Monday November 24, 2003

WHERE'S MY WHITE WINE AND BRIE? The most interesting thing (okay, the only interesting thing) about R. H. Sager's recent New York Sun article -- in which he joins the tiny enclave of pro-gay-marriage conservatives currently pretending they can prevail against the Man-on-Dog wing of the Republican Party -- is its by-now familiar rendering of the traditional Liberal Dinner/Cocktail Party:

I’d stumbled into some trouble at a liberal table by disclosing my support for the pro-life side of the abortion debate... my answer caused a number of my dinner companions’ jaws to drop indiscreetly into their Arctic char.

Sensing that I was in for a long, hard slog, I unleashed the dinner conversation equivalent of Operation Iron Hammer. “But,” I said, “I’m in favor of gay marriage.” This halted a number of tongues midlashing. Heads cocked to the side as my fellow diners contemplated how one could hold such a backward position on one hot-button issue and such a progressive position on another.

“People who hold that position on abortion don’t usually hold that position on gay marriage,” one reporter from a rival newspaper said...

I love that last quote. Try speaking it aloud. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it?

How come I never get invited to these parties? I've been a liberal for quite some time, yet I never get asked to scenes like this, where lefties gather to sample Arctic char (ooh, sounds fancy!) and react with comical horror when Jimmy Stewart as Brent Bozell casually announces that he wants women to bear children against their will.

I mean, while it is true that we do have parties, I can't recall a scene like the one Sagar describes. The liberals in such caricatures never argue with the conservative -- they just bray or tremble. Since there are so many more liberals at these Arctic char shindigs than there are of him, how come they don't just beat the conservative up and throw him out a window? That would be typically craven and unfair of us.

Also, how is it that these conservative writers have so many liberal "friends"? I thought there were only a couple of dozen of us left in the whole country, residing mostly on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. And how, having located some, do these conservatives keep their liberal friends? Listen to this guy: "There are times when my liberal friends will not engage in debate at all. Instead, I often find myself mired down in stifled discussions, responding to insults to my intelligence. Case in point: I can't remember an occasion when I have heard a liberal friend give an honest objection to why tax cuts and sound economic policy are not synonymous."

If you were this guy's "friend," wouldn't you stop being his friend once you'd learned that he looked upon you with such stark contempt?

Also: Why hasn't WFDR fired Mallard Fillmore?

These are the thoughts that fill my long, sleepless afternoons.