] For a certain segment of the population, Nascar's raid on
] American culture -- its logo festoons everything from
] cellphones to honey jars to post office walls to panties;
] race coverage, it can seem, has bumped everything else
] off television; and, most piercingly, Nascar dads now get
] to pick our presidents -- triggers the kind of fearful
] trembling the citizens of Gaul felt as the Huns came
] thundering over the hills. To these people, stock-car
] racing represents all that's unsavory about red-state
] America: fossil-fuel bingeing; lust for violence; racial
] segregation; run-away Republicanism; anti-intellectualism
] (how much brain matter is required to go fast and turn
] left, ad infinitum?); the corn-pone memes of God and guns
] and guts; crass corporatization; Toby Keith anthems; and,
] of course, exquisitely bad fashion sense. What's more,
] they simply don't get it.

Instapundit asks if you replaced the word "nascar" with the word "hiphop" in this article if it would have run in the Times. I agree, this is garbage journalism. What the hell does nascar have to do with racial segregation? If you ever wondered whether red staters are justified at feeling like blue america is really ugly and ignorant, you need look no further then this.

On the other hand, conservatives have little cause to feel smug or justified. When the "right" gets all ugly and ignorant about hollywood or hiphop they do things like declaring cultural wars and threatening to ban things. No one has ever threatened to ban nascar.

Zell Miller (who is clearly a cultural conservative) said on the Daily Show recently: "I don't think the first amendment applies to hiphop..." Thats not just ignorance. Thats an ignorant threat. The right wing can look for support from me on the day the left tries to ban nascar, at which point they'll find me their commited advocate. Presently, they are the ones making the rules and others are under the sword.

'Sunday Money' and 'Full Throttle': Nascar Nation - New York Times