Back in December, I posted this item about The Smoking Gun, one of the web's most popular sites. TSG uses Freedom of Information laws to obtain and show mug shots of people (including a lot of celebrities) arrested for crimes. And, you guessed it, folks usually aren't looking their best when they've been hauled in for a DUI or domestic violence case.At any rate, the post I uploaded was introduced with this one sentence, "Is The Smoking Gun making a political statement by making this compilation its #1 Mug Shot of the Year?"
The link then takes you to a TSG page with 15 mug shots of people -- all of them wearing Obama shirts. No commentary. No cartoons or computer generated photo distortions. No slogans or captions. Just the pictures.
It was a harmless comedic post, nothing at all like the profane, grossly exaggerated, and blisteringly false material defaming people like George W. Bush or Rush Limbaugh which seems to dominate any Google search.
And yet when an Iowa state trooper sent an e-mail with that same link to The Smoking Gun, he was relieved of duty and the state is now trying to get him permanently fired.
Wow. One wonders if the ACLU will gallop in. Or perhaps the noble members of the Fourth Estate who also posture themselves as guardians of the freedom of speech.
And what about the Democrat bureaucrats of Iowa? Do you think those guys who have e-mailed to each other (on state-owned computers) scads of those unflattering pictures of John McCain and Sarah Palin, those mean cartoons of Rush, those gross captions under photo-shopped caricatures of President Bush -- do you think they'll stand up for this trooper? That they'll say, "Hey; that's nothing. What I've sent around to give my pals laughs is a whole lot worse than what this guy sent."
Yeah. I don't think so either.
