One of the strangest things about liberals is how they think getting arrested is some kind of achievement. Take Jane Fonda, who, at the tender age of 81, is still ranting about capitalist America ruining the world. Only this time, the issue is "climate change" instead of the Cold War.
"Hanoi Jane" infamously sat behind a communist antiaircraft gun in Vietnam in 1972, and today, one could imagine her aiming her big gun at commercial aircraft ruining the planet with their notorious carbon emissions.
Naturally, liberal journalists are delighted. On Oct. 25, the Hollywood Reporter gushed over her third arrest on Capitol Hill. This time, actor Ted Danson was arrested alongside her. The Reporter included a pile of happy play-by-play tweets (including video tweets) by Hannah Jewell of The Washington Post. She seemed to be on a first-name basis with the socialist actress.
-- "Jane just asked a group of very buttoned up college kids on a capitol visit if they wanted to join her," she tweeted. "Ted Danson added that getting arrested 'sharpens the mind.'" (Insert laugh track here.)
-- "'When I turned 70 I thought ok, time to rest on my laurels' says Ted ... 'and then I met Jane Fonda'. He calls her his mentor. 'Here I am about to get arrested.'"
-- "Ted Danson just shared a little handcuffed high five (high ten?) with Jane Fonda."
-- "Jane gets patted down and shouts 'Ted, are ya having fun yet?!'"
This is nothing but an exercise in political vanity. Getting arrested sounds all naughty and risky -- but there are no risks. The Capitol Police does not allow demonstrations on the Capitol grounds without a permit, so these leftists come unauthorized and play Martin Luther King for a day -- unauthorized but not unannounced. Press attention (and adulation) is everything, so they make sure everyone knows they're coming. Protesters are put in single-use plastic handcuffs and usually taken to the Capitol Police garage. Fonda isn't sitting in jail over the weekend. No one's fining her $1,000 for the trouble.
When Fonda was first arrested, on Oct. 14, the network morning shows were predictable stenographers to leftist protest.
On NBC's "Today" show, Dylan Dreyer oozed: "Fonda, who has a long history of political activism, has dubbed this 'Fire Drill Fridays.' ... She's still keeping busy, 81 years old." NBC White House reporter Peter Alexander chimed in: "Yeah, lending her celebrity to the cause. That's great."
On "CBS This Morning," Saturday co-host Michelle Miller proclaimed: "Oscar-winning actress and long-time activist Jane Fonda is hoping her latest role will make a lasting impression. Fonda was one of 16 people arrested outside the U.S. Capitol Friday while peacefully protesting climate change." She quoted Fonda as calling the state of the warming planet "a collective crisis that demands collective action."
This is not an actual demonstration of science.
Jewell also quoted Fonda: "'There was a time when there was no plastic' says Jane, 'and we did just fine.'" (Plastic was invented before she was born but popularized in the 1960s I believe)."
ScienceHistory.org says the first fully synthetic plastic was invented in 1907 and became widely utilized in World War II. The left began (SET ITAL) protesting (END ITAL) plastics in the '60s, so that's how liberal millennials at The Washington Post guess it all started.
Science isn't really the point. Passing a Green New Deal that takes over what remains of American capitalism is the point. Left-wing radicals haven't changed their authoritarian agenda one bit since their glory days of rooting against America in Vietnam. Jane Fonda is the same self-absorbed dilettante that she was in 1972 ... and she's still celebrated for it.
But here's a red brick of reality: It ain't working. The purpose of this form of political activism is to create a national movement that supports it and emulates it. All the media adulation aside, the public doesn't care what these two old people, with all their expensive plastic surgery, are doing. Jane got arrested. Nothing. She got herself re-arrested. Nothing. She brought in Ted. Double nothing.
What a waste of good plastic.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org.
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