by Deb Cupples | Yesterday, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd pointed out the absurdity of some reactions to New Yorker magazine's recent cover -- the one that satirized some people's absurd perceptions of Sen. Barack Obama and distracted many people from the well-researched article beyond the cover.
Ms. Dowd also pointed out that even some humorists (whose irreverence has nourished many Americans) are feeling uncomfortable these days about really letting loose:
"Many of the late-night comics and their writers — nearly all white — now admit to The New York Times’s Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing “buffoonish” about Obama — and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered — he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis, Gore and Kerry." (NY Times)
And Nixon and Ford and Carter and Clinton: let's not forget how much mileage our nation's humorists got out of them.
Our national tradition includes the using of politicians as the butts of jokes -- and even as the targets of skewers. Period.
Should we abandon that tradition in the case of one politician, simply because some of his supporters are sensitive and given to caterwauling at a moment's notice? Ms. Dowd continues:
"...Certainly, as the potential first black president, and as a contender with tender experience, Obama must feel under strain to be serious.
"But he does not want the “take” on him to become that he’s so tightly wrapped, overcalculated and circumspect that he can’t even allow anyone to make jokes about him, and that his supporters are so evangelical and eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any razzing is a sanctimonious: Don’t mess with our messiah!" (NY Times)
Ms. Dowd is correct: it likely would benefit Sen. Obama if his camp at least appeared to have a sense of humor, but there's a bigger issue at stake here: our ability to criticize our public figures -- instead of self-censoring out of fear of brutality or harassment.
The framers of our Constitution gave us the right to free speech -- albeit free only from certain types of government infringement. Also tucked into our First Amendment is the freedom of the press.
The framers' intent was largely to protect political speech, because they thought our government would be more accountable if citizens and the press were free to question and criticize government officials.
Recent history shows how disastrously unaccountable government can become when citizens and the press are bullied into refraining from exercising their rights.
About five years ago, most of our nation's media sat silently -- seemingly unable to think up logical questions -- while the Bush Administration hopped from reason to reason as it tried to sell us taxpayers on the idea of invading Iraq.
Bill Moyers did a great story on that particular media failure.
Thanks to people like Rush Limbaugh and the folks at Fox -- who'd mastered the art of whipping audience members into emotional frenzies to defend false notions -- many citizens and media refrained from criticizing (or even questioning) the Bush Adminsitration even after the Iraq war was underway.
Citizens feared being called "traitor" or "unpatriotic" by fellow citizens who howled like the ghouls in Night of the Living Dead.
It was as though a gang of self-deputized Speech Police were methed up and on the prowl, waiting to pounce on anyone who said anything less than positive about their President.
If a newscaster dared suggest that the Bush Administration might be making errors, the network would get flooded with calls and letters and emails from the Speech Police, apparently at the urging of RNC strategists or Bush-friendly media personalities. Ever aware of ad revenues, most media remained disturbingly silent about the Bush Administration's inconsistencies, failures, and questionable words or deeds.
Technically, it wasn't our federal government's fault, as it had not passed laws against criticizing The President.
At the same time, Bush Adminsitration officials sat silently while a gratingly vocal minority bullied millions of constituents into silence. Given how much said officials benefited from the historic absence of criticism, I can't help thinking they liked it that way.
While we can refuse to be bullied by the Speech Police and we can encourage media to stand up to the bullying, we cannot stop any politician's pawns from saying nasty things to those who disagree with them, because said pawns also have First Amendment rights.
But do we really want our politicians to encourage -- or even tacitly approve of -- behavior from supporters that results in the chilling of other citizens' free speech? Is that in the best interest of our nation?
Other BN-Politics Posts:
* Indymac Targeted in Fraud Investigation?
* Bush Shoots congress the Bird Again
* Newsweek Says We Should Pardon Torturers?
* Obama and the Miffing of Dem Insiders
* Jon Stewart on Media Reactions to the New Yorker Cover
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