IN THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE…. It seems like the conservative media item of the day is a Pajamas Media piece from John Hawkins, perhaps best known as the blogger behind “Right Wing News.” Hawkins’ item is well worth reading, especially for those who don’t usually read conservative blogs, because it helps capture the alternate universe that activists on the right seem to enjoy.
Too often today, liberals are using below-the-belt tactics against conservatives and paying no price whatsoever. Meanwhile, those on the right like to pat themselves on the back for being above it all. This is like a boxer priding himself on never taking off his gloves while his opponent nearly beats him to death with his bare firsts. But in the end, there’s not much to be said for lovable losers. Conservatives should realize that fair play isn’t going to pay any dividends.
While we conservatives don’t have to stoop quite as low as the left has, we do need to start giving them a taste of their own medicine, if only to make them think twice about the way they’re treating our side.
Just to be clear, Hawkins isn’t kidding. This isn’t satire. As he sees it, the left is ruthless, dishonest, and destructive, while the right tries to maintain a sense of classy detachment, disappointed by the cheap and vicious acts of unhinged liberals.
He even has some ideas about how the right can respond to the left’s nastiness.
Why don’t conservatives do opposition research on the journalists endlessly running stories about Bristol Palin and Joe the Plumber? Have they ever been arrested? Whom do they own property with? Have they ever been paid to do a speech for someone and then run a favorable news story about him? Certainly Keith Olbermann’s personal life is just as newsworthy as Joe the Plumber’s, and the details of Maureen Dowd’s life are just as noteworthy as those of Bristol Palin — are they not?
Hawkins goes on to argue that conservative groups on college campuses should “shout down” liberal speakers; state lawmakers should refuse to fund universities that hire liberal faculty members; organizations that work with “poverty pimps like Al Sharpton” should be boycotted; and conservatives should file “obscenity complaints with the FCC” against MSNBC and CNN because of the use of the phrase, “Tea Baggers.”
The piece also argues that George W. Bush tried to change the “tone” and Fox News “makes more of an effort to be balanced than any of the other networks and all the biggest newspapers in America.” Conservatives, Hawkins added, “need to stop playing by Marquess of Queensberry rules,” because Americans just aren’t acknowledging that activists on the right are “actually nice guys.”
Ron Chusid called this the “most delusional blog post ever.” That’s arguably true, though I do find pieces like this helpful, to the extent that they shed some perspective on how the right perceives the political world.
With that in mind, I wonder what weather is like in their reality.
