Jeffrey A. Setaro

Political & Cultural Commentary from a Constitutional Conservative.

Hustler Sinks to New Low; Photoshops Phallus in S.E. Cupp’s Mouth

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S.E. Cupp Photo
S.E. Cupp

I’ve been enjoying a bit of a blogging sabbatical for past few — several weeks. I really haven’t felt much like writing recently, but when I read about Hustler’s vile, misogynistic attack on conservative commentator S.E. Cupp I decided to take a sabbatical from my sabbatical and express my opinion on the matter.

I would love to say I’m shocked by Hustler’s publication of photoshopped image of S.E. Cupp with a penis in her mouth… But I’m not, to be perfectly blunt, Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is a vile, misogynistic, take-it-in-the-ear-for-a-beer rat bastard, and this is his M.O.

Anyway; Hustler and Mr. Flynt are at least honest about the reason for their attack on Ms. Cupp:

S.E. Cupp is a lovely young lady who read too much Ayn Rand in high school and ended up joining the dark side. Cupp, an author and media commentator who often shows up on Fox News programs, is undeniably cute. But her hotness is diminished when she espouses dumb ideas like defunding Planned Parenthood. Perhaps the method pictured here is Ms. Cupp’s suggestion for avoiding an unwanted pregnancy.

They disagree Ms. Cupp’s political views, but rather than engage her in a grownup debate on the issues, they resort to a sleazy personal attack that seeks to degrade and dehumanize her in the most personal way possible.

Mr. Flynt defends the publication of the fake image as satire… Pfft, with all due respect, this drivel doesn’t rise to the level of satire. It is what it is: a vile attack on young woman who’s politics he doesn’t like.

Michelle Malkin wrote about “The Four Stages of Conservative Female Abuse” a few years ago and it’s worth reviewing again:

The first stage of Conservative Female Abuse by the Left is infantilization. Right-wing women can’t possibly believe what they believe about the sanctity of life, self-defense, free markets, or foreign policy. They must be submissive little dolls of the White Male Hierarchy. Or, as a far Left (is there any other kind of Left in San Francisco?) San Francisco Chronicle columnist wrote of First Lady Laura Bush, they must be put in their place as “docile doormats” with no brains of their own. True to form, no sooner had John McCain announced Gov. Palin as his veep pick than jeers of “Palin = neocon puppet” sprouted across the Internet.

The second stage of CFA is sexualization. A conservative woman is not merely a sellout. She is an intellectual prostitute. Unable or unwilling to argue with them on the merits, detractors resort to mocking the physical appearance of their ideological opponents in skirts and denigrating them with vulgar epithets. MSNBC hosts insulted former GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s accomplished wife and mother of two, Jeri Thompson, as working the stripper pole. Newspaper cartoonists Ted Rall, Pat Oliphant, and Jeff Danziger caricatured Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as a mammy, thick-lipped parrot, and Bush “House Nigga” armed with “hair straightener.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd derided former GOP Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris for applying “her makeup with a trowel.”

True to form, Dowd was first out of the box to snicker at Gov. Palin’s beauty pageant past, ridicule her “beehive and sexy shoes,” and compare her path to the vice presidential nomination as a “hokey chick flick.” Joe Biden backhandedly praised her as “good looking.” And left-wing bloggers worked overtime on lurid photoshops of Palin as a bikini model and porn star. At the Democratic Underground, a highly trafficked liberal website raising money for Barack Obama, members held a contest to come up with nicknames and posters to slime GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin — and then to “spread [them] all over the ‘net.” Among the “nicer” entries: “Cruella,” “Gidget,” “Governor Jesus Camp,” “VPILF,” “Fertilla the Huntress,” “Iditabroad,” and “KILLER PYSCHO FUNDIE BITCH FROM HELL!!”

The third stage of CFA is demonization. When the Left tires of hurling whore insults, it turns conservative women in the public eye into nefarious creatures. Bill Maher called Laura Bush “Hitler’s dog.” George Carlin attacked Barbara Bush as “the Silver douchebag.” A Huffington Post website member wrote of Nancy Reagan: “Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.” Another added: “I feel no pity for the bitch who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”

True to form, rumors of Palin being a crypto-Nazi surfaced on the Internet and the fringe media. And liberal critics used her gun-rights record to smear her as bloodthirsty.

And the final stage of CFA is dehumanization. Conservative women aren’t real women according to the liberal feminist establishment’s definition. Remember when Gloria Steinem called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator?” Or when curdled NOW leader Patricia Ireland instructed Democrats to vote only for “authentic” female political candidates? Or when Al Gore’s fashion consultant Naomi Wolf described the foreign-policy analysis of Jeane Kirkpatrick as being “uninflected by the experiences of the female body?”

No, I’m not shocked, I stopped being shocked by these kinds of attacks a long time ago, I am outraged and I am disgusted though and you should be too.

Somethings transcend politics, I don’t care which end of the political spectrum you’re on, or whether you agree or disagree with Ms. Cupp’s political views — this isn’t, this shouldn’t be about politics. It’s about something far more basic, something far more important to our culture: common human decency.

No woman should be subjected to the kind of vile, dehumanizing attack Ms. Cupp has been. If you can’t see that, if you can’t put aside politics to condemn this kind vile misogyny then it’s truly sad day for our culture.

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