Previously on TheAngryPen:

09-12-2000 2 Parties

08-18-2000 Al’s Acceptance

08-10-2000 Gore’s Choice

08-03-2000 The American Dream

07-20-2000 History and Hollywood

07-13-2000 40 Acres and a Mule

07-06-2000 The God We Trust

06-29-2000 Lyrical Assault

06-15-2000 Bank Fees

06-07-2000 A Mixture Often of Incongruous Elements

05-24-2000 Social Security

05-17-2000 Governmental Good Intentions

05-10-2000 Johnny Reb and Disgusting Fatbodies

05-03-2000 Low Fidelity

04-26-2000 Jackboots and Black Helicopters

04-19-2000 Movie Trailers

04-12-2000 All Things Cuban

04-05-2000 Censorship

03-29-2000 Juries and Tobacco

03-22-2000 Several Things

03-15-2000 Gore the Reformer

03-08-2000 Mission to Mars

03-08-2000 Super Tuesday

03-03-2000 Little Johnny Murderer

03-01-2000 Bob Jones

02-23-2000 The Christian Coalition

02-16-2000 Valentine's Day

02-09-2000 Short-Sighted Political Parties

02-02-2000 Mosh Pits

01-12-2000 Al Gore's Personality

11-17-1999 Playboy

09-02-1999 The Demise of Heavy Metal

	TheAngryPen vs. Gore’s Choice

So, what does The Pen think of this Lieberman character?

Well, as you might expect, I’m going to tell you.

One thing’s fer sure, we’re gonna learn a lot about religious bigotry in America this year, I can guaran-damn-tee ya that. Of course, the polls suggest that American society as a whole has no problem voting for a Jewish candidate, but then, society doesn't go into the voting booth with you, and I suspect that when all is said and done, those polls numbers are not going to hold up.

But then, maybe The Pen is just being pessimistic.

Personally, I can’t imagine a thing about this guy I could care less about than his religion. At the very least, we finally have a candidate whom we can trust to cut out the pork in Washington. And of all the various national political candidates running around the country getting their collective danders up this season, Joseph Lieberman, as a Jew, is one we can be relatively sure has no conversion agenda driving his desire to re-introduce religion into public life. He genuinely believes that by returning to religion en masse, we can cure our collective ills. I think he’s nuts about that, but I have no doubt that his intentions are honorable.

But there is something that scares me about Lieberman and his place on the Gore ticket. As it stands now, Al Gore’s circle of closest advisors now includes among them the patron saints of media censorship in this country.

Al’s wife Tipper founded the PMRC, and even though that organization’s public enemy number one, Twisted Sister’s Dee Snider, has since forgiven Tipper her trespasses and formally endorsed Gore for President, this is one grudge The Pen will never, ever let go. Lieberman, no slouch in the arena of media censorship himself, co-sponsored legislation that introduced us to the “V” chip, and has repeatedly called Hollywood to task for its continued production of what he calls “trash.”

All very typical of modern politicians, both left and right. All so happy, they are, to go after easy targets like slasher movies and Eminem, rather than face the tougher questions of why society embraces these things in the first place. Before leaping to blame the industries that produce these kinds of entertainment for the coarsening of American society, methinks Mr. Lieberman would do well to remember that in a country where very few industries actually manufacture profitable products in this day and age, Hollywood remains a shining example of an American industry that still makes money the old-fashioned way… by actually producing a product that people want to buy.

Of course, there’s always hoping that one of these politicians might stand up one day and demand some level of personal responsibility from American society for its own downfall if, in fact, such a downfall exists, and then start behaving in a manner commensurate with that demand, themselves. But really, what are the chances of that?

But I digress.

The fact remains that in a government full of people setting startlingly bad examples, these two are, in a way, among the worst. They are, in fact, the reason many Americans agree with the statement, “the media in America have too much freedom.” Sorry folks, but there ain’t no such thing.

And the worst thing about all this is that this is the one thing about the Gore/Lieberman record that the Republicans will not go after. Conservative columnist George Will, who has not been shy about his inability to conceive of an outcome more horrific than a Gore win in November, had nothing but wonderful words to say about Lieberman’s record on the subject in his column this week. And it’s hard to imagine an issue less likely to raise the Puritan ire of the Republican leadership as this race heads into the final stretch.

Consider for a minute, the delicious irony of this aspect of a Gore/Liberman Presidency combined with a Republican Congress. After years of bitching about gridlock in Washington, We The People finally get bipartisan co-operation on one single issue. And when, at long last it comes, it does so in the form of legislation designed to limit the freedom of the press and place governmental restrictions on the kinds of entertainment programming our media outlets can produce.

Ooooh, The Pen just got an icy little shiver down the back of his neck.

Over the last fifty years, the world has seen many different kinds of horribly, violently repressive governments. Some of them (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Khmer Cambodia) have been real doozies, for sure, but no two have been exactly alike. They have differed both in their approach to, and their reasons for, vicious repression of basic human rights. But they have all had one thing in common… they have all featured a restricted press, and severe censorship of popular entertainment.

Think about that as you try to fall asleep tonight.