Again sticking my toe into...

..the waters of the presidential campaign. Well, sort of. Actually, it's more that something came up which prompts both a campaign-related comment and a more general one. I'm sure you've already heard about the something; it's from Sunday's New York Times, referring to planned demonstrations during the Republican national convention:

Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

That is, they not only intend to lie through their teeth, they're so arrogant about it (or, perhaps more accurately, so confident in the incompetent spinelessness of the media) that they're prepared to announce in advance their intention to lie through their teeth.

First, the campaign-related thought:

The Democrats should be producing an ad to have ready, one that should be relatively quick and cheap to make. It could be a 15-second spot. It would consist of things GOPpers said about Bill Clinton while he was president ("scumbag," "pot-smoking hippie," etc.) fading in and out various places on the screen (perhaps with dates and overlapping voices reading them). After several seconds, they all fade and these words appear (with a voiceover): "And now they want to talk about respect?" Fade to black.

Okay, the more general comment:

Just who the hell do they think they are? Who the hell do they think he is? Just what kind of timid, what brand of rancidly timorous, people do they want Americans to be? Do they think we should be? The president is an elected public official. He's not a king, he's not lord of the manor, he's not some high priest ostensibly exalted by some god or another. Just why can't he be shown some "disrespect?" The rough and tumble of an actual functioning democracy, the actual free expression of a free people, is certain to include numerous demonstrations of "disrespect." If Bush, if any public official, can't abide that, then they'd better get out of public life before their delicate ego gets too much of a beating. Because I say we need more "disrespect," that we've already gone too far along a path of obsequious submission to authority, and it's time to remember that, as I quoted Abbie Hoffman saying a couple of weeks back, democracy is something you do.

And to those who would argue that it's unacceptable to show "disrespect" to the president, I say that you have no understanding of what a democracy, a republic, is about, what free expression, free speech, means and there are a lot of other countries where you would feel more at home, ones where government hoo-hahs don't have to worry about expressions of "disrespect" from the people.