Did I miss the deadline for alternative opinions on Sandra Fluke?
What with liberal women who constantly talk 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 on her way to the airport! (A year earlier, English’s husband mowed down the matriarch of Santa Monica’s Chez Jay, killing her, while driving Diane 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 in the Jean Rohe tradition 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 had 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 at a hearing on “religious liberty” to testify about contraception — as if her haircut isn’t birth control enough.
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 is 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, NBC, CBS, 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 telephoned Fluke to make sure she was OK. He told her that her parents should be proud of her. 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.
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