First Spongebob, now Dirty Harry

Frank Rich dives into the apparent turbulence (careful, potential plot spoiler) from the wingers regarding Clint Eastwood's acclaimed Million Dollar Baby (also covered by Dowd). Now, I haven't seen it yet, so I can't comment first hand, but apparently Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved are claiming that Eastwood (a former Republican mayor of Carmel, CA, for cripes sake) is pushing a liberal agenda (warning, NewsMax link) in his film. Eastwood has denied all accusations and, according to Rich's piece, seems a little taken aback by all the hate.

I guess a lot of conservative talk-show hosts have been giving away the ending of this film (which I won't do here) for quite some time now, in hopes of driving down the box office returns. Seems it hasn't worked so well.

Rich and Dowd illustrate just how crazy these wingnuts can be when they whip themselves into a lather over something. It really bugs me that, in our current political climate, both sides have so readily adopted the "you're with me or against me" stance that Bush made so popular in the days following 9/11. America should be about argument, discourse, and general disagreement that leads to progress and compromise. What it shouldn't be is the domination of a lock-step, single-minded mentality and knee-jerk righteous condemnation. This isn't a trend that's isolated only in the right or in the left, but it seems that we may be losing track of what it is that makes our country so great: the freedom not only to disagree, but also to create controversial art, and, for that matter, be total idiots if we so choose. That's the whole point of that little First Amendment thingy we've got. Not to be confused with the Twenty-first Amendment, which is pretty good, too.

There's more written on this here and here but they contain spoilers, so advance at your own risk.