Paul Harvey, propagandist for evil

Once upon a time, we had smart conservatives, conservatives who knew that, if they were to sell their conservative snake oil to a gullible public, they'd have to dress up their evil in some nice friendly clothes. Some of the smart conservatives of that ilk were William F. Buckley Jr., who was everybody's smart conservative voice, Ronald Reagan, who was capable of dressing up evil in such nice clothes that everybody was convinced evil was good, and, of course, the recently deceased Paul Harvey, who died Saturday in Phoenix.

Like Reagan, Paul Harvey was a master of the fake folksy. Pure evil became not evil, but, rather, "common sense". No discussion was necessary at that point, no proof, because Paul Harvey, like Ronald Reagan, was a master at making the bizarro world of conservatives seem like just by shucks all-American thought, and if you disagreed, it made you look un-American somehow, even though in reality it was the people like Paul Harvey and Ronald Reagan who espoused un-American values such as selfishness and greed. You could bring all the facts in the world to the table, and they didn't matter when you went up against a Paul Harvey or Ronald Reagan. They'd look at you as if you were throwing mud at a beautiful Norman Rockwell picture. Point out that they were evil motherfuckers who advocated killing babies and grannies (but only POST-born babies who were to be allowed to starve to death in Conservatopia -- PRE-born babies were to be cherished, of course), and you looked like a downright heel.

Nowdays smart conservatives of that sort just don't exist. Instead you got morons like Rush Limpdick and Michael Sewage, who don't bother trying to dress up their mean-spirited evil with any soft-spoken awe-shucks manner. Smart conservatives like Paul Harvey and Ronald Reagan made you like them even though you knew they were evil. The only people who like Rush Limpdick and Michael Sewage are mean-spirited small-minded people who are just like Rush Limpdick and Michael Sewage. Which is great for the Democratic Party, which looks downright magnificent in its shambolic mess by comparison, so I suppose we should offer a toast. To Paul Harvey, last of the smart Republicans. May you be the last of that breed to walk this mortal coil, because the last thing we need is folksy awe-shucks selling of evil pushing the nation on the wrong path again.

-- Badtux the Propaganda-sniffin' Penguin