The other night I was on the Joy Behar Show with Ron Reagan. The whole exchange made me wonder, is he altogether there? While talking about Sarah Palin, I suggested that the reason she fascinates so many average Americans is that she’s a self-made woman. Where the left tried to tell us for eight years that George W. Bush was a nepotism experiment gone wrong, Palin became a wildly successful person all on her own. To this, Ronny scoffed and tried to tell me that the only reason we’re talking about Palin is because McCain plucked her out of obscurity and vaulted her into celebrity. Does anyone else see the irony here? Ron Jr is a guy who was raised in Los Angeles by famous parents, got kicked out of prep school, dropped out of Yale, and only now has a career in political punditry because his anti-conservative views made him a mildly interesting novelty act. And he has the balls to criticize Sarah Palin’s career arc? I love guys like this, who are so disconnected from reality that they enthusiastically serve up totally nonsensical drivel—with pride and a shit-eating grin!
My favorite news clip of the week was (obviously) watching Norah O’Donnell try to tell me that Newt Gingrich is racist for using a basketball analogy to criticize the president. Sure it was asinine, and obviously baseless, and probably reveals more about Ms. O’Donnell’s perverted view of race politics than it does Mr. Gingrich’s, but it was also kind of hilarious. When her comrades around the table at MSNBC expressed a collective “What the eff did you just say, woman?” she looked like she just lost homecoming queen to the girl in the back brace who always smells like pastrami. Expecting to take a victory lap after her insightful basketball observation, she instead had to pretend to be gracious in defeat when you know she probably wanted to kill Mike Barnicle and Savannah Guthrie for refusing to save her from her kooky race revelation.
I read this awesome news item on Thursday: “Blind Teen Bags Big Bird in First Turkey Hunt.“ The headline says it all. Though the story of 14-year-old Charlie Wilks, blind since age six after suffering a brain tumor, touched and warmed my heart, it’s also a bit of a gift to everyone’s token obnoxious hunting buddy who is just dying to say to their unlucky friend now, “Even a blind kid could have taken that shot, loser.” Thanks, Charlie. And well done you.
There were great tweets this week from seemingly under-stimulated liberal gadflys. First, The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel gave us a number of awkward and bizarre images to ponder (what the frak is “lovework”?) and tweeted about 20 years too young for her age:
@KatrinaNation Delicious spanking of Mitch M/ http://www.kentucky.com/2010/04/15/1224749/mcconnell-to-big-banks-rescue.html
@KatrinaNation who got kicked off of american idol?? Had major lovework to do–father’s 80th B-day –so w/o Tivo, do not know!
@KatrinaNation My sister & I used to have fights about this. I was shaven one: (Unshaven Women: Free Spirits or Unkempt? – http://nyti.ms/9tbMPW
Then, Ana Marie Cox attended one of the Tax Day Tea Parties to diligently ferret out the most important stories. Apparently, there weren’t any:
@anamariecox A popped collar, IN THE WILD. #teaparty http://yfrog.com/5m9laj
@anamariecox “Biggest boos are not for Obama so much as VALUE ADDED TAX. Am going to start asking people if they know whY (sic) it means.”
@anamariecox I just saw a black person! He says he’s here just observe. “I do not support this.” #teaparty
@anamariecox And this is a man in a Captain America costume. #teaparty http://yfrog.com/b97f0j
Makes you wonder what Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Hunter Thompson would have tweeted if they could.
I spoke at Wellesley College earlier this week. No, I would not say I was well received. But I enjoyed the spirited back-and-forth very much nonetheless, and am always impressed when college kids choose to give up an hour or two of downtime (and drinking) to attend yet another lecture. And after defending conservatism (and myself) for 90 minutes, the girls from the College Republican club were kind enough to take me out to dinner. Usually when I speak at colleges they just want to know what it’s like to do “Red Eye.” But activist campuses like Wellesley make me feel old, and totally incapable of the kind of genuine outrage and indignation these girls are still somehow able to summon.
I’ll expect far more ambivalence when I head up to Cornell later today to speak with my friend Mickey Rapkin, a writer at GQ now, who also has a second book forthcoming.
Finally, I must get my hands on this—the Holy Bible: Stock Car Racing Edition—for my collection of kitschy mass-market religious objects. This might just replace my Box of Plagues as the greatest piece in my collection. Speaking of, I came across yet ANOTHER object in the little-known plague-toy family, on a site called OyToys.com, (which is amazing in its own right). Instead of coming in a box, though, these plagues come in a pyramid! Oh, and I think I have to get a set of these, too.
S.E. Cupp is author of “Losing Our Religion: The Liberal Media’s Attack on Christianity,” which will be released April 27. She is also co-author of “Why You’re Wrong About The Right,” and a columnist for the New York Daily News and a regular guest on “Hannity,” “Larry King Live,” “Fox & Friends,” “Geraldo,” “Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld,” and others.