In the Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan contemplates the “decline in American optimism,” as evidenced by polls saying that 55% of Americans believe the country to be on the “wrong track,” and 66% don’t think life will be better for their children than it has been for them. Now, Noonan is not one to go with those boring old reasonable causes for pessimism everyone is talking about, like the fact that lots of us are unemployed, and uninsured, and people are losing their houses, and we’re at war and have been for a really long time, and so on and so forth and oh God let’s not list all the reasons right here. Oh, no! These, to Noonan, are mere distractions! She goes directly to the real reason: perhaps it is all because we are so upset about that Adam Lambert kissing a boy on the teevee, hmmmmm?
This was behind the resentment at the Adam Lambert incident on ABC in November. The compromise [whereby all GLBT people and non-conservatives apparently agreed to move to New York where Peggy Noonan and her friends will never see or hear from them ever again? You can read the whole article, but it seriously makes no more sense than that and this may in fact be what she is literally saying – Ed.] was breached. It was a broadcast network, it was prime time, it was the American Music Awards featuring singers your 11-year-old wants to see, and your 8-year-old. And Mr. Lambert came on… People were offended, and they complained. Mr. Lambert seemed surprised and puzzled. With an idiot’s logic that was nonetheless logic, he suggested he was the focus of bigotry: They let women act perverse on TV all the time, so why can’t a gay man do it? Fifteen hundred callers didn’t see it as he did and complained to ABC, which was negligent but in the end responsive: They changed the West Coast feed and apparently kept Mr. Lambert off “Good Morning America.”
Mr. Lambert’s act left viewers feeling not just offended but assaulted. Again, “we don’t care what you do in New York,” but don’t include us in it, don’t bring it into our homes. Our children are here… increasingly people feel at the mercy of the Adam Lamberts, who of course view themselves, when criticized, as victims of prudery and closed-mindedness. America is not prudish or closed-minded, it is exhausted. It cannot be exaggerated, how much Americans feel besieged by the culture of their own country, and to what lengths they have to go to protect their children from it.
Yes. A gay man kissed a man. And he did some sexy Gaga or Britney-worthy dance moves on television. Also, sang a song. And you, Noonan, suggested this was an “assault,” especially on The Children, who must never ever see this happen, and used the phrase – willfully, consciously, seemingly completely unaware that you might just have set yourself up by using the phrase – “idiot’s logic” to suggest that this reaction miiiiiight be a little bit bigoted. While suggesting that this – Adam Lambert, that is – is actually what is Wrong With America.
I. Just. No words.