The Arsonist

What odd pathology would see it as appropriate to walk into the Loeb First Amendment Award Dinner in New Hampshire, an event advertised as a "tribute to crusaders for the First Amendment," and inform attendees that free speech was an anachronism in these troubled times of terrorism? And why on earth is the personally disgraceful Newt Gingrich given any consideration whatever? Had we not got rid of this clown sometime ago? Why are the measured yet entirely mad yowlings of Newt even on the radar? There is no good reason for this, really. The media's attentions are drawn only by the fact that Gingrich is Republican celebrity of sorts.

Celebrity, in all its many forms, always draws the attention of an infotainment industry that thrives on celebrity, a manufactured quality imparted upon individuals for many unseemly reasons. One of those reasons, of course, is controversy and Newt has been creating that for sometime now. So, no matter the statement, as long as it is controversial, Newt and his equally miserable brethren will draw the limelight, whatever gross thing they conjure from the bowels of their churning gut. No matter the absurdity, however, this attention serves one purpose. That is to begin the legitimization of debate about subjects one would not normally imagine there to be a debate about. Who would have imagined that the necessity of torture would ever have been open to debate? But it was. And it was people like Gingrich who made it so.

The arsonist has spoken. Fire in the hole!