A Central (Yet Not Comedic) Irony

Comedy Central's, The Colbert Report, is truly a funny, funny TV show. I've only managed to watch it a few times, my TV habits being anything but habitual. But I did manage to see Thursday night's episode in which Mr. Colbert interviewed Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, an author and blogger. In fact, Mr. Zúniga is the face behind the politically left blog, The Daily Kos.

In what was a singularly unfunny moment in Mr. Colbert's talk with Mr. Zúniga, Mr. Zúniga offered this assessment––received with explosive applause––of the Republican Party:

The Republicans do a really good job telling you when you can be born and when you can die. They just have a really hard time with everything in between...

Let us parse this for a moment, shall we? But before we do, let it be understood that this statement of Mr. Zúniga's is not one confined to America; it is not just about the two political parties in the United States. For Mr. Zúniga could easily be speaking about conservatives or traditionalists vis-á-vis liberals or progressives. So it is a slight that crosses geo-political boundaries, really. But let us focus on the American two-party system for a moment.

What Mr. Zúniga is averring is that because Republicans are pro-life, i.e., against abortion and euthanasia, they're the ones who tell "you when you can be born and when you can die." And this, assuredly, is a bad thing. Against this, the Democrats stand as a party of thoughtful liberation from such tyranny of mind and body.

But what Mr. Zúniga sadly fails to apprehend is that if Republicans are indeed generally pro-life and anti-euthanasia, then it is the pro-choice Democrats, in all their progressive finery, who are dressed as executioners: They're the ones who tell you when you shall live and die. A mother who aborts her child tells it––exactly––when it shall die. If she chooses not to abort, then she surely tells her child exactly when it shall live. Similarly––and with the Terri Schiavo case still fresh in American minds it is immensely important to note this––it was the Democrats who wanted to tell Ms. Schiavo exactly when she would breathe her last, or at least when she was going to begin starving at the hand of compassion and mercy.

How strange (or is blindness not all that strange?) that Mr. Zúniga should not understand this simple fact: Republicans prefer to let nature take its course, as true naturalists, when it comes to birth; and Republicans let life last as long as it can, particularly when medical and nutritional aid has already been offered to the dying and incapacitated. Had Republicans really had their way, Terri Schiavo might still be alive today, with no one able to guess the date of her death. As it stands, the record shows that Ms. Schiavo's last day was pre-determined by those who only embrace liberty through the right to impose death. That's liberal, and progressive, in a sort of mind-numbing way.

I am sure Mr. Zúniga is a brilliant man. It is hard to understand how it could be otherwise when he has created one of the most popular blogs on the web. But brilliance takes many forms; I am certain it takes a genius to exploit the market of the stupid. He deserves his success, earned launching sallies here and there to wild applause. But who, really, is applauding? Not thinking people; not people attentive to language, plumbing its depths, mining phrases for meaning and truth.

How curious to find in The Daily Kos another example of psychological projection: Mr. Zúniga points away from himself, naming the Republicans the party of life and death. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I can see the irony, despite the laughter and the applause.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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