Reviewer Should Re-listen

The New York Times Book Review finally gets around to noticing the fairly influential book South Park Conservatives. The review, by Liesl Schillinger, is, alas, condescending and clueless. But that's not what I want to talk about.

Here's how it starts:

In a well-known spoof of a typical talk-radio exchange, two callers debate a fatuous point. The first says: ''Right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up with this country being sick and tired. I'm certainly not and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am.'' The second caller retorts, ''Well, I meet a lot of people, and I'm convinced that the vast majority of wrong-thinking people are right.'' A conservative housewife, listening to the blather, snaps, ''Liberal rubbish!'' and turns the dial.

She's referring to a Monty Python bit from their 1973 three-sided album, Matching Tie & Handkerchief. In fact, it's not a spoof of a "typical talk-radio exchange," if such a thing even existed on the BBC in the early 70s. The radio show is a panel discussion, not a debate, with a moderator who takes questions from a live audience. If Python is spoofing anything, it's not talk-radio callers (who aren't to be found here) but authority figures making stuffy and meaningless statements.

(And the housewife doesn't turn the dial, she shuts the radio off.)