A man in West Virginia was fired for heckling President Bush at a campaign rally, according to the Saturday Gazette-Mail:

Glen Hiller, of Berkeley Springs, was escorted from the Hedgesville High School event on Tuesday after shouting comments about the Iraq war and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction there.

The crowd had easily drowned out Hiller with cheers of “Four More Years, Four More Years.”

Arriving at his job with Octavo Designs in Frederick, Md., on Wednesday morning, Hiller said he was told that he had embarrassed and offended a client who had provided the tickets to the rally.

“I was told that my actions reflected badly on the company and that a client was upset,” Hiller said.

A woman at Octavo Designs who declined to identify herself confirmed Hiller had been fired because of his conduct at the rally.

So he was rude. Heckling the powerful is one of the last resorts for free speech. “There is no venue for the regular guy to ask a question,” Hiller said. “We don’t have access to people in power. And those events are completely scripted and controlled.”

Our democracy is a little bit worse today because a guy was fired for yelling his opinion at the President. And until President Bush condemns the Swift boat ads, don’t dare talk to me about “civil discourse.”

PS: Even if Bush disavows the lies about Kerry’s service record, I’m going to favor heckling, albeit not up to the point that it drowns out the speaker.

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The free speech crowd ought to extend its concern for preserving the right of individuals to speak their minds. We ought to be just as zealous protecting our right to speak together.

We ought to promote the ability of people to talk with others, across all our divides.

We ought to fight the degradation of conversation by commercial forces.

Someone wake up Mario Savio, print up some buttons, and set up tables at UC Berkeley. Free the Conversations! Free the Conversations!

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Paul Loeb may be coming to your town soon to publicize his anthology, The Impossible Will Take a Little While, a book on political hope that includes pieces by Nelson Mandela, Tony Kushner, Cornel West, Vaclav Havel, Alice Walker and other moral and literary legends.

JOHO Challenge: Show up and see if you can depress him.

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The ultimate trivialization of democracy or telling character detail? You be the judge. (And, yes, by running the link to this video, I am definitely having it both ways. Feels good.)

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You know what sucks about James McGreevey resigning as governor? Him blaming it on being a gay adulterer. Since when do adulterers have to resign? Since when do gay men who come out of the closet have to resign? No, obviously he’s resigning because there’s some real dirt that’s going to come to light, rumored to be about sexual harrassment. Resigning because he’s gay would be like Madeline Albright resigning because she discovered that she’s a Jew. Sheesh!

(Note: I am aware that the analogy is not perfect.)

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MoveOn.org has posted the winners of its “pick the ad” contest. They each feature a different talking head who happens to be a Republican voting for Kerry.

I don’t find them very effective, but I also thought Mondale walloped Reagan in the debates. I’d love to be wrong about these ads.

BTW, I’m pretty sure that in one of them I noticed the weave in someone’s tie spelling out “Bush = Hitler.” Yeah, I’m sure of it.

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Reuters reports that a Swedish scientist claims that Ireland is the lost island of Atlantis. And The Weekly World News, the only American news journal that dares to tell the truth (except perhaps The Onion), last week revealed that President Bush plans on invading Atlantis to prevent them from developing WMDs. You do the math.

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I don’t know whether to be impressed that John McCain is calling on the Bush campaign to condemn the indepdendent ads impugning Kerry’s war record or depressed that it’s news that a person has crossed party lines in defense of simple decency. (The White House declined the invitation to condemn the ads.)

And then there’s the news that during Bush and Kerry’s simultaneous visits to Davenport, Iowa, three banks were robbed, just to make sure that we all remain good and cynical.

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The Democrats have sent a msg to the faithful (including me) drawing our attention to some bad taste going on over at the W blog where they’re quoting part of a Jack Dunphy column at National Review Online. The part quoted on the Bush site makes fun of the fire fighters and police officers who have come out in support of Kerry, saying that they’re beer-bellied poseurs, not the working class, straight-talkin’ rank and file.

Big deal. It’s some rabble-rousing flamery along the lines of calling Dean a Birkenstock-wearing, brie-eating, Volvo-driving, effete Liberal. It reads as dumb and emotive, but, hell, welcome to the world. At least it quickens the pulse, unlike most political discourse.

The Dems are particularly upset at the full article from which the quotes come. But take a look. It says, basically, that cops and firefighters are conservative “Regular Guys” who go for Bush’s pose more than for Kerry’s. It generalizes but not unwittingly, and it’s funny on purpose.

You know what? I’d rather have a blog that’s sometimes scurrilous than agree to squeeze the life, voice, humor, over-statement, and spontaneity from all political blogs.

So, back off, Dems! And learn something from the Republicans.

It gets worse. According to Chris Nolan, via Doc, the Kerry blog has dropped its blogroll. I’m guessing – and it’s just a guess – that they got worried that someone on it would say something that could be used against them.

This is distressing not just because the Web is made of links but because it’s a signal that the adults and lawyers are afraid of the ambiguity of linky relationships. But it’s that ambiguity that gives the Web its importance.

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I forgot I had some photos in my camera, so I’ve posted them now. They include some shots of the protestors on their way into the Free Speech Jail (before they were arrested), the Daily Show taping their little blogger segment, and assorted celebrities.

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