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IT’S MY AMERICA TOO by Ben Ferguson

IT’S MY AMERICA TOO

by Ben Ferguson

Pub Date: Aug. 17th, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-059011-4
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Spatter some pimples on Rush Limbaugh, substitute Kit Kats for OxyContin, rev up the sense of entitlement, layer in a high-pitched whine, and you have this thin primer: conservatism for tots.

To judge by both title and contents, young right-wing radio host Ferguson believes that there’s no room for conservatives in America. He’s under other misapprehensions, too, apparently not knowing that Bob Dornan lost his political office for reasons other than the enmity of “lesbian spearchuckers,” seemingly unaware (though he’s from Memphis) that white folks catch a few more breaks than do nonwhite people, presumably undaunted by the fact that he’s not very funny—as when, for instance, he assails affirmative action with the ham-fisted demand that the airwaves carry “a transgendered Eskimo paraplegic rapper, and a ninety-year-old Arapaho dwarf rapper, and, what the heck, maybe a pair of Honduran conjoined-twin rappers,” presumably to balance him and Rush and their pals. That’s actually one of the more coherent moments, a taste of salt to offset the sugar-sweet patriotism of the rest of this screed, which has all the analytical power of a greeting card. Elsewhere, for instance, Ferguson complains about how amazing it is “that so many liberals could condemn the NRA after Columbine without stopping for one minute to ask if the valueless, immoral swamp that our culture has become is part of the problem,” reckons that “What scares me . . . is the fact that we as a nation are allowing bitter, hateful people to get rid of God,” and frets that “some kids who do home-schooling really suffer because they don’t have any social interaction with other students, and that makes them awkward and nervous around other kids. That’s really sad.” It all gets even more pathetic when Ferguson pitches a case for lowering the voting age to 16.

A Bill O’Reilly for the braces and knee-socks set, as if we needed one.