Laura's Weekly E-Blast

Posted on: Thursday, February 5th, 2004 by Laura Ingraham

http://www.LauraIngraham.com Yes, the Super Bowl half-time show was unfit for children to watch and just plain insulting to the rest of us. Most of the commercials made the humor from the movie Wayne's World seem positively high-brow--old people being tripped, women being burned from torched horse flatulence, a monkey hitting on a woman. But network television didn't just fall into the sink hole overnight. This cultural slide has been happening for decades and for decades those who were trying to raise public awareness about it were branded a bunch of unhip philistines, throwbacks to the Ozzie and Harriet days. The elites are still howling at Dan Quayle's Murphy Brown� speech. They never forgave Tipper Gore for taking on the recording industry over the issue of violent lyrics. To everyone who thinks that Team Tasteless has already won, I say nonsense. Imagine what the half-time show would have looked like if civic groups, churches, and citizens across the land hadn't kept these issues alive for all these years! What we have learned is that public pressure does have an effect. By Monday, execs from MTV, CBS, the NFL, and many of their sponsors were falling all over themselves to express their (phony) shock and awe at the spectacle. MTV honcho Tom Freston feigned outrage, We were ripped off. We got Punk'd [by Janet Jackson].� We don't have to believe these ridiculous explanations, but the fact that they even felt the need to offer explanations is significant. These media companies felt the blowback in hundreds of thousands of telephone calls, email messages, and letters”not to mention a growing campaign to delete� MTV from home remote controls. Overworked and overtired Americans are making it abundantly clear. They are fed up with living in a cultural sewer, and that they want to hear their political leaders say something about it. Unfortunately, none of the candidates seems to get it. None of the Democrats expressed any real concern over the Toilet Bowl XXXVIII incident. In fact when Howard Dean was asked to comment, he said he was baffled by the hullabaloo and thought the FCC's investigation was silly. President Bush slept through it. (A wise choice, but surely he had heard enough afterward to say something.) And where was John Edwards, who has supposedly built his whole campaign around regular people�? Edwards doesn't seem to realize that the regular people� needs help on these cultural issues. All the candidates are missing a huge opportunity to connect with America. When Bill Clinton took on Sister Souljah it helped seal his image as new� Democrat. John Kerry missed a major opportunity to do the same thing after the Super Bowl but he stayed on the sidelines. Is there any political figure who will dare wade into this territory? And if not, why not? Do the Democrats all really think like Dean - that these types of cultural struggles don't matter? Many Americans feel helpless to stem the tide of trash floating their way”through their televisions, on magazine newsstands, and on the internet. Many have given up complaining because they believe no one listens anyway. Meanwhile, the elites continue to say that we are too prudish here in America”that we should take a lesson from Europe which has none of our hang-ups about nudity or profanity. They think we're stupid enough to fall for this lame line. They are wrong. We do not want to be subjected to inane, sexualized commercials for beer, ads for erectile dysfunction, or performers who substitute sexual fondling for singing. We admire real talent. We celebrate artists who do not spit on our values. We are sending the elites who think this is no big deal� a very powerful message. We will not let you pollute our public airwaves any longer. We the People are not stupid. We the People are not complacent. We the People are capable of restoring decency to the culture. And we will.' 

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Articles by Laura Ingraham

Title	Published
Order in the Court!	02-26-04
Have They No Decency?	02-16-04
Laura's Weekly E-Blast	02-05-04
THE DEAN BUBBLE	01-21-04
THE ATTACK OF THE OPEN BORDER ELITES	10-28-03
Back To School, or Back to...Sex?	09-03-03
The Elites Anti-Religion Obsession	08-26-03
WHAT WOULD REAGAN DO?	08-20-03
Laura’s Weekly E-Blast	06-30-03
The Democrats’ Michael Moore Problem	03-24-03
BLAME AMERICA REDUX
Gray Skies Just Got Darker
He's Not Invincible

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