Speaking truth to power was supposed to be heroic – like yelling at your parents over their lapses in recycling.
But then something funny happened: people started speaking truth to power to people who speak truth to power. And now the man who once inspired, starts to perspire. The king of cool begins to lose his. And the side that normally champions freedom of speech, is asking America to pipe down.
Check out our nation’s high school paper, USA Today, where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the town hall protesters un-American. How odd that in a different context, with different protesters, these disruptions would be seen as brave.
But it’s not brave at all, according to the media. That’s because, for once, the media is not on the protesting side. Instead, the media is the “power” that’s being spoken to – and that confuses them. And so they mock.
Look, the protesters are ripe for mockery because they’re ripe in general. They’re old. And you know that, in today’s youth obsessed world, as long as protestors are young and hot, they’re awesome. VH1’s “Lords of the Revolution” series devotes one night to the Black Panthers – a group that trafficked in murderous hate. But they were young, black and adorable. Of course, who can forget the pointless WTO protests in Seattle? Hollywood made it into a dreadful movie called “Battle in Seattle” – making every protester juicy enough to sleep with. Which, as you know, is pure fiction (most resembled Squeaky Fromme in her prime).
Don’t expect the same treatment for the White Haired from Walgreens. Using a profoundly convoluted plotline last night, “Law and Order” somehow linked the benign tea party protests to the Baader Meinhof faction – a violent Pro-communist group from Germany. It’s gross, but it’s not surprising. After all, you have senators accusing citizens of bullying and deception, and a President sounding less like a community organizer, and more like a Union boss.
It’s enough to make me want to hurl my fibercon through a window.
TONIGHT: ANN COULTER, COMEDIAN JIM NORTON, CONGRESSMAN LEE TERRY AND JILL DOBSON.