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Rage Against the Machine, one of my two top favorite bands of all time, played a reunion set at Coachella this past weekend. If you haven’t heard, frontman Zach De La Rocha made some pretty angry comments about the Bush administration, including this gem:

…And this current administration is no exception. They should be hung, and tried, and shot.

On the May 2, 2007 Hannity & Colmes show, the hosts and guests were falling all over themselves trying to be the biggest Bush choad licker. Basically, Rage fans are all losers, and De La Rocha should go to jail for making “terroristic” threats.

Although freedom of speech has come to mean significantly more than just speech, the original intent of the concept was to protect political speech. That you could say things like “the President is a dick” and not get beheaded was a pretty radical idea several hundred years ago (although I think “dick” was probably spelled “dicke” back then). While the whole of De La Rocha’s speech was pretty inflamatory from a political perspective, it clearly wasn’t terroristic. Had he said “I am going to murder George Bush”, or “I’ll pay 10 million dollars if someone kills George Bush”, I might be able to agree that the speech posed a threat to the health of the President. He didn’t, and I therefore feel that his speech was protected speech, and what I say goes.

His remarks were clearly appealing to political and social justice, and he was calling the Bush administration traitors. It’s no different than the dirty hippies in my area holding up signs saying that Bush is a war criminal, Bush is a Nazi, that Curious George was probably touched inappropriately by the man in the yellow hat, etc.

Listen: in my 46-year career as a Mexican yellow journalist, I’ve never seen an administration that is so positively loathed by so many people. If congress did decide to bring him up on trial or somehow voted to oust is incompetent ass, I’d be in favor of it, and so would 90% of Americans between the ages of 18-35, and 46-59, except women aged 25-34 and men aged 37-42. Hell, I voted for the guy in 2000, and I would love to see him out of office. Does that mean I’m some crazed “liberal” or anarchist? (In case you said “yes”, the answer is “no”.)

In summation, Ann Coulter is a jack ass, Rage is awesome if somewhat incendiary, and I’m probably going to get a call from the Secret Service for saying “I am going to murder George Bush” above, even though it was used as an example.

Oh, one final thought: kudos to Colmes for sticking it to Coulter over comments she made about Clinton when he was president: “The only issue is whether to impeach or assassinate….” She calls it a “serious legal point” though, which I guess makes it ok because she’s Ann Coulter, and because she’s the king of Spring Break.