Confessions of a Cultural Elitist

Unsurprisingly a lot of Bush voters from the red states wrote to take exception to this week’s column. There were also a lot of positive responses. Here’s a mix:

I must confess I check your website everyday in the hopes you’ve posted something new. You are America’s BS detector and, in that capacity, you and the cartoonists like you are becoming our only real method of protest. Like you I grew up in a backwards facing red state (Arkansas) and I know the pain of living around a dull, intellectually-stifling environment and, as soon as I could, I got the fuck out of there. Maybe, what needs to happen is, we, as the intellectuals of our nation, need to begin to seep back into the red states and seed the heartland, or as I like to call it, the don’t-have-a-heart-or-a-brain-land, with the intellectual spirit we have come to embrace. Maybe, within a few generations, we’ll have changed America for the better and expose the ignorants of our society to the idiocy and the un-American-ness of their narrow-minded ideology. Well, it probably won’t happen. Most likely, we’ll all leave America soon and leave it for the racist bastards to destroy. Anyway, great work and keep it up!

This is a great point. It’s a hell of lot harder to stay around in small town America than to flee, as I did. I have great respect for the liberals who fight the good fight in the Midwest and South. Anyone can be liberal in New York City, big deal.

If they are full of soft talent lacking people like you, no wonder Kerry lost.

I have read your spew many times and ALWAYS you come across as an inferior man who hates others who think differently.

Why would anyone keep reading something they hate? Well, I watch Hannity almost every night, so never mind.

I’m writing in response to your opinion column titled “Confessions of a Cultural Elitist.” I read your opinion column regularly on Yahoo News. As an independent voter I enjoy the way that your column balances out the writings of Anne Coulter (another column I read weekly). I thoroughly enjoy both columns and would miss either if one were to suddenly disappear.

The purpose for this e-mail however, is to ask if you are taking the election results a little too personally. Your past two columns have had an almost vengeful undertone. Rather than the thought provoking writings that I

have come to look forward to, I am left with feelings of anger and remorse.

I realize that as the author of an opinion column you can clearly convey any feelings you wish. I may not represent the core group of your readers, but it sure would be nice to click on your name next week and leave with some food for thought rather than angry rants. If presented with an appropriate choice for president, regardless of party affiliation, don’t you think the “right man” would rise to the top of the field long before

election day? Close elections should unite the country in search of better candidates, not divide it in a high stakes blame game.

Some good points here. Unfortunately, this election was so crystal clear in the choice that it presented that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to consider anyone who voted for Bush a moron or racist or homophobe or worse. Hopefully I’ll calm down. Next week’s column is about something different.

Another whining rationalization from the king of pedantic polemic. Get over it you pussy, you lost because your side is wrong on the issues. Your candidate was a piece of tofu, taking any position he felt politically expedient. His supporters were mostly high-school educated entertainers who are just learning to spell their names. I voted for Bush, and I’m an Ivy league trained, well-published East coast cardiologist. Many of my friends are Ivy league blue bloods who were Bush supporters as well. Until you geniuses understand that you need to abandon your illusions of cultural and intellectual superiority, you’re going to lose many an election.

Of COURSE Kerry was a (gulp) piece of tofu. Hm. So what? He wasn’t Bush. Bush is a neofascist. Bush murdered tens of thousands of innocent people. Bush bankrupted the entire government. He opened concentration camps, for God’s sake. And still hasn’t even TRIED to go after 9/11 guys. Kerry or Bush? Gimme the tofu, man.

I appreciate your comics. Very clever, funny, poignant, even to a conservative like me. As far as your cultural elitist article, it was absolutely insulting. Perhaps your comics intend to say the same thing, but in a cartoon, there’s a hint of grace attached. You insulted my intelligence, because of the priorities that I have as an individual. I suggest that you stick to your cartoons as a more effective way to convince the masses. And on an insider’s note, my vote wasn’t a moral issues over war vote. It was a vote to keep this nation as a nation under God. My, and a majority’s priority is not to overturn Roe v. Wade or take away the rights of homosexuals, but merely to keep this nation based upon the hand of the only God who can truly make it succeed.

Come on, dude. You think Piehole Bush is a Christian? If that man truly believed that he would be judged for eternity based on his actions in this life, you can be damned sure he wouldn’t be starting wars and picking on people who didn’t chose to be gay.

I have been reading your stuff for a couple of years now. I am glad you exist, and that you publish. I find your voice refreshing in that there is at least one “liberal” out there that speaks for me, I don’t know, are you a liberal or a radical? Anyone who jets off to Afghanistan to cover the war must be fairly nuts, either that or you just have huge testicles. I just read your piece on how “liberals” think that the Bush crowd is stupid. I think I know why I like you so much. You don’t water down your Scotch, man. Just deliver that shit straight up. I’d say that most polite people would be turned off by you, but I actually agree with you most of the time. When I don’t, it is because my interpretation of facts is slightly different. For the most part however, I just want to tell you that you should just keep telling it like it is. When the tanks roll into the city and the secret police start to take down the intellectuals, I hope you have an escape plan that includes forming the resistance, lol. Perhaps one day we will meet, it is unlikely, but if I ever met you in person, I’d buy you a beer and say “Thanks.” The resultant conversation would explain why…