A brief Tinsley-related note

Here's this Mallard Fillmore comic. You think, huh. Just the usual "Mallard hates everything" stuff--but I think it's worth emphasizing something about this particular comic. Now, I'm not denying that the oversexualization of young girls is a problem. Does Bruce Tinsley actually believe that it is a problem? No. No, he does not. Rather, this represents a sort of knee-jerk, reflexive position on his part. Why do I say that? Because if he genuinely cared about the plight of pubescent girls--if he were at all serious about this--he would not use a phrase like "Pop Tart" to describe them (this isn't the first time he's done this, either). It's a term that vaguely and hypocritically combines titillation and moral censure. (feel free to browse the definitions at the ever-authoritative Urban Dictionary for more on this). You think Mary Pipher ever has recourse to it? The very thought is absurd. As with so many things that the right professes to believe, this is nothing more than an effort to get that get that good self-righteousness going in spite of a lack of any serious moral conviction. If Tinsley suddenly, for some reason, became self-aware, he would almost certainly hurl himself from a steep embankment from the years and years of accumulated, retrospective shame.