In our old neighborhood there was a woman who came to parties and offended everyone. Cathy just couldn't help herself and in our liberal city enclave she managed to stick a size ten right wing shoe in her mouth every time. The women kept inviting Cathy to parties but eventually even mothers in arms could not save her from her continual faux-pas, brilliant denunciations of progressives, crass jokes, idolatry on par with a talk show host who just cant keep stepping over his guests. Eventually even Cathy realized she wasn't having a great time, but this made her more ornery, more obnoxious, to the point where fights would break out. She just couldn't get over the fact that there was a dividing line between her progressive college educated neighbors and her rustbelt background.
Billy O'Reilly wants to take away funding for NPR over the Juan Williams firing. Juan is now happily ensconced in Foxland and appeared on the Huckabee show complaining he cant sleep and is still in shock. I mean I said nothing wrong he lamented to the nodding Huckabee who told him he was a loyal American and that they were all behind him. Juan looked like man who had drank too much at a party and now wasn't so sure he liked the hosts. Of course he isn't sleeping because he doesn't like his new bedfellows all that much, two million bucks can give you a lot of cushion, but it is sort of lumpy.
The whole right is up in arms about the firing of Juan which really brings us full circle to Cathy. It is not that O'reilly and the boys care that much about Juan or even the Muslims, it is really that they just are frustrated there is a party that they are not invited too. Like Cathy they have gone to the party, but there is a difference between them and their progressive brethren that makes them feel like a kids who didn't get invited to a sleepover. NPR is the biggest sleepover of them all and now they see a chance to take down the hosts.
If there is anything that is more offensive to the right it is that there is a difference that goes beyond issues, that goes to who we are. It is the elitism in liberal elites that they feel keenly. They want to think they can walk the line wherever they choose and those dumb liberals just don't understand the way the world is. But then it occurs to them that maybe they aren't really wanted at the party, maybe they just don't get it. Like Cathy, that makes them more obnoxious, more of a boor, more of pluck thine own eye out it it offends thee devotee. Taking away NPR funding will not get them an invitation to sit down and break bread with smart people. Like Cathy, once again, they will simply not be invited.
William Hazelgrove's latest novel is Rocket Man due out in the fall
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
