Help! Mom! There Are Clueless People Under My Bed!
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Readers of WorldNetDaily are already familiar with this book, since WND has been pushing it for over a year. (Here's part of the publisher's description: "Tommy and Lou open a lemonade stand to earn money for a swing set. But when liberals start demanding that Tommy and Lou pay half their money in taxes, take down their picture of Jesus, and serve broccoli with every glass of lemonade, the young brothers experience the downside to living in Liberaland". And too read some very funny commentary about it, see the June 2004 post Pete wrote about it at the late, lamented The Dark Window.)
Anyway, other than Pete's write-up, the book didn't get much attention until recently, when Rush Limbaugh gave it a favorable mention. And it then achieved a certain level of notoriety, leading to it being included in a Democratic Underground Top Ten Conservatives Idiots list featuring the real cover and some amusing (and obviously photo-shopped) fake interior illustrations. Anyway, a blogger apparently saw the fake photos somewhere else, and thought they were real, and coped them to his blog -- where Andrew Sullivan saw them, prompting this post:
HOW CAN YOU TELL ...: ... when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion? When it attempts to indoctrinate 4 - 8 year olds. Check out some of the illustrations here.
Okay, except for failing to recognize that the photos were fake (which is the equivalent of taking seriously an Onion story), I can't fault Andrew's post. (And Andrew later updated it, adding,
(Update: the illustrations on that site are fakes and parodies. I apologize. I was conned. The book, however, is utterly real and sincere. It is not a parody and it is not aimed exclusively to adults. For more: see here.)
Anyway, the NRO's Jonah Goldberg had this to say about Andrew's post:
Is fairly unamused with a kids' book called "Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed." Considering that they have Barney Frank in butt-chaps, I'd like to think the book is a joke. But, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that it's not intended for little kids.
So, Jonah's position is that he'd like to think that the book is a joke because it features a Barney Frank in butt-chaps photo, but it probably is a real book for little kids -- but if it isn't, he knew it all the time.
Personally, whether it's serious or not, I wouldn't dream of reading something like this to my kid. Though I particularly like that Grover Norquist blurbs it!
It's nice to know that Jonah wouldn't give toddler a book featuring men wearing chaps without pants, even if Grover Norquist does recommend it. (BTW, the Grover blurb is real: "An ingenious story with hilarious illustrations to teach kids about the value of hard work and the threat that taxes pose to the American Dream").
And Jonah finds fault with Andrew for criticizing the religion of conservatism.
Still, Andrew asks "How can you tell when a political ideology has become the equivalent of a religion? When it attempts to indoctrinate 4 - 8 year olds."
One must assume he considers environmentalism, gay rights and feminism -- to name just three -- even more "religious" considering that there are shelves upon shelves of entirely earnest books which try to indoctrinate kids to one or another generally leftwing point of view on these fronts. Heck, there are kids textbooks which do it. And, of course, there's more kids TV programming with deep ideological agendas than it is even possible to list here.
Posted at 12:19 PM
And do any of those kids' books feature caricatures of evil conservatives (such as Dick Cheney, Bill Frist, and Ann Coulter) hiding under a child's bed and plotting to steal his lemonade stand money? (Answer: no, because the thought of that trio under the bed would keep any child from sleeping for years.) And do any of those books include a storyline which says that Americans who subscribe to a different political philosophy are against Jesus?
Jonah, sure, there is "liberal indoctrination" (and various other kinds of indoctrination) of kids going on all the time, but Liberals Under My Bed has to win some kind of award for trying to politically brainwash little kids.
Now, here's Jonah a few hours later:
LIBERALS UNDER MY BED [Jonah Goldberg ]
As I suspected, the illustrations Sullivan links to are fakes. But the book is real.
He suspected as much, but didn't tell us because, um, he didn't want to ruin the joke.
As for liberal readers who demand examples from me of the left doing this sort of thing, I must say every email I've received has been in bad faith to one extent or another. I simply don't believe these readers think the left is innocent of this sort of thing. And I didn't provide examples originally because I think what I wrote is so self-evidently true.
Um, yeah: "There are zillions of examples of the left doing this kind sort of thing, so I don't have to list any of these examples, because what I said is so self-evident that it makes examples unnecessary -- so, if you ask me for examples, you are showing bad faith."
But since you insist, let me say: Go to a kid's bookstore sometime. Just look at this list of books which came up when I searched Amazon for "Heather has two Mommies."
The list doesn't work (at least, it doesn't for me), so I did my own Amazon search for "Heather Has Two Mommies" -- and here are some of the top results:
So, yeah, Jonah has proven his point about liberals doing the same thing.
I'm not denouncing all of these books. It seems to me that if you're in a same-sex relationship you might want a way to explain what's going on to your kids. But spare the notion that there's no indoctrination going on.
Okay, maybe Jonah's search came up with a different list of books than mine (unless he's hinting that Star Parker and Michael Savage are trying to explain to their kids that they're in a same-sex relationship) -- but he seems to believe that a kids' book featuring the message that some people are gay is the same as a kids' book which teaches youngsters that Americans who belong to a different political party are the enemy.
As for environmentalism. Check out the kids' books available at most natural history museums and zoos. They're full of eco-babble. Sorry if I don't remember the titles of books I refused to buy.
Great response, Jonah! It's almost on a par with, "That was so funny I forgot to laugh."
Simply put: Andrew picked the wrong example to single out the perfidy of conservatives, and lefty readers who deny it are kidding themselves.
Posted at 03:13 PM
But apparently that rationale didn't satisfy those pesky liberals, prompting yet another post from Jonah:
INDOCTRINATION [Jonah Goldberg]
Several liberal readers complained that they were not arguing in bad faith. What distinguishes the Liberals Under My Bed book is that it is overtly partisan, they explain, while indoctrinating liberal and lefty books don't speak to partisanship so much as their ideals for a better world.
I think this is a thin reed since the issue raised by Andrew is ideological indoctrination itself. The contents of that indoctrination is secondary.
Well, since Andrew specifically said "political ideology," then I think it's self-evidentially true that we're talking about political indoctrination.
(Indeed, this sounds a bit like the folks at NARAL or the NAACP when they insist they're "non partisan.") If a book says that people who disagree with environmental radicals are evil, does it really matter that much when if they don't say "Republicans" are evil?
Jonah, if a book says that self-righteous hypocrites are going to hell, is it okay if we make a special children's edition of said book which says, "Woe unto you, Republicans and Conservatives, for you are like whitened tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all manner of uncleanness, and manipulations of blind trusts, and lying about the Valerie Plame matter"?
I remember when I was a TV producer we got a kids' book in the mail which explained how mean and nasty Republicans are. I can't remember the name, but it had something to do with elephants. I remember it because I would torture my colleagues by reading from it.
Yeah, there are lots of kids' books written by liberals to demonize Republicans, and while Jonah can't remember what they are, once again he has proven his point, which is so so-evidentially true that he doesn't need examples.
But someone did send me this which seems to illustrate the point well enough.
Except that NO, George, NO! The Re-Parenting of George W. Bush obviously isn't a children's book. One of the clues is that it's included in "political humor" section, not the children's section.
Now, for the record, I'm not an enormous fan of this sort of thing on the right or the left. What bothered me was Andrew's selective gaze.
Posted at 06:11 PM
Um, yeah -- Jonah was just annoyed that Andrew failed to list all those thousands of children's books which demonize Republicans . You know, the ones whose titles Jonah can't remember, but are just like Liberals Under My Bed, except that they're worse.
Anyway, back to Andrew:
IT'S NOT SATIRE FOR ADULTS: The debate over "Help! Mom! There are Liberals Under My Bed" continues. I am accused of being one the most humorless people on earth. By John Podhoretz. But it isn't satire. It's indoctrination. (Yes, lefty idiots ruin their case by posting fake parodies of the illustrations, but lefty idiots have been makng Sean Hannity's job easy for years now.)
Damn, are we going to have to appoint somebody to teach these people which books are actual children's books, and which are political satire for adults (and which illustrations are really DU parodies)?
Andrew, yes, Liberals Under My Bed is a real children's book, and yes, JPod is in no position to be ribbing anyone else for lacking a sense of humor -- but dude, you did fall for those fake illustrations ...
It has caricatures of Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. It has a Democratic donkey under the bed, posing as a member of the press. Jonah thinks the left does the same thing. I'm sure there are examples out there, but they are generally fuzzy tracts about saving the earth or explaining why over a hundred thousand kids have two parents of the same gender. I haven't yet seen or heard of any 4 - 8 year old kiddies' books which caricature George W. Bush, Dick Cheney or Bill Frist, or get into the details of tax policy or the liberal media. This is also not a fringe book. It's #44 on Amazon! In a word, it's creepy, in the way all ideological fanaticism is creepy.
Indeed.
But enough about what bloggers think of the book -- let's hear from the author, Katharine DeBrecht (a pseudonym, as "Katharine" wanted to protect her family from "liberal nuts"). She was recently interviewed by A.M. Siriano for Renew America.
Q: You have been quoted, notably by Rush Limbaugh, that "liberals oppose anything that supports religion, traditional families, and the free market," but most liberals, including many that I know, vehemently disagree. Do you really think what you said is true?
A: If it isn't true, then why are they opposing this book which talks about these things?
Yes, if liberals are opposing a book which says that they hate Jesus, then they must hate Jesus. Q.E.D.
They oppose "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance; they push books like King and King and Heather Has Two Mommies in classrooms, and they consistently demonize business and create obstacles to capitalism through taxation and over-regulation.
I'm not an expert in these things, but I don't know of any school district where King and King and Heather has Two Mommies were ever taught in classrooms -- and even if they were, why does recognizing the existence of non-traditional families equate to "opposing" traditional families?
Liberals are afraid to admit what they stand for, because America has seen how their policies have failed for over 40 years. They took prayer out of the schools and replaced it with metal detectors;
It was liberals who did that? Geez, my school missed the boat, because we NEVER were ordered to assemble around the metal detector and ask it for its blessings.
they have taken self-responsibility out of society and replaced it with an entitlement mentality and lawyers; they have tried to erase the beauty of the traditional family and replace it with high divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births; they have attempted to crush the American Dream and replace it with Karl Marx.
I'm sure you all recall the popular liberal kiddy book, Heather Is a Lazy, Slutty Unwed Mother Who Dreams of Karl Marx, and She's Hiding Under Your Bed, Making Fun of George Bush!. (Hey, maybe that's the book title that Jonah couldn't remember!)
Q: In reading your book, I found myself being reminded of core conservative values — self-reliance and personal responsibility, unobstructed capitalism, the traditional family, the preeminence of God, etc. Do you think your book is instructive for adults as much as it is for children?
A: I think the book is simple enough for even liberals to understand. There is a lot of adult humor in the book, so parents will enjoy reading it with their child. I am now hearing how adults without children enjoy the book as well because of its humor, and they are giving it as gifts to their liberal colleagues.
You know you've made it as an author when people are giving your book as a spite gift.
Q: At the end of the book, you promise more "Help! Mom! adventures." Do you plan to touch on hot political issues, such as the War on Terror, gun control, public education, homosexuality and abortion, or are these topics too difficult (or unseemly) for the children's market?
A: I dread the day when I have to explain to my children what abortion is. How do I explain to them, that when God gives a woman a baby (I always tell my kids they are wonderful gifts from God), some women decide the baby is inconvenient and kill it before it is born?
She could say, "Kids, babies are wonderful gifts from God that He gives as punishment when you sin by having sex out of wedlock. Now, some women try to avoid His punishment by getting abortions, and so they are going to hell. So, go out there and be chaste, so that God won't bless you!"
I don't think abortion will be in any future Help! Mom! Series. On a lighter note, here are the upcoming titles: Help! Mom! Hollywood is in My Hamper!, Help! Mom! There Are Lawyers in My Lunchbox!, and Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity!
Here's a test for Andrew and his sense of humor: are those REAL titles, or are they parody titles which I made up? (Hint: Although stupid, they're not very funny. Maybe you guys can do better.)
4:41:40 AM 
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