The True Lessons of 'Geico-Gate'

Last week a rather odd story broke on Big Government and Big Hollywood. The voice-over guy for Geico, D.C. Douglas, was fired after he left a voicemail with Freedomworks. On the voicemail he called Tea Partiers homicidal retards.

My first thought wasn’t “what kind of drugs is this guy on?” It wasn’t about the legal or “First Amendment” issues surrounding the case (there aren’t any). And it wasn’t about this guy’s future MSNBC show. My first thought was “no way, I know that guy!”

Indeed the artist formerly known as the Geico voice-over guy and Leigh Scott share a page on the IMDB. We have mutual friends. In the early 1990s I rented an Avid from him to finish my first film.

We’re not friends. We’re barely acquaintances. It’s safe to say we know of each other more than we actually know each other.

Working in Hollywood, I’m the odd man out nine times out of ten. That’s what Big Hollywood is all about, giving a voice to the conservative minded folks in the media. There are far more D.C. Douglas types than Leigh Scott types making the movies, music, and television shows that fill the airways and Al Gore’s Internet.

In addition to being rather funny, the Geico incident makes me sad. I work with these people. I know these people. Life isn’t all politics, all the time, so many of these people are my friends. My heart sinks a little when I see that cute actress I know voice her support for some goofy leftist Facebook page. Most of these people are good people. No, they are great people. The insidiousness of leftist thought is that it preys upon good people’s desire to be, well, good. That little actress just wants to help. She doesn’t understand the ramifications or implications of what she supports because she, like all of us, is lied to on a daily basis.

There are some real tools and evil S.O.B.s on the left. I have no doubt that people like Nancy Pelosi, Keith Olbermann, and Paul Krugman are diabolical trolls regardless of their ideology. But so many who support the left are normal people who are just trying to do the right thing.

And that’s why we have help.

Those of us who read Rand and Friedman instead of Chomsky and Alinsky need to help not just ourselves or future generations but all those around us who have been let down by the media and the public school system. We need to stop debating and start educating.

The next time somebody in your office talks about how stupid Sarah Palin is, look at it as a cry for help.

Rather than shred the poor man’s Gary Owens over his ridiculous voice mail, awful youtube videos, and clueless blog, I’d like to offer him this food for thought. About the same time I was editing in his West LA office near the 405, I lived in Venice. My friends and I would frequent a bar on Main Street called “The Oarhouse.” One night there, we ran into, and briefly hung out with, Matt Stone and Trey Parker. The night involved $2 pitchers of Natural Light, $1 Kamikaze shots, and some Russian girls who were foreign exchange students.

Or maybe they were French. Or Romanian. I don’t remember much about that night.

The point of this is to bring it full circle. While D.C. Douglas felt the need to call Freedomworks and complain about the potential violence and hatred of the “tea baggers,” Matt and Trey were actually threatened by real people full of violence and hatred. D.C. was lied to by Rachel Maddow and members of Congress and came to believe that Tea Partiers hurled racist and homophobic epithets at our representatives. They didn’t. D.C. was simply listening to the Southern Poverty Law Center and The Department of Homeland Security when he drew the conclusion that Tea Partiers are prone to violence and just days away from mass murder.

D.C. was just trying to do the right thing. I respect his chutzpah by leaving his real name and phone number. That’s some serious balls. Perhaps if he was more familiar with Theo Van Gogh than he was Ed Schultz, he would have understood that his call should have been placed to RevolutionMuslim and not Freedomworks. He would have understood that artistic freedom of expression is under violent siege in the western world. He would understand the hypocrisy of a media establishment that bends to the whims of fundamentalist idiocy, while claiming that old ladies in their lawn chairs are a threat to freedom and democracy.

D.C. Douglas is a hero. He is a patriot and a true defender of free speech. Unlike the anonymous snipers on the internet, he put himself on the line and had to deal with the consequences of voicing his opinion.

He just dialed the wrong number.

Let’s give him a phone book.