Is the Apocalypse upon us? Are we living in the End Times? What
is the world coming to when fissures begin appearing in the left’s normally unified
front, and some of the most prominent leftists in the entertainment world and
academia begin openly espousing positions usually associated with the right,
even going so far as to condemn President Barack Obama? Is the left finally
waking up to their failed policies and leaders?
Pop music icon Madonna, for example, who in past
performances has campaigned for Obama and equated President George W. Bush with
Hitler, let slip an
eyebrow-raising comment in an interview Friday with Good Morning America’s Elizabeth Vargas while promoting her latest concert
tour. That show has come under
fire, if you’ll pardon the pun, for the brandishing of fake guns as props.
When Vargas asked her if she would consider changing or
deleting that aspect of the concert, Madonna said absolutely not. “That would
be like asking people to not have guns in action movies,” she said. “I mean the
thing is, guns don’t kill people, people kill people. That whole first section
of the show is like an action movie, and I was playing a super vixen who wanted
revenge.”
Hold on – guns don’t kill people, people kill people? That
phrase is straight out of the NRA’s pro-Second Amendment playbook. Vargas then countered
with recent examples in which the movie biz tried to be more sensitive to the
issue of gun violence. “But I know there was [sic] several movies that delayed
release because of the shootings, for example, at Sandy Hook Elementary
school,” she said.
“Well that’s not going to change the situation,” Madonna replied.
“This all comes from fear and ignorance, and people not really raising their
children, or not paying attention to what’s going on.” It’s not clear what
she’s saying here, but it sounds suspiciously like Madonna is touting
individual responsibility, a notion verboten
to the collectivist left.
Mecca is the capital of [Saudi Arabia]. And they routinely put people to
death... the religious capital, and it’s equivalent to like the Vatican, right,
with Catholicism. And, if at the Vatican, they were putting people to death for
homosexuality and apostasy and, you know, adultery... I feel there would be a
big outcry. I feel that liberals would be upset about that.
Of course they would. The left already irrationally refers to
Christians here as “American Taliban” while turning a blind eye to Islam’s grotesque
human rights abuses. By pointing out that hypocrisy, Maher is literally echoing
the right.
Speaking of comedy, the unapologetically left-leaning, fake news
program The Daily Show, normally hosted by Jon Stewart, actually
began taking potshots at Obama. Last week guest host John Oliver contrasted the
lackluster attendance at Obama’s recent speech in Germany with the enormous
crowd present at the president’s first visit there in 2008, comparing him to a floundering TV
network: “Losing 95
percent of your audience in just five years, that basically makes Obama the NBC
of presidents.”
It’s not only show biz figures condemning Obama. Some of the
left’s most revered academics, including Obama’s former friends and associates,
are making eye-opening comments. A month ago, race-baiting radical professor Cornel
West said in an interview
that Obama is “just too tied to Wall
Street. And at this point he is a war criminal.” Unrepentant Weather
Underground terrorist and respected educator Bill
Ayers himself declared
in an interview last week that Obama should be tried for war crimes. The
following day Noam
Chomsky, the Godfather of Radical Academics, stated
unequivocally that “Obama is running the biggest terrorism operation that
exists, maybe in history.”
The right has been trumpeting these in the social media as
examples that the left is finally beginning to “get it,” finally starting to
recognize that their policies might not be working and that their man in the
White House isn’t the Messiah they had hoped for. Is the optimism of
conservatives warranted? Is the left finally showing early warning signs of
wising up? In a word: no.
Madonna has at best sent mixed
and hypocritical messages on guns. She has built a career on shock and controversy;
for her, brandishing guns onstage is just another way to make herself “edgy”
and relevant, particularly as she gets a concert tour underway. There’s no
reason to assume that she has acquired any wisdom in her old age.
Maher has on numerous occasions been willing to call out
Islam on its false reputation as “the Religion of Peace,” but he’s no friend to
religion in general or to the right, nor will he ever be. Maher will never abandon
the adulation of the hateful minions in his core audience, or risk getting himself
banned from his regular haunt, the Playboy Mansion Grotto.
Likewise, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show will not betray their
core audience of young lefties who consider him their most
trusted news anchor. Yes, it’s notable when leftist comics finally begin
teasing their own leaders, but conservatives shouldn’t begin toasting a 2016 election
victory just yet.
Leftist academics may be willing to denounce Obama in terms
they usually reserve for Republican warmongers, but their dissatisfaction is
only evidence that Obama isn’t proving to be radical enough for them.
Obama may be hitting a few speed bumps, but he is far from
being derailed, and we are a long way off from seeing mass defections from the
left. The right cannot afford complacency.
(This article originally appeared here on FrontPage Mag, 6/27/13)
