"Any questioning of the moral ideas that prevail ...is received with the utmost hostility. To attempt such an enterprise is to disturb the peace"
--H. L. Mencken

 
ATTACK OF THE GIRLIE-MEN:
Envy-Ridden “Journalists” Whine One More at the Gipper

German sociologist Helmut Schoeck points out in his book Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour that envy is "a drive which lies at the core of man’s life as a social being…[an] urge to compare oneself invidiously with others." The envious person is a type of sociopath who, upon comparing him- or herself with another of higher character or greater accomplishment, finds him- or herself wanting. But rather than emulate that other person the envious person will try to destroy him or her, or at the very least in some way bring that person down to their own level.

Thus even before Ronald Reagan's corpse had a chance to get cold, some on the Looney Left, like the stuck-in-adolescence dimwits they seem to be, couldn't wait until after the funeral to vent unrestrained vitriol about the former Prez.

One such example is a shamelessly soul-less narcissist named Ted Rall, who seems bent upon dancing on whatever nearby freshly dug grave will further his career as a "journalist" and editorial cartoonist, and keep his name on the front burner. As noted writer and blogger Mark Shea (compared to whom Rall is an intellectual and moral amoeba) aptly summarizes Rall’s character, “Notice ME! NOTICE ME! NOTICE MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!”

Rall, some may recall, initially made quite a splash for himself in the mainstream media barely two months ago by publicly denigrating the sacrifice made by the late Pat Tillman --the NFL player who quit pro football and a 7-figure-earning career to serve his country in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks-- and insulting Tillman’s family and friends in the process. Tillman lost his life; it turns out, by friendly fire. Rall's reaction to Tillman’s death, while Tillman's loved ones were still burying him, was to make Tillman the subject of his syndicated cartoon series, in which he calls Tillman an "idiot" and portrays him as a bloodthirsty bigot who wanted to kill Arabs.

Tillman, whined Rall, "falsely believed" the war in Afghanistan was linked to the September 11 attacks and was a "cog in a low-rent occupation army that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources." Contrariwise, however, Rall approved of the cozy relationship the Taliban had with Al Queda while the former were executing women in football fields for showing their faces in public, or going to school, or in other ways displeasing their Mullahs. As for Al Queda's attack on Rall's own town, no doubt he found a way to blame that on Bush. Or perhaps the NFL. Or both.

Similarly, this week, fresh on the heels of Ronald Reagan's death, in his "Search and Destroy" web log and elsewhere, Rall asserts that the late former president must be in Hell "turning crispy brown right about now" for all his alleged "crimes" against humanity --which in Rall's world seems to consist only of gays, liberals, and his buddies in Al Queda and the Taliban. "If there is a hell," Rall says, "this guy is in it." Reagan, Rall declares, "was an idiot" who "elevated unjustifiable military action to an art."

Of course, Rall has not been alone in his envy-ridden denigration of real men like Tillman and Reagan. At about the same time the cyber-ink was drying over at "Search and Destroy," in chimed veteran crank Christopher Hitchens, who, like Rall, seems to relish in bashing his betters. For example, back in the 1990s Hitchens defamed Mother Teresa not only with a nasty character-assassinating book but with an equally nasty character-assassinating "documentary" as well, both sarcastically titled "Mother Teresa and the Missionary Position."

In his June 7 column immediately after Reagan’s passing, the supposedly more-mature-than-Rall “journalist” Hitchens cannot seem constrain his lesser impulses to “memoralize” Reagan by engaging in the same level of scorn and character assassination he leveled at Mother Teresa almost a decade ago. For example,

“…The famously genial grin turned into a rictus of senile fury…”

and

“The fox, as has been pointed out by more than one philosopher, knows many small things, whereas the hedgehog knows one big thing. Ronald Reagan was neither a fox nor a hedgehog. He was as dumb as a stump.”

and

“He had no friends, only cronies. His children didn't like him all that much. He met his second wife —the one that you remember— because she needed to get off a Hollywood blacklist and he was the man to see.”

And

“I could not believe that such a man had even been a poor governor of California in a bad year, let alone that such a smart country would put up with such an obvious phony and loon.”

Thus it's the propensity of envy-ridden girlie-men like Hitchens and Rall to detract real men and any others who are or seem better than they are in some way. But only when it's safe, such as when the latter are dead and the former live in a country kept free by their betters. There can be only one explanation for this sort of conduct on the part of allegedly civilized persons:

Envy.

In response to Hitchens, Shea points out in his web log ione of the “peculiar talents” Americans have is “burying the hatchet.” Shea wistfully wishes that “people like Hitchens” --and Rall-- “would learn it.”

Actually, however, they did: But they buried it in Mr. Reagan's back. It’s the only way they know.

posted by The Curmudgeon at 1:22:00 PM