Wednesday, August 11, 2004

THEY DON'T MAKE CULTURE WARRIORS LIKE THEY USED TO. Really, I miss Pat Buchanan. At least he could write -- vicious ravings, sure, but well-turned! Sadly, the Right couldn't abide Pat's alleged anti-Semitic stink, and has replaced him with a squad of pablum pukers who, while perhaps even crazier that Buchanan, utterly lack his chops.

One of these is Duncan Maxwell Anderson, last seen in this space comparing Jesus to a Marine. Twelve years ago he was telling America how the nefarious, little-known Securities and Exchange Commission ("The Securities and what Commission? The SEC was founded in 1933 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt...") was going to destroy multi-level marketing. Today Anderson runs something called Faith & Family magazine -- yes, it has a weblog, where you can can read ALL CAPS exhortations to avoid Calvinism, as well as some extremely confused Constitutional theory -- and runs something called High Tor Media, whatever that is (There was once a very fine playwright named Maxwell Anderson, and he wrote a play called High Tor -- if this DMA is in fact his progeny, let us take up a collection to have some spikes driven into his coffin to arrest the poor man's spinning.)

Occasionally, mystifyingly, Anderson writes for the New York Post. Today the Post has published his "A Time for Manhood," which treats the ancient conservative Daddy Party theme (Right is Strong, Left is for Homos, etc). Even poor, crack-brained Peggy Noonan knows that this sort of thing requires an angle, however trite -- but Anderson just combines various cliches as a child might mash together lumps of Play-Doh. And they're not even current cliches -- there's "Let's Roll" again, and when was the last time you saw Alan Alda used as a symbol of liberal emasculinity? On an episode of C.P.O. Sharkey?

Though I must admit, comparing the Democratic Convention to "the Berlin Olympics of 1936" is a new one. Incomprehensible, but new.

Meanwhile we have Jonah Goldberg explaining why feminism is to blame for girls' pants with words on the butt (all the while explaining, as is his increasingly pathetic wont, that he's no prude). And Dennis Prager, defending his right to beat on children ("why should a 12-year-old girl be immune from adult criticism?"). At least he's found an adversary whose stage of intellectual development may not have exceeded his.

Such are the new Shondekommando. Go here, punks, and see how it's done. If you're gonna be nuts, at least be articulate!


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