Monday, May 22, 2006

The Da Vinci Concentration Camp

The self-absorption of some of these people! Stanley Kurtz senses a chill wind blowing at conservatives from the Da Vinci Code movie:
Conservatives have forgotten just how precarious our position is. One cable news channel, talk radio, and the blogosphere do not an invincible army make. It only seems that way because we also have nominal control of the reigns of power. But lose our foothold in government, and conservatives are up a creek. The other side controls the levers of cultural power in this country, and we are the enemy in their eyes (and on their screens).Conservatives need to face the fact that our position in this culture is genuinely precarious. If we lose our hold on power, we’ll scream bloody murder on our outlets at everything the other side does. Yet those screams may only confirm our helplessness.

Yeah, the next step is concentration camps. In case you didn't get it, Kurtz thinks that his movement's position is precarious, and is threatened by Hollywood. I haven't seen the movie, but I have read both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons and see them for what they are -- page-turning suspense novels that go a little tough on the Catholic Church, which being one of the most enduring institutions in the history of the world, will survive its encounter with Dan Brown. They are not attacks on the political right.

Note that Kurtz also says that Democrats are "angry" in part, because of "the return of patriotism." When did patriotism go away? Was there an epidemic of flag burning and people renouncing their citizenship that I slept through? Or does Kurtz believe that patriotism goes away whenever a Democrat is in the Whitehouse?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Indeed; same as Rush Limbaugh said "America Held Hostage: Day X" for every day of Clinton's administrations. And same as Democrats introduced Liebermann as "America's real VP" shortly after the extended election process in 2000, thanks to Florida. "The other side are not truly legitmate; not real Americans", is the old bipartisan game, alas. And it goes without saying, that anyone outside the bipartisan axis is beyond the pale.