rdgrnr's Blog

Did I miss the deadline for alternative opinions on Sandra Fluke?

What with liberal women constantly talking about their vaginas suddenly pretending to be offended by the word "slut," and conservatives pretending to be as pussified as liberals about the nasty names they've been called, I never got an answer to the most pressing question about Sandra Fluke: Who are you again?

Was Fluke dragged out of obscurity after the women of America took a vote and chose her as our spokeswoman? Please, Sandra, we know how deeply private, publicity-shy and terribly busy with law school you are, but we need you to speak for us!

I don't think that happened. Rather, Fluke is the latest in a long line of my absolute favorite liberal typology: hysterical drama queens.

From Murphy Brown to the Jersey Girls, Cindy Sheehan, Joe Wilson and the New School's Jean Rohe, these fantasists inject themselves into a boiling-hot public debate and then claim victim status when anyone criticizes them.

At least since I've been keeping score, liberals had their first brush with the dark night of fascism in 1992, when Dan Quayle said of a fictional TV character: "It doesn't help matters when prime-time TV has Murphy Brown ... mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice."

Suddenly, it was 1939 Germany and multimillionaire Hollywood elites were the Jews.

At the Emmy Awards ceremony that year, the creator of "Murphy Brown," Diane English, took the occasion to say: "I would like to thank our sponsors for hanging in there when it was getting really dangerous."

Really dangerous? You want "really dangerous"? Try being a pedestrian crossing Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica when Diane English is being driven to the airport! (A year earlier, English's husband mowed down the matriarch of Santa Monica's Chez Jay, killing her, while driving his wife to the airport.)

Marge Tabankin, executive director of the Hollywood Women's Political Committee, said: "The community feels targeted. It's created a chill and fear reminiscent of the '50s. Let's face it: We feel we're being used as whipping boys."

Yes, Hollywood liberals have got balls to spare, and that's why I admire them so much.

But the Academy Award winners of liberal martyrdom are the Dixie Chicks. In 2003, Chick Natalie Maines sucked up to a Bush-hating London audience by saying, "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

What an odd coincidence that the only city Maines attacked Bush in was London! In a way, it was lucky for the band that, in their entire 60-city world tour, Maines claimed to be embarrassed by Bush only in London and not, say, Lubbock, Texas.

But at least we had heard of Murphy Brown and the Dixie Chicks before they demanded we all stand in awe of their raw courage.

Fluke was an absolute nobody who simply thrust herself into the limelight. She's more the Jean Rohe iteration of the liberal drama queen.

Rohe, you will recall, was the student speaker at the 2006 New School commencement proceedings, who bravely insulted the official speaker, Sen. John McCain.

As Rohe described her decision to attack the invited speaker, every person she talked to the day before the ceremony hated McCain with blind fury. At two graduation ceremonies a day earlier, attacks on McCain brought wild cheers from the audience.

Rohe's resolve to tell the audience what it wanted to hear was only hardened when she was told there would be media at the event.

Sensing that fake heroism was within her grasp, Rohe explained: "It was something I didn't want to do, but knew I had to out of an obligation to my own values" -- such as the value of being popular, of getting a standing ovation and of being praised for her courage.

Liberals' idea of questioning authority is to check with the authorities to see if a "Question Authority" bumper sticker would be popular.

So, back to Fluke: Who is she, and how did she become the spokesperson for American womanhood? If we're allowed to submit names, I think we can do better than a Georgetown law student whose claim to fame is that she belongs to a college club on "reproductive justice."

Pursuing a typical path to liberal heroics, Fluke was an utter nobody whom the Democrats substituted in a last-minute witness-switch to testify about contraception -- as if her haircut isn't birth control enough -- at a hearing on "religious liberty."

Despite her credentials as a heretofore unheard-of "birth control activist," the Oversight and Government Reform Committee declined to accept this 11th-hour witness on the grounds that Fluke did not have appropriate credentials for any congressional hearing, much less one on religious liberty.

That was the Republicans' first foray into "silencing" Fluke's "voice."

Nancy Pelosi used an even less appropriate committee to ensure that Fluke's "voice" would be heard -- the Democrats' Steering and Policy Committee, the normal function of which is to give House Democrats committee assignments.

One longtime Democratic operative admitted privately that Fluke was the least-qualified witness ever to appear before a congressional committee.

As a result of the huge commotion the Democrats' made of Fluke's "testimony," she was ridiculed the same way people in ridiculous situations often are. She was called some mean names: "slut," "prostitute," "law student" ...

In full indignation, Fluke said her critics were trying "to silence women's voices." She said this on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and a number of other national media outlets.

Thus, Fluke became a liberal hero even braver than an actress standing up for abortion rights in front of a Bill Maher audience.

President Obama called Fluke and told her that her parents should be proud of her and to make sure she was OK. Hillary Clinton said conservatives were trying to control women. Bill Clinton called her to see if she had any plans for the weekend.

(Fluke seems to be holding up wonderfully under the nightmare of constant TV appearances. In fact, if I didn't know better, I'd think she's enjoying herself tremendously.)

I don't care what liberals believe. Just please stop telling me they're courageous for saying exactly what every non-Fox media outlet in America is dying to hear, or I'll throw up harder than Rick Santorum did when he read John F. Kennedy's speech.

If you think about it, Andrew Breitbart's untimely passing from this life, at age 43, might be seen as the ultimate message that this man of media could deliver.

Breitbart famously used his media talent, particularly his facility with new media and new journalism, to fight the agenda of the left.

And what could strike more effectively at the heart of the left's premises than the inscrutable death of a young and prodigiously talented, successful man -- a husband and father to four young children -- who still was scaling the heights of achievement?

The fact is that the inconceivable and the unanticipated is the rule of our lives rather than the exception. Nothing more clearly defines the line which separates the political left from the political right than appreciation of this fact.

The left, after all, is about the pretense of planning, power and control. It's about the belief that man -- political man -- can define and control the world and can appoint himself the final authority to determine what is fair and then mete out justice.

The first words on this subject were spoken by the serpent to Eve about the prohibition on eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

"You will not surely die," the serpent told Eve, "for God knows that on the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

In his new book, "Coming Apart," social scientist Charles Murray provides a troubling snapshot of America, showing how the collapse of traditional values corresponds with our growing economic and achievement problems.

Murray quotes a 19th-century European immigrant to America, Francis Grund, who anticipated exactly what is happening today:

"Change the domestic habits of Americans, their religious devotion, and their high respect for morality, and it will not be necessary to change a single letter of the Constitution in order to vary the whole form of their government."

With today's obsession about the growing gap between those who earn the most and earn the least, Murray looks at what is happening in white America, eliminating the variable of race. He shows that the elites -- those earning in the top 20 percent -- by and large still have intact families and have the lowest incidence of out-of-wedlock births and single-parent homes.

In contrast, communities earning in the bottom 30 percent have had high erosion since the 1960s in behavior reflecting traditional values, with marriage and family collapsing and high and growing incidence of out-of-wedlock births.

Although Murray just focuses on white America, his conclusions mirror what I have been talking and writing about for 20 years regarding the destruction of black communities by welfare-state government programs.

It's not an accident that welfare-state growth took off in the 1960s, the decade of the sexual revolution, the pill and, shortly thereafter, the legalization of abortion.

In this new culture of materialism, the politicians of the left claimed they could understand everything and solve all our problems -- with other people's money, of course.

They could build programs to eliminate poverty, eliminate the problems and vagaries of aging and deliver health care to everyone.

Now today these problems remain. Except now we're hanging on the thread of bankruptcy, tens of trillions in debt, trying to substitute government and other people's money to deal with problems that can only be solved by a free and responsible people.

The left hates Breitbart for his effectiveness in getting out the truth.

It's the same culture that forces me to get police protection to talk about personal responsibility on college campuses.

The final irony is that truth and compassion come from humility, not pride. Sadly, a cold and cruel left will not grasp this truth from Breitbart's unexpected death.

Star Parker

God help any small kids or elderly people who get caught in front of these idiots.

Nike Foamposite Galaxy shoe release causes rioting at a Florida mall

Crowd disperses at Florida mall. (TheBigLead.com)

Not again. In a situation reminiscent of the craziness that broke out in December when Nike released its retro version of a popular Air Jordan basketball shoe, police were called in late Thursday to break up a crowd that had gathered at the Florida Mall near Orlando in anticipation of the release of a new limited edition, glow-in-the-dark Nike shoe.

More than 100 officers in riot gear were needed to disperse several hundred people who law enforcement officials said became unruly as they waited for the $220 Nike Galaxy Air Foamposite Ones to go on sale. There were no arrests or injuries reported. The launch of the shoes were timed to coincide with this weekend's NBA All-Star Game festivities in Orlando. The game is on Sunday night.

A similar scene played out at a Washington, D.C.-area mall early Friday where fans waited to get the coveted Nike Foamposite Galaxy shoes. Police in Hyattsville, Md., made one arrest, as the crowd there was estimated at over 100.

Early Friday, Foot Locker announced that it was canceling the shoe's release at certain malls and stores. "Our priority is the safety of the community," Foot Locker said in a statement.

More at yahoo news.