The Conservative-Progressive-Man-Whore

From the New York Times:

Randi Rhodes, an afternoon host for the progressive Air America radio network, was suspended Thursday after repeatedly insulting Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton at an event last month.

Ms. Rhodes used vulgar language that likened Mrs. Clinton to a prostitute at an event sponsored by KKGN, the Air America affiliate in the San Francisco area, on March 22.

Um, no. Ms. Rhodes didn't liken Hillary to a prostitute. She called her a "whore." Several times.

There's no way the Clinton camp could have seen this coming. A year ago, Bill was a prince and Hillary was a woman on the rise. A year later her own people are calling her a whore? Weird.

Incidentally, where did "progressive" come from? I started hearing it a few years ago down in the US, and I didn't know what it meant. When I found out it was a euphemism for "liberal," I guessed that the liberals went out and got a new publicist. Makes sense. Liberals aren't very liberal anymore. They want to hold everyone's hand, take their temperature, and tell them what a good or bad boy they're being. New laws, new rights, new taxes. Not "atheist liberal," but, "secular progressive." That's progress.

It's not a very eco-friendly term, though. The word "progress" makes me think of forests cut down for highways, rivers dammed for new jet-ski lakes, that kind of thing.

The word eventually made its way up to Canada, where it is now being used with abandon. Progressive bloggers, progressive news shows, progressive radio hosts. I suppose it won't be long until the Liberal Party will be the Progressive Party.

With every twist and turn in our society, Orwell must be laughing his head off. Progressive is Newspeak for Liberal. Or as The Who put it, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Labels, labels, labels. Before I started blogging, I was just some guy. After I started blogging, I was some guy whose friends read his blog. After enough friends read it, they started calling me conservative. News to me. I threw in more movie reviews and stories about drunken late-night antics. I got called a party animal. That sounded more like it. Then I wrote a few things that smacked of sentimentality, and I got called a pussy.

Strangers started to stumble across this blog, and the comments got weirder. I didn't even know how to publish the comments, but it was cool to see them from time to time.

I wrote a couple of things in support of religion and got called a Christian nutcase. That would have impressed the people at my church, where I haven't been in two decades. I wrote some more stuff about drunken antics and, a la Hillary, I got called a man-whore. Cool! Then the free speech thing came along, and I got called conservative again, which threw me: by definition, how can I be conservative when I think anybody should be allowed to say anything?

I wonder what it will be next week. Hmmm. Haven't had much man-whore static in a while. So let me tell you about this time in Acapulco, where the girls were on roller skates...