'Sesame Street' Trashes Fox News

Add one more soldier to the Left’s war on Fox News: Oscar the Grouch.

Last week, in a re-broadcast of an episode that originally aired two years ago, Oscar starts his own news network, GNN (Grouchy News Network). An irate viewer calls in to berate him that the news is not grouchy enough:

“I am changing the channel. From now on I am watching ‘Pox’ News. Now there is a trashy news show.”

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Later in the episode, Anderson Cooper from 4th place CNN, guest stars as a reporter for GNN. He interacts with “Walter Cranky” and “Dan Rather-Not” — Muppets representing real-life liberal news personalities — and they talk about “Meredith Beware-a” and “Diane Spoiler.” But no affectionate nicknames for Fox News personalities; no Spill O’Reilly or Brittle Hume — nope, and the only disparaging characterization of real-world news is reserved for Fox: Fox is a POX. It is trashy. They didn’t even attempt to try “MessyNBC.”

If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it’s better than 50/50 they watch “POX News.” So what gives? PBS — a network partially funded with my tax dollars — has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch “trashy” news? The message is clear, I can’t even sit my kids in front of “Sesame Street” without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don’t tell me, “If you don’t like it change the channel.” There are no channels left! It’s everywhere. Just last week I had Obama’s service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon.

…by the way, why SHOULD I change the channel? This is MY channel, I’m paying for it!

The fact that this is a re-run from an episode written during the Bush Presidency only reinforces that this is nothing new. The Left has been doing this for years now. All of us have seen it and felt powerless to mention it, because if we do, we’re ridiculed and dismissed (thank you, Mr. Alinsky).

No, this is nothing new. In Julia L. Mickenberg’s book “Learning From the Left” the history is plainly spelled out. Radicals drummed out of mainstream culture in the late 1940’s turned to children’s entertainment for opportunities not just to work, but to influence. In her introduction, she quotes folk singer Pete Seeger about those artists: “I think many of them are thinking more on the lines of, ‘If we’re going to save this world, we’re going to have to reach the kids’.”

Now this is always a slippery argument for us to make from the right, because we run the risk of being caricatured in the way the late Jerry Falwell was in the infamous “Tinky-Winky” incident. But with this ever-growing list:

• Television shows steering children to left-infested “volunteer” web sites.
• The NEA and White House Office of Public Engagement getting caught RED-handed rallying artists to the cause of Obama-led initiatives.
• An onslaught of public schools teaching their students songs of praise for Barack Obama.
• The simulcast speech by the President to school children with an attached lesson plan to teach our children how they can “help” the president.
• The effort by the President’s top advisers to turn news agencies against the sole-voice of skepticism within the television media.

…One can be forgiven for taking a second look at that Teletubby with the purse… He DOES seem a little gay, doesn’t he?

The insidious nature of left-leaning artists involved in altruistic artistic endeavors always carries the cloak of unassailability:

“How can you fault them for wanting to teach and entertain our children?”

“You must be a conspiracy-theorist to think that all of these people have a master plan to brainwash your children.”

But no one here thinks that in one fell swoop the Left will pass laws against the free expression of dissenting political or cultural views. That’s not how it’s done. First you “educate” children from your perspective. The rest will follow — just like the proverbial boiling frog … is everyone enjoying the Jacuzzi?

But the difference now is that a Saul Alinsky-trained, William Ayers-influenced, Annenberg Challenge Board Member is now our President, and his influence, tactics and worldview (not to mention the power of your federal tax dollars through NPR, PBS and the NEA) now influence our culture at such an accelerated rate that the frog is no longer on a slow simmer but at a rapid boil.

Irony is a wonderful thing. Just as the Left elected the perfect Propagandist-in-Chief, their opposition (you and me) got wise, agile and pretty entertaining. With every lame attempt to turn our kids against us, we now call them on it and point out how ham-fisted, clumsy and square they are. The Left’s worst nightmare came true: The conservatives are the hip ones.

“Sesame Street” can awkwardly slam FoxNews from the comfort of their stodgy old PBS studios… Meanwhile, we have the cool kids on our side: Dennis Miller, Greg Gutfeld, Andrew Breitbart and yes, even Glenn Beck. And our cool kids are pointing out just how boring, lame, predictable and lazy the other side has become. No longer will middle-America sit back and feel powerless as these snobs pass judgment on what we find to be informative and entertaining.

We no longer NEED their approval. We see them for what they are: bitter, pompous and desperate.