Death to FOX News and the GOP

The headline reads like an al-Qaeda recruiting poster. You know, “Death to the infidels,” and all. But this headline wasn’t ripped from a suicide bomber’s blog. It’s simply another celebrity’s attempt to confirm that Hollywood’s orbit is somewhere beyond the arc of Pluto.

This time it’s John Cusack--hero of stage, screen and stupidity--proving that Tinsel Town’s brightest lights are the dimmest of bulbs. Using his Twitter account Cusack wrote, “I am for a satanic death cult center at FOX News HQ and outside the offices of Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich, and all the GOP welfare freaks.”

The easy reaction is to tell Cusack to button his lip. Yet the Constitution’s First Amendment protects his right to trumpet his witlessness. What’s more, the most effective method for proving someone a fool is to grant the fool a stage. Fools can no more resist the urge to display their lunacy than Barack Obama can pass a teleprompter without reading the words on the screen. So John, I’d like to encourage you to keep talking, by all means.

Hollywood tradition holds that image is everything. Well, Cusack’s vitriolic rhetoric is cultivating an image; make no mistake about that. But what kind of image? Cusack would do well to recall the damage that outlandish behavior has wreaked on his contemporaries in the entertainment field.

Does anyone pay attention to Susan Sarandon these days? Or to Tim Robbins? Or Sean Penn? The tone of their anti-war protests offended large numbers of their fans. The Dixie Chicks, once the hottest thing in Nashville, are less popular than the Confederate flag at Rev. Wright’s church picnic. And let’s not forget the outspoken but otherwise irrelevant Jane Fonda. Is she recognized for anything other than being Henry’s daughter, marrying Ted Turner and manning North Vietnamese artillery? John Cusack, you’ve made great strides toward joining them in the land of who-cares-about-you.

Cusack’s ranting “tweet” could be a gimmick designed to keep him in the public eye. But toward what end? Outrageousness has undoubtedly kept Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears visible beyond their significance. However, their greatest exposure is in supermarket tabloids and police line-ups.

So keep talking, John, or tweeting, or blogging, or Facebooking, or My Spacing; whatever you choose. You’re on the path toward the intellectual credibility of Hilton, Lohan and Spears, the irrelevancy of Sarandon, Robbins and Fonda and the insignificance of the Dixie Chicks. It’s your choice. Whatever course you take I remain confident that you’ll reveal the fool within.