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By Dennis Prager, a theologian and author of four books |
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The Party of Fear A voice introduced five young children: "Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to welcome five special young people: Dakota Fanning, Michael Ramey, Lindsey Louie, Miles Kirkpatrick, and Ryan Brown [names spelled as pronounced] for 'When I Grow Up.'" This is what these children recited:
The first child: When I grow up, I wonder if people will be more afraid to cry than they are to die. Using young children to make political points is objectionable in itself. These children — especially the younger ones — should have been home playing with toys, other kids, or their parents, not spouting lines they could barely pronounce placed in their mouths by political activists. But by far the worst aspect of this exercise–and the one that is most revealing of the liberal Democratic mindset–is its assault on children's innocence by instilling fear and pessimism in them. Michael and Diane Medved, in their book Saving Childhood, cite Marie Wynn in summing up the attitude that made this convention spectacle possible: Many parents and educators no longer view their role as primarily protecting children but rather as preparing them. To cite one example, when I saw the film Titanic, I was amazed to see that some parents had brought their children to the movie theater. I then raised this issue on my radio show, marveling at how parents could justify bringing 8-year-old children to a film that not only featured a topless scene, but far worse, depicted in absolute realism the true story of a thousand people going to horrible deaths in the ocean depths. Even I, a middle- aged adult, couldn't sleep well that night. To my greater amazement, almost every caller disagreed with me and defended parents who took their children to see the film. And each one argued essentially the same thing — this is the way real life is, and it is our duty to prepare our children for real life. This attitude pervades our culture. Scaring children and depriving them of their innocence has become a national project — led usually by those with what we today identify as a liberal political and social outlook. Hence the innocence-depriving classes about sex and about sexual harassment in increasingly early grades, and the scaring of young children by drumming into their young minds threats to their well-being (including firsthand smoke, secondhand smoke, strangers, potential molesters, caffeine, drugs, and alcohol). Thus a very receptive audience gave an enthusiastic ovation to what a generation ago both Democrats and Republicans would have regarded as virtual child abuse — making young children speak about grave threats to their futures. To see a four- or five-year-old girl stand before thousands of adults and speak about the danger to her happiness posed by the possibility of being "wrongfully touched" is unconscionable. In the film Life Is Beautiful, a Jewish father, played by Roberto Benigni, devotes his life to protecting his young son's innocence even while being transported to a Nazi concentration camp and even while incarcerated there. This father's relentless struggle to keep his son optimistic in the midst of genocide is the whole power of the film. Yet we, living in an unprecedentedly safe, healthy, and free society — a society in which every one of these children can expect to live 90-plus years — feel it necessary to frighten our children, render them pessimistic, and deprive them of their God-given innocence.
The Kiss How is one to explain this — and is it even important enough to explain? To answer the second question first, just about anytime a social barrier is broken, an explanation is called for — because it helps us understand where our society is headed. Can any of us recall such a public display of physical affection by so prominent a personality in so important a setting? Before thousands of delegates and before a television audience of tens of millions of viewers, the Vice President of the United States kissed his wife in a manner normally reserved for the most private moments of a couple's life. I suspect that few couples have ever kissed that way in front of their closest friends or in front of their children — and if a couple did do so, it would most likely embarrass anyone present. Why did Mr. Gore do it? The reason given by defenders and admirers of the kiss is that Mr. and Mrs. Gore remain deeply in love and are physically very affectionate with each other. There is every reason to believe that this is true. But this is no way explains why Mr. Gore chose to demonstrate this before the world upon his nomination for the presidency. Unless one assumes that the Gores are the only happily married and physically affectionate couple in American political life, the kiss needs an explanation. And that explanation is that the kiss was a calculated act meant to convey a message to the American people. Everything on the stage at the Staples Center (just as at the Republican Convention) was calculated to convey a message. It is inconceivable that Mr. Gore gave his wife a particularly long and close lip-to-lip kiss at the very moment more Americans were observing than at any time in his life, simply because the urge overtook him. And what was that message? There were two. The first message was that "Tipper and I are not at all like the dysfunctional couple who lived in the White House for the last eight years. We love each other and have an active sex life." It was part of the distancing from Clinton that is central to Mr. Gore's hopes of being elected. The other message was about himself. Al Gore has been trying to overcome an image of being something less than an "alpha male," not quite a masculine male leader. Polls show an unprecedented gap among males — obviously many men do not regard him as the man to lead their country. During the primaries he hired a woman to advise him on how to appear more masculine. He has clearly — sometimes too clearly, as when he wears tight jeans — buffed up his body to appear physically fit, in the belief that this will help project a more macho image. It is in keeping with this belief that Mr. Gore likely felt that showing heterosexual vitality would further project the strong image he wants to project. Again, Mr. Clinton may have contributed to this felt need. Mr. Clinton is in many Americans' eyes the quintessential bad boy. In contrast, Mr. Gore fears he appears to be more of a goody-goody. In the films and still pictures shown at the convention about him, a subliminal but clear attempt to show Mr. Gore as a sexy and sexual male came through. A jarring example that comes to mind was his showing an interviewer a nude self-portrait of Tipper hanging in his home (which is interesting in itself — how many homes have a nude portrait of Mom hanging in them?). These reasons, if valid, are disturbing in that they reinforce a suspicion that apparently many Americans have about Al Gore — that he does not really know himself or that he is not fully comfortable with the self that he knows. Many of us have suspected that Mr. Clinton, too, is not a fully formed person, but his rare degree of charm and charisma have enabled him to hide that fact from most people. Mr. Gore cannot hide behind charm and charisma — hence the constant reinventing of self that Mr. Gore, by most accounts a decent person, undergoes. But the kiss was troubling for another reason — that so many Americans found this broken barrier a positive development. All the Democratic delegates cited in the Associated Press piece and caller after caller to my radio show supported the kiss as a positive display of affection that only prudes could oppose. The party that supports outlawing bikini calendars on the desks or walls of any business in America calls prudish those who would like to see presidents act in dignified ways. The sixties live on. The ideas of public decorum and of sexual modesty in public, of not letting it all hang out, and the virtue of dignity — these are all alien to tens of millions of Americans and to the party that represents them. The above portion of this article appeared in the Los Angeles Times on August 23, and the entire article appears in the next issue of The Prager Perspective. Dennis Prager is a theologian and author of four books, including Happiness Is a Serious Problem (HarperCollins, 1998). He is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host based in Los Angeles.
Stay tuned for Part II of A Troubling Democratic
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saw six things at the Democratic National Convention that depict a party
whose core values should deeply trouble the American people.
