Yes, I said the L-word. LAME. As in won’t go anywhere, haven’t a leg to stand on, and won’t even crawl, let alone fly. But do go on:
She the addressed the criticism she faced because of being seen laughing with Bush, saying “People were upset.”
“They thought, why is a gay Hollywood liberal sitting next to a conservative Republican president?” DeGeneres asked. ” A lot of people were mad. And they did what people do when they’re mad… they tweet.”
But instead of sharing some of the negative tweets aimed at her, DeGeneres shared one which said “Ellen and George Bush together makes me have faith in America again.”
“Exactly. Here’s the thing. I’m friends with George Bush,” she said. “In fact, I’m friends with a lot of people who don’t share the same beliefs that I have.”
DeGeneres said she believes people have forgotten that we are all different and that that’s OK.
The former vegan used the example of how she doesn’t approve of wearing fur, but is still friends with those who do.
“But just because I don’t agree with someone on everything doesn’t mean that I’m not going to be friends with them,” she said. “When I say, ‘be kind to one another,’ I don’t only mean the people that think the same way that you do. I mean be kind to everyone.”
Well gee, I guess that makes it all better, then!
Except that no, it doesn’t. In fact, it makes it worse. A lot worse. A metric shit-tonne worse.
Leaving aside (for a moment) the fact that this is the same Dubya who even pushed for a constitutional amendment to deny equal rights to LGBT+ people (of whom Ellen and her same-sex spouse, Portia de Rossi, are but two), and even stacked the SCOTUS with right-wing assholes who are now doing their level best to do the same, there’s also the very salient fact that this is an unindicted war criminal we’re talking about here. A man who okayed and institutionalized torture in his wars for oil and gas. And Ellen, sweet sanctimonious Ellen, took the time to say she disapproves of wearing fur, but not of sickeningly inhumane things like this?
I mean, it’s so nice that she can spare so much kindness for rich, untouched Dubya, but never a word for poor souls like that man on the other end of the leash. I’d ask why, but I think I already know the reason.
The reason is that Ellen has forgotten what it was like to be the underclass. You know, the oppressed. Not the oppressor she’s hanging with so proudly there. She’s got everything she wants, and how sweet it is to forget the struggle it took to get there. She’s now on top of her game, so why bother with the petty concerns of the peasants?
Well, maybe because it’s actually nicer to sympathize with the abused than their abusers, for one thing. And because it’s truly kind to speak out against injustice whenever and wherever you can. Nobody ever pissed on Bernie Sanders for continuing to campaign hard for social and global justice, even after he became a millionaire on the back of a book he wrote. (Well, nobody except the dim-witted assholes of the right, but who cares what they think? It’s not as though any of them have been consistently on the good side of history since their college days, like Bernie has.)
But noooo, that thought never occurred to the Queen of Nice. She’d rather tut-tut us all on our lack of “civility”, as though any were owed to the man who lost the popular vote the first time he stole the White House, and who sealed that bad deal in 2004 by appealing to the gay-bashers who would happily have beaten the shit out of her and Portia if they didn’t have the money for the best bodyguards around. (It’s worth noting that even the Big Dick, the insufferably rude Mr. Go Fuck Yourself Cheney, who has a gay daughter, was actually against that proposed constitutional amendment!)
Hey, she’s no longer one of the rabble, so she’s got an easy time of it, minding her manners and ours too just for good measure. Bra-fucking-VA, Ellen.
Of course, it wouldn’t take any overt rudeness to refuse to be seated next to Dubya and Pickles; she could have asked very discreetly for another pair of seats, as far away from them as civility would allow. It’s not as if she couldn’t have slipped some nameless peon a few crisp Benjamins and really made their day. It would have taken all of a minute, wouldn’t have made a dent in her bank account, and the dumb Shrub would never have been the wiser.
Or, if she’d been truly brave, she could have snubbed him right to his face, and it wouldn’t have cost her a dime. She might even have picked up a lot of new fans.
But nope, she just had to make a show of sitting next to the man who turned both Afghanistan and Iraq into heaps of rubble and an ongoing shitshow which has since spread to Syria as well. And when criticized for it by her fellow queerfolk and actual, anti-war liberals, she doubled down on the “isn’t it heartwarming that I was nice to him?” bullshit. Instead of, I dunno, maybe gracefully acknowledging that she fucked up.
I could go on, but whatever else I have to say about that would just be plebeian.
So out of a sense of noblesse oblige, I’ll just end here with what Sam and Co. said:
