Peggy Noonan wrote an interesting OpEd piece for the Wall Street Journal in which she wanted to lay out how Americans are feeling about America these days, where we've gone wrong, and, as is her wont, to lay the blame at the feet of those responsible...or at least the feet of him responsible.
Him? Hmmmmm. Obama? No, oddly enough, he escapes her wrath. Joe "The Bummer" Lieberman? Wrong again. George W Bush? Good choice, but again, that would be a No. see, the man most responsible for this supposed breakdown in trust of this country, the man to blame because we are headed in the wrong direction as a people, is none other than American Idol loser, and man-kisser Adam Lambert.
Noonan likes to be grim, but even she is reaching with this piece. She points to statistics from a WSJ/NBC News poll--yeah, those two are oh-so-reliable--which says that "55% [of Americans] think America is on the wrong track, with only 33% saying it is going in the right direction. A stunning 66% say they're not confident that their children's lives will be better than their own."
And, yes, it's Adam Lambert's fault, not to mention a certain male dancer who motorboated Lambert's crotch on national TV, though he is spared any mention by Noonan. But I wonder why Peggy goes after The Glambert, and not the politicians and bankers who created this economic mess, or the politicians who scream out at the president, or the Republicans who hold prayer vigils that health care reform fails instead of working toward that end themselves, or the churches that don't know the meaning of separation of church and state?
Why is the decline in optimism the fault of the runner-up on a singing competition? Why isn't the decline of positive thinking, this cultural cesspool, due to the economy, or health care, or foreclosure, or the swine flu, or global warming, or the mighty tax burden our children--well, your children as Carlos and I cannot procreate, though not for lack of trying--face?
As Noonan sees it, this all boils down to what she believes is the single greatest worry facing Americans. She says we "are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture.....[and] 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem."
Yup, she said it. The.Adam.Lambert.Problem.
According to Noonan, the media, which lives and thrives in big cities like New York and LA, is pushing it's own agenda onto those good Americans, the Palinesque real Americans, I suppose, in the middle of the country who don't wish to know from Adam Lambert, or simulated blow-jobs and man-kissing singers--even though most of the American Idol voters, and audience, are living right in the middle of this country.
Peggy Noonan is old school; she hates television, and blames television for what ails us as a nation, although she kindly lets cable TV off the hook because, well, you gotta pay to watch the decline of morality on cable TV...weeknights at 10 PM.
"For years now, without anyone declaring it or even noticing it, we've had a compromise on television. Do you want, or will you allow into your home, dramas and comedies that, however good or bad, are graphically violent, highly sexualized, or reflective of cultural messages that you believe may be destructive? Fine, get cable. Pay for it. Buy your premium package, it's your money, spend it as you like.
But the big broadcast networks are for everyone. They are free, they are available on every television set in the nation, and we watch them with our children. The whole family's watching. Higher, stricter standards must maintain."
Whoops, it's out. The Adam Lambert performance on ABC last month has shaken the faith of this country; it has brought our sense of self, our sense of pride, our sense of morality, crumbling down upon us, because one Sunday, at 11PM, a man rubbed another man's face in his crotch, and, oh for the love of the baby jeebus, kissed a guy. Noonan is enraged that the 8-year-olds would see it, and then wonder what he was doing, and maybe ask Mommy and Daddy about it. I wonder what kind of parent let's an 8-year-old stay up on a school night, and allows that child to listen to Eminem rap about raping women, or watch Janet Jackson grab the crotch of a male dancer--which she did at just a few minutes past 8 PM.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming Janet, or Eminem. I'm sure there are folks who found their performances distasteful, but, hey, it's rock-n-roll, baby....or rap....or R&B....or pop. So, it isn't Janet's fault, even though she did the titty shot a few years back, and it isn't the fault of a rapper who talks of bitches and hos and raping them; Noonan lays the blame squarely on the gay guy, because, let's face it, last fall we were The New Black, and now we are The New Blame. The LGBT community, in the minds of people like Noonan, are the root of all that is evil and wrong with this country. We are the decline of civilization.
My favorite part of Noonan's diatribe against Adam Lambert, is the fact that she talks about the 1500 phone calls made by people who were upset about his performance. She neglects to mention the millions.....MILLIONS....who didn't pick up their phones or email. Just those 1500.
Now, to spread a little blame around, Noonan tosses in a half-paragraph or so about the White House Party Crashing Media Whore Wannabes, for our cultural decline, but ties them into Lambert by saying it's the new thirst for fame that is crumbling this country, and Adam Lambert started it. And, to be fair, in passing, she mentions Wall Street, though, apparently big money and big business isn't as bad for America as a homosexual or a gate crasher.
But nowhere in her article does she mention George W Bush or his henchmen Cheney and Rove; she doesn't talk about the US torture practice; she doesn't mention a war based on lies, and greed and oil and nation-building. She doesn't mention a certain Quitter who tried to paint another presidential hopeful as a terrorist, who pitted one American against another in her quest to find real folks; who talked, well, let's just say it, lied about death panels as part of health care. She failed to mention those who legislate using religion rather than law; she neglected to name any church that worked to keep a minority down and spent millions upon millions of dollars which might have been better spent helping out the needy and the poor, to wage a battle against the LGBT community and their right to being treated as equal in this country.
None of those folks are to blame for this cultural decline. None of them had a hand in making us less sure about America and where she was headed.
Nope, it's all Adam Lambert's fault.
