Well, it doesn’t look as if Garrison Keillor will be placing Dallas on his travel itinerary again anytime soon.
According to this Jacquielynn Floyd/Dallas Morning News column, the author, humorist, syndicated columnist and creator of National Public Radio’s venerable Prairie Home Companion show visited Dallas a week ago to promote his latest book, Homegrown Democrat. Highland Park United Methodist Church near the Southern Methodist University campus sponsored Keillor’s visit, and over 1,000 of Keillor’s adoring fans showed up for his hour-long lecture. The evening apparently went quite well — the audience laughed and applauded throughout Keillor’s talk and he even stuck around afterward to chat and sign a few copies of his book.
But Keillor apparently had a different view of how his trip to Dallas went. The following is what he wrote at the end of his Chicago Tribune column this week:
. . . our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it’s no longer the United States as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them.
I got some insight last week into who supports torture when I went down to Dallas to speak at Highland Park Methodist Church. It was spooky. I walked in, was met by two burly security men with walkie-talkies, and within 10 minutes was told by three people that this was the Bushes’ church and that it would be better if I didn’t talk about politics. I was there on a book tour for “Homegrown Democrat,” but they thought it better if I didn’t mention it. So I tried to make light of it: I told the audience, “I don’t need to talk politics. I have no need even to be interested in politics–I’m a citizen, I have plenty of money and my grandsons are at least 12 years away from being eligible for military service.” And the audience applauded! Those were their sentiments exactly. We’ve got ours, and who cares?
The Methodists of Dallas can be fairly sure that none of them will be snatched off the streets, flown to Guantanamo Bay, stripped naked, forced to stand for 48 hours in a freezing room with deafening noise. So why should they worry? It’s only the Jews who are in danger, and the homosexuals and gypsies. The Christians are doing fine. If you can’t trust a Methodist with absolute power to arrest people and not have to say why, then whom can you trust?
Dallas Methodists are the same as German appeasers of Nazi genocide? As Floyd’s column relates, Keillor is probably at least exaggerating about what occurred during his visit.
Imagine that, someone asking a political figure not to talk politics at a tax-exempt church.
After the latest crack-down by the IRS, why would this be a surprise?
[I] was told by three people that this was the Bushes’ church and that it would be better if I didn’t talk about politics.
This is quoted in the DaMN article without question. But precisely what Bushes live in Dallas who would make this their church? Is this where Neil washed up? Should anyone care if it is? Or this is some sort of metaphysical use of the possessive?
What planet is Keillor from?
If he see things so differently from how things are described, then I would probably be described (by him) as a “jack-booted thug” or something like that by asking how his book is selling.
Such wide divisions in observing the same events account for a lot of the “divisions” among the parties and people nationwide. (I say “tomato”, you say “tomato” song.)
Until people can agree on basic observations, there will be division in our country. I just hope everyone can come out of the tree before we break out into a civil war or some such nonsence.