainstream culture.”
Moonbattery has no fiscal credibility with his response, either. Because in 8 years conservatives never criticized Bush for his spending on an unnecessary war in Iraq, which took us from a surplus to a huge deficit. Spending wasn’t an issue three months ago. Suddenly…it is.
http://www.onebigdog.net/it-would-be-funny-if-cher-died/
Big Dog's blog seeks death to unbelievers. Big Dog says it would be funny if Cher died,
“Not funny as in comical or humorous but funny as in ironic.”
“After reading the sappy praise she spewed for Obama it appears to me that she wants a different kind of stimulus package from her exalted leader.”
So previous bloggers claimed those who support President Obama are somehow cultish, following a messiah; but this one asserts that if you criticize Republicans, you deserve death.
That sounds credible.
He goes on to reveal a bit of his racial prejudices (all under the guise of comedy, mind you):
“In another bit of irony, one of Cher’s big hits was a song titled Halfbreed [sic]. And then came Obama, in fulfillment of the scripture…”
It's hard to find credibility in insults and thinly-veiled racial slurs.
Think of these people like bullies in the swimming pool. They’ve been pushing the beach ball so far under the water for eight years and now they’re outraged that it’s flying up in the air like it is.
When you push the country to one extreme, it tends to have an extreme correction (even just to get back to the center). Simple physics.
Here are some bloggers who supported Cher’s comments:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/125773/cher_bitchslaps_republicans/ (This one has video of Cher’s comments)
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/02/10/independent_bill_oreilly_calls_cher_is_a_pinhead_oh_no_he_didnt_oh_yes_he_did.php This one takes O’Reilly to task.
Cher slams them. They slam Cher. Toys are thrown across the sandbox. Madness.
I need to rephrase that: this is the boring story that would not die. Cher swore on TV. First it wasn’t okay; then it was okay; now it’s not okay again. I’ve culled the pertinent details (in my estimation anyway) from the USA Today story by Joan Biskupic:
