Denigrating Ellen DeGeneres isn’t just wrong, it’s harmful

Sometimes I wonder if members of the far-left stand in front of mirrors screaming at themselves. Not for practice mind you, but because they feel an unquellable urge to berate anything and anyone.

That particular question rose front and center this week after a picture of Ellen DeGeneres and former President George W. Bush laughing together at a Dallas Cowboys’ game created a faux furor among the farthest left social media.

Twitter and Instagram accounts tripped over one another trying to condemn DeGeneres in the most gratuitous manner. You couldn’t have been faulted for believing DeGeneres had just found herself trapped in the “Nosedive” episode of the darkly satirical Black Mirror television series.

For a moment, I thought we were approaching a point when DeGeneres would be unmasked as the true source for the weapons of mass destruction intelligence that provided Bush with a basis for the war against Iraq.

It probably didn’t help that the most highly attuned social media accounts belong to real world and online celebrities carefully curating their follower base, seizing on any issue to increase their status through an ever-growing number of “likes.” 

Calling out DeGeneres’ “betrayal” became a cause célèbre, which in turn fueled stories in more traditional media. All because DeGeneres gets along with a conservative former president. Maybe they forgot about another famous female liberal icon who shared a similar fondness for the congenial Bush: Michelle Obama.

Read the rest of this column in the Colorado Sun.