Two cheers for Tammy Bruce!

The fun thing about C-SPAN (or C-SPAN2) is that I so often accidentally fall upon wonderful TV programming there while randomly clicking the remote. Last night, it featured a two-hour lecture/Q&A by Tammy Bruce, who was my favorite local radio talk host in the L.A. area, oh, some eight years ago. She was at that time the president of the L.A. chapter of NOW (National Organization of Women), and slowly over a period of months, I heard her move from a “groupthink” feminist position to a freethinking, individualist position. Eventually, she lost her NOW job and KFI radio fired Tammy for having the guts to offend Bill Cosby’s wife, who had publicly taken a hard-line victimhood political stand. Since then, Tammy’s authored two books -- The New Thought Police and The Death of Right and Wrong -- and now hosts a syndicated national radio talk show (which I unfortunately can’t access right now).

Anyway, what I saw of her presentation on C-SPAN was entertaining and enlightening. Tammy is a self-proclaimed gun-owning lesbian feminist who in the past worked on many campaigns for Democratic candidates. She has a new book on individualism vs. groupthink in the works and now describes herself as a “classical liberal,” which she defines as belief in individualism, free markets, and minimal government. That’s great as far as it goes, but she regrettably glosses over the passionate antiwar stance of classical liberalism. For that reason, she supported (but did not actively campaign for) Dubya in this past election, despite her many misgivings about Bush’s domestic policies; she admits that Bush has grown government larger and larger during the last four years, but, after all, the War on Terror yadda yadda...

Regardless, Tammy Bruce is a refreshing gem among today’s glut of neocon/”liberal” pundits, and I recommend her work highly. If it’s available in your area, listen to her radio show. And look for her upcoming book.