‘You Guys Stop It Or I’m Telling My Mom!’

Posted by Morbo

Here’s a short lesson in how the Kook Right works: Kook Right Leader (KRL) says an insane, intolerant thing that makes him look like a moron. People react badly. Some of them ridicule the KRL. Columnists make fun of him. Editorial cartoonists follow suit. KRL then attacks the media and blames it all on them.

This is what happened to Jerry Falwell years ago when his newspaper outedTinky-Winky, the purple Teletubby. People made fun of Falwell, because what he did was stupid.

Yes, those were fun times. But they did not last.

You can, however, always count on the Religious Right to provide more comic relief sooner or later. Thankfully, Dr. James Dobson has now stepped up to the plate — and it’s good to see him sticking to the KRL script.

The Focus on the Family head’s recent claim that SpongeBob SquarePants is promoting the gay agenda by appearing alongside other cartoon characters in a video promoting tolerance opened him up to torrents of ridicule — all of which he richly deserved. But now, you see, it’s all the media’s fault.

Dobson is notoriously thin-skinned. (For more on this, see Gil Alexander-Moegerle’s book James Dobson’s War on America.) So Dobson did what he always does when he gets grumpy: He released the flying monkeys. Dobson’s minions were ordered to rush to their computers and bombard four offending journalists with e-mails, expressing their displeasure.

Morbo continues to be amazed at how clueless the Ayatollah of Colorado Springs is. Here’s a guy who has been swaggering around the country with Tom Daschle’s scalp hanging from his belt, naming specific senators he’ll take down next — and he expects kid-glove treatment? He expects to say bizarre things in public, in front of the media, and not have someone point out obvious facts — like, for example, that he is a theocratic nutcase?

Jimbo, let me fill you in: Both politics and cultural criticism are blood sports. If you’re going to attack U.S. senators or beloved cartoon sponges, be prepared because people will push back.

There is nothing new here. Contrary to popular belief, rough-and-tumble politics is not a recent development. It’s a tradition as enduring as apple pie and the Fourth of July. I’m sure if you just look around long enough, you can find a flier somewhere in the Library of Congress attacking Franklin Pierce as a bisexual, militia-dodging dope fiend who’s soft on the czar of Russia or something like that. It’s how the game is played.

I recall that Pat Robertson had the same problem when he ran for president back in 1988. He didn’t seem to understand why journalists started digging into his background (and finding lots of embarrassing stuff) and reporting on his bizarre pronouncements.

The only thing I can figure is that these TV preacher/religious empire guys are accustomed to being surrounded by mobs of adoring fans and hired sycophants who hang on every pearl of wisdom that drops from their lips and never question a thing. These self-appointed vessels of the Lord are so detached from reality that when their goofball utterances are challenged, they react as if someone had hit them with a 2×4. After all, if you challenge them, you’re really challenging Jesus Christ himself, right?

Dobson was furious that The New York Times called him “intolerant” in an editorial. Remember, this is a guy who has built an entire fundamentalist empire on bashing gays, calling the Girl Scouts radical feminists and encouraging parents to use violence as a tool for raising children. This might also be a good place to point out that Dobson’s own son wrote an entire book with the lovely title Be Intolerant: Because Some Things Are Just Stupid. Intolerant? I’d have called him a lot worse.

Jim, as we used to say on the playground when I was a kid: You can dish it out, but you sure can’t take it. Now run along home to your mommy before SpongeBob emerges from his pineapple under the sea and cleans your clock.