Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2004/01/14/shut_up_and_sing.php
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Wealthy liberals think that they are better than all conservatives, particularly the blue collar conservatives. Or so Laura Ingraham '85 (and first female editor of The Dartmouth Review) would have you believe in her latest diatribe, Shut Up and Sing.
Ingraham, who hosts a nationally syndicated radio show and appears frequently on Fox News, CBS, and MSNBC as a political commentator, spends 339 pages discussing how so-called "elites" are subverting America from a variety of forums. The favorite hangouts of these elites tend to be Hollywood, universities, and the UN, among others, but most of all, the Democratic Party. While the elites nominally consist of actors, trial lawyers, media yuppies, and "international peace activists," the intelligent reader can ascertain within ten pages that an elite is anyone who does not agree, point-for-point, with Ingraham's own strict conservative, if slightly libertarian, beliefs. Though the brunt of her tirade is directed towards ignorant celebrities who consider themselves supreme authorities on the economy, world politics, human rights, and education, she goes after several institutions that are not liberal in the interest of appearing nonpartisan to her readers. Great bastions of conservatives, such as corporate America and The Wall Street Journal, as well as individuals like Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and even George W. Bush himself, are not spared from Ingraham's vociferous wrath.
Ingraham does bring up a number of good points, many of which are self-evident to even the most casual observer of politics. For instance, she devotes the longest chapter in the book to criticizing Hollywood elites who make it their business to attack the president, his policies, and generally anything associated with the Republican Party. Although Hollywood actors often border on socialist in their political views, to criticize their weak, unfounded arguments is akin to shooting fish in a barrel for any educated socially-conscious person. The voting public cares about the political opinions of Barbara Streisand, Sean Penn, the Dixie Chicks, Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins (all of whom were exceedingly vocal, if not disrespectful, in their opposition to the war in Iraq), as much as it cares to hear about the Oscar picks of Colin Powell, Bill Safire, and David Gergen. As the title of the book suggests, these self-proclaimed gurus would better serve themselves and the public if they would just "shut up and sing." Unfortunately, Ingraham severely weakens her case by making an exception to this decree, bafflingly exempting conservative actors, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood, from the "elite" category, thereby validating their political opinions.
This pattern reappears in other parts of the book; Ingraham will begin building a solid argument against a certain group of elites, only to leave significant exceptions or gaping holes in her defense. She shrewdly notes that to most elites, separation of church and state essentially means "extinction of church and adulation of state." She gives several common-knowledge examples of how liberals are trying to eliminate God from all facets, then delves into her own, unsupported rant about why God is in fact integral to our society. In her discussion of anti-war elites, she observes that the elites (in this case, anybody who does not agree with war), sat on their hands and kept quiet when Bill Clinton ordered military action in Bosnia and Kosovo, but took to the streets by the thousands on the Iraq issue. Instead of focusing this hypocrisy, she instead chooses to single out the most extreme individuals and organizations, in a desperate attempt to expose their underlying absurdity and anti-American sentiment. She draws broad conclusions, stating that all war protestors feel that Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong Il are truly reasonable and admirable human beings, and then sketches out weak connections, remarkably tying most anti-war groups to an assortment of Communist organizations.
After finishing her on Hollywood, Ingraham goes after academia. This chapter once again spends much time stating the obvious; everyone is alert to the fact that the overwhelming majority of professors fall somewhere between Democrat and socialist on the political spectrum. But in case her readers were not aware, she once again draws upon the extreme examples (that is, anything that happens at UC Berkeley) of academic liberalism to make her case. The argument built is neither well-supported nor particularly convincing. The remainder of the book nit-picks all other elites that Ingraham takes issue with, namely those who support open borders, businesses that move operations off-shore, the UN Security Council, and the French. While sections of each of these chapters were insightful, the rest was mind-numbingly tedious.
The most frustrating part of Shut Up and Sing was the tone carried throughout the book. It reads like a transcript of Ingraham's radio show. Though this tone is understandable given her profession, it leaves the reader with the impression that the book was directed at a middle-school audience or a non-descript mass of uneducated, uninformed people. While this description matches perfectly the elites' opinion of most of America, Ingraham does no better by writing in a borderline-condescending tone. Much of the book is little more than a listing her own beliefs, with little research or outside opinions to complement them (the 339-page book has just forty-one endnotes).
In truth, the book reads like a conservative version of Stupid White Men, Michael Moore's drivelous, rambling tirade against all Republicans who hold power. While it is difficult for a conservative to disagree with Ingraham's rhetoric, much like her "elites" would agree with Moore, the style of the book eliminates any value, beyond the superficial, that it may have to educated, politically-conscious Americans.