In So Many Words

Here are just a few of the myriad of reasons that I can't get that worked up about Ted Nugent referring to our President as a "subhuman mongrel:"
Ted's comments were made in an interview given to Guns.com, a website that is pretty much what you would expect from a website called "Guns.com." Rule number one in showbiz is "know your audience."
That brings me to the second reason: Showbiz. Ted has been romping around for decades, in and out of his loincloth, espousing his own peculiar cartoon-ish vision of America and its way of life. He's not a politician. He's an entertainer. So was Bozo the Clown.
Here in America, we have a bunch of Amendments to our Constitution beyond the Second. The one that comes just before it, known as the First Amendment. That's the one about free speech, and while it's not the kind of speech that the framers of our nation's rule book may have had in mind back in the day, I suspect that Ben Franklin may have had some colorful epithets for King George, but his penmanship was a little pinched.
Then there's this: perspective. I grew up writing limericks and haiku about Richard Nixon. As a fourth grader I was referring to our President as "Tricky Dick." Questionable taste? Perhaps, but I certainly had the zeitgeist on my side.  Decades later, I used this very blog to refer, on hundreds of occasions, to our forty-third President as "Pinhead." I don't have a leg to stand on. Respect for the office? Sorry, but I can't expect any sort of double standard.
Finally, for now, I won't be that upset with Mister Nugent's tirades since they are generally linked with folks with whom I tend to disagree in the first place. If the Motor City Madman wants to spout his vitriol in the service of this or that Republican candidate, especially in the state of Texas, who am I to argue? If this is the voice that the Grand Old Party would like to have blaring from their Marshall Stack Amps, so be it.
And that's showbiz.