Two Americas, Two Thermostats

Duane Patterson, Hugh Hewitt’s “Generalissimo” writes that temperature-wise, this has been one moderate summer:

We just came off of one of the coolest winters we’ve had in a long time in North America. Just ask the Minnesotans. This summer has not been as hot as previous summers on average. And yet, after ER concluded its record run on NBC this past season, we were treated to endless PSA’s of ER star Noah Wylie pleading to help stop global warming and save the beloved polar bear, who were all going to drown because their environment was melting all around them.

But as Danny Glover notes, “The summer of 2009 has been politically hot here in America”:

At town halls across the country, overburdened taxpayers have rallied for the free market and against costly, intrusive government.

They have sacrificed time and money to exercise their First Amendment rights of free speech and petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. They have confronted lawmakers and demanded answers to simple questions. They have admonished their representatives to keep in check an executive branch that wants to control the health care and energy sectors.

The political version of Newton’s Law — “to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” — has been on full display as a result. The establishment doesn’t like to be challenged, so the president, members of Congress and their allies in politics and the media have attacked the messenger.

They have maligned the grassroots as a phony “astroturf” political movement even as they have hired counter protesters, bused them to town halls, given them cookie-cutter signs and told them how to pick fights. Some lawmakers have hidden from taxpayers; others have mocked their constituents, forced them to show identification to ask questions and even had them removed from town halls.

One fan of the president’s policies instigated a fight with a critic of those plans and bit the finger off of his foe.

Those two very different portraits of America played out on television screens and the Internet over the past several weeks. Now I’ve pieced together the snippets into one nine-minute video.

Click over to Danny’s site to watch.

And speaking of videos, gossip site TMZ manages to get a microphone near a little-known spiritual advisor whom the president was only vaguely aware of, and in no way ever influenced by, to record his enlightened, nuanced take on one of the Great Issues of the Day.