And Speaking of Blowing Bubbles...

TBogg has a must-read post on Rush Limbaugh's recent rant about Al Gore's new TV network and, I kid you not, blow jobs. Here's an excerpt:

LIMBAUGH: When does he start up this stupid little network? August? Yip yip yip yahoo. You know what Gore said about this? It's going to be liberal. It's going to reflect the point of view of young people. What the hell is that, Al? What the hell is the point of view of young people? Blow jobs, that's what they're doing out there. They're out there getting oral sex all day long, that's what they're talking about. That's the point of view they can't wait that your boss, Al made sure that's become the number one sport in high school today. So, I guess you're going to have a BJ network out there, Al, is that what you're going to do? You're going to call your network the oral sex channel out there, start competing with MTV? (audio)

It would be easy to say that Rush has been injecting Hillbilly Heroin into his scrotum again, but that would be so unfair and, besides, who really wants to check him for track marks. Anyone? Anyone? (Sit down Guckert). So what really brought this on...

...there is the Ben Shapiro defense that states that "although you've heard of one, you've never actually seen or experienced one". (I should note that this defense is often employed by men when confronted with the concept of the "clitoris", or as it is referred to at Liberty University's Med School: "anatomy's unicorn"). But it's hard to believe that Rush, and The Virgin Ben, could be so unfamiliar with the blow job when there is so much data available on the Internets. No. Really. Just go type "blow jobs" in Google. Go ahead. I'll wait.....okay, you big weenie, I'll do it for you. Hmmm it seems that there are 4,830,000 links to blow jobs available (which Google found in just 0.20 seconds...good for you Google!). Add to that there are another 1,460,000 links for "blowjob" for those too lazy, or too busy masturbating, to hit the space bar, meaning that there is what I believe mathematicians would describe as a "shitload" of blow job informational links available to those with the time and inclination of, say, Justice Thomas, for example. So we'll chock this one up to laziness and lack of curiosity.

And speaking of our coarse culture, which is all of our fault (not Rush's, not Kenneth Starr's, not Clarence Thomas'), Digby brilliantly weighs in on a "Democrats should bash Hollywood" post by Amy Sullivan that seems to have gotten the entire leftie blogosphere's collective panties bunched up in a tight little wad:

Yes, the public does wonder what we stand for. And in this debate it seems we can either stand for better V chips and Terri Schiavo's mother-in-law, or we can stand for this:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like it actually means something. Even has a bit of a ring to it.

Look, I don't care if we legislate for "better" V-chips. (From what I have read people aren't using the one we have available, not because it's too hard, but because they just don't want to be bothered. But whatever.) We can express our empathy for how difficult it is to parent in this environment. We can bemoan the coarsening of the culture and try shame people to stop selling useless consumer items to children. None of those things are particularly dangerous in themselves. But neither are they going to be politically advantageous.

Everytime we try to move in this "moderate" cultural direction that we think people will choose over the GOP vision, the more we appear to be a large puddle of lukewarm water. Because, let's face it. If you really think that the government should do something about popular culture because it's harmful then you really should step up to the plate and admit that you think censorship in some form or another would be a good thing. Because that's the only thing that government can really do to make a difference --- compel people to stop saying and selling and watching and buying.

And that's what the conservatives have to offer. Clear, simple, straightforward. They believe that this swill is harming society and they want it taken care of. They don't play around with studies and "oh I understand what you are going through." They offer a real solution. Censor the garbage. Impeach the judges. Fix the damn problem. The bully in their pulpit sounds a hell of a lot more competent than ours.

And, conversely, they have won the gun issue by being rigid absolutists about the second amendment and giving no quarter. In fact, I think that their rhetoric has been so widespread and so successful that we would benefit from making our argument explicitly about the first amendment in much the same way. Some people may just wonder why, if the second is sacred, the first shouldn't be also.

Now, I don't think that any Democrats really want censorship. They want magic. They want people to stop wanting what they want. And if that doesn't work, they want the manufacturers and producers to feel bad about what they are doing and stop providing what the people want. This is an unrealistic political goal. (It seems much more suited to religion than government and it makes me wonder, if religion is sweeping the nation in a new Great Awakening, why it is having so little effect?)

Instead of magic, how 'bout EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION? Read Digby's entire post. It's worth it.