Fake outrage

The right-wingers and the holy rollers - usually the same group of righteous people - really love to get "outraged' don't they? Of course, it's fake bullshit outrage.

The controversy being ginned up over Barack Obama's former preacher is simply ridiculous. Of course, did anyone seriously think that the GOP sleaze machine would not be kicking into high gear against whoever the Democratic nominee eventually is? They have had plenty of practice at sliming the Clintons over the last decade or so, and Obama is a new target for them, but this is child's play compared to what we will see if he does indeed become the nominee. He better get ready because these creeps will try to strip the bark from him.

And, by the way - although Jerimiah Wright's comment about the government introducing AIDS into the black community is silly, what he said about 9/11 being blowback for our actions in the Middle East isn't exactly a news flash. Of course it was. Is that even in doubt by anyone?

And then, on a lighter but just as ridiculous note, there's Hannah Montana-gate. Can someone explain to me what the hell all the fuss is about over those Vanity Fair photos of Miley Cyrus?

Maybe I have seen too many naughty pictures in my day, but, seriously, why is everyone so exercised over them? She's draped in a sheet and - gasp - her shoulder is bare. Oh nooooooo. Fancast has backstage pictures of the photo shoot - quick, look!

Have any of these apparently outraged parents and Fox News commentators been to an American mall lately? Have they seen how 15-year-old girls dress just walking down the street? They show more skin on their My Space pages.

But it gives the media a good excuse to run the pictures over and over and over again. It lets the cable news blowhards titillate their slackjawed audience and express outrage - and show the pictures over and over and over again.

What a silly, puritanical country this is sometimes.