The year of living disingeniously

Ed Driscoll at PJMedia.com has written an excellent summation of 2014, which I dubbed “The Year of Living Disingenuously,” because so much of what we were told in the news, and the furor that grew out of the telling, was nothing but false narratives, phony propaganda and whistling past the graveyard. From “the Democrats may retake the House and will definitely hold the Senate” to “Wendy Davis will turn Texas blue” to “the Affordable Care Act will result in affordable care” (the only true part of that title was the word “act”) to “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” and “chokehold,” virtually everything that the self-proclaimed “reality-based community” held dear in 2014 turned out to be just so much eyewash.

Now, it’s starting to look as if it might have been disgruntled ex-employees, not North Korea, behind the Sony hacking. If so, then the studio exposed Hollywood’s hypocrisy and moral cowardice to the world for nothing. Bummer, dudes.

But as this article points out, there were actually two strong trends on the left in 2014. One was the need to fill the world with a fog of lies to cover up the fact that virtually everything they believe in, from “smart diplomacy” to Obama’s economic policies, has been an unmitigated disaster.

The other was on the social front, where the left has somehow morphed into Margaret Dumont, the humorless dowager who represented the stodgy establishment in the Marx Brothers’ films. The left used to identify with Groucho Marx, who mocked Ms. Dumont without regard for her easily offended sensibilities. Groucho’s hilariously irreverent truth-telling was so beloved that on one of liberaldom’s favorite TV shows, “M*A*S*H,” Hawkeye not only taunted the military in Groucho style, he once even donned glasses, a mustache and a cigar in an outright impersonation.

Yet somehow today, the left has become Margaret Dumont, dropping their lorgnettes in outrage at even the mildest joke or comment that might potentially offend anyone or anything anywhere.

Not only would they demand that Groucho be banned from the media and ordered into sensitivity training, they’d blow a gasket if he just lit his cigar in public.

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Published: Jan. 8, 2015 - Volume 13 - Issue 39