When liberal Hollywood producer Norman Lear, of People for the American Way fame, created the hit 1970s show “All In The Family,” he admitted part of his motivation was to caricature conservatives through stereotype. The main character, Archie Bunker, was a bigoted, Second Amendment loving, homophobic, chauvinistic, xenophobic, jingoistic, racist ignoramus. Part of actor Carrol O’Connor’s portrayal involved Archie’s vicious stereotyping of anyone and everyone different from him — Poles (”Pollacks”), Jews (”Hebes”), Middle Easterners (”A-Rabs”) and blacks to name a few.
While certainly there are racists in every culture, there is no country where minorities of any type — racial, religious, ethnic — can succeed as in America. Where are these bigots that Lear tried to portray as everyday Americans trying to stunt the progress of our country? There is no country that, when they do raise their disgraceful voices, they are shunned as they are here. Nowhere in America do they hold real power.
The show got huge ratings, some calling it the best sitcom of all time. But Lear discovered the show actually backfired. Despite the buffoonish nature of Archie, what was exposed was the condescension and elitism of its liberal characters and the show’s philosophical bent.
For years this has been the case in real life. Now, perhaps thinking the country’s culture has moved comfortably toward their leftist view, liberal politicians and elitists are saying publicly what they think and work toward. In the fall of 2006, John Kerry — who wanted to be the Commander-In-Chief — said the military was the option of last resort for the dumb. During the last several months, front-running Democrat candidate for president Barack Obama has said that racism is “typical” in white people and that working-class folks in small town America “cling” to their religion and guns out of fear and nonacceptance of others.
Now, liberal horror novelist Stephen King, as with Kerry, has piled on the military. Speaking at the Library of Congress to a school group (nothing like indoctrinating students), King said:
“The fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don’t, then you’ve got the Army, Iraq, I don’t know, something like that.”
King, a major donor to liberal candidates and causes, and an Obama supporter, thought he could he get away with his comments, just as Obama thought he could when trashing mid-America in San Francisco. But he forgot about the blogosphere. NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard brought King’s belittling comments about the military to light. (Click here.) What’s sadly ironic is that it is our military, who handle weapons and implement planning and logistics more complex than King could ever comprehend, secure his right to write his lunatic plots and say his imbecilic comments. (Click here for Sheppard’s reply to King’s feeble response.)
Ironies tend to come full circle. In this case, what further adds to it is that Archie Bunker was a God-believing, high school drop-out, working class, proud union man; a socio-economic class today described as “Reagan Democrats.” (In one episode, years before he was elected, Archie admitted that he wrote-in Ronald Reagan’s name for president.) Now, just who is it the Democrats are so desperate to attract? The same people they mock.