Ron Paul? Baba Booey!

In response to the question

Who would you much rather vote for: BaBa Booey or Ron Paul?

one person responded

I am proud to say I don't know who BaBa Booey is.

Either way, I have no intention to vote for anyone besides Ron Paul.

But you have to think that some Ron Paul supporters know very well who Baba Booey is.

First piece of evidence: I was getting ready to DVR the Formula One race in Sao Paulo, and was watching a NASCAR show in the meantime - one of these shows where experts sit around a desk while a crowd mills around behind them. In an effort to secure the NASCAR vote, a Ron Paul supporter was holding up a "Who's Ron Paul?" sign behind the panel of experts. News flash - people watch sports to ESCAPE all of the political chatter.

Second piece of evidence: Later that morning, I was driving to church along the 210 freeway, when a big banner appeared on one of the bridges supporting Ron Paul.

I have two quibbles with this:

• I hate banners on freeways. I don't care if you're supporting Ron Paul, Gus Hall, or a cure for cancer - freeways banners distract drivers and are dangerous.


• If this person is such a passionate Ron Paul supporter, why is he/she displaying a banner over one of the biggest examples of Federal government interference in private enterprise?

In the end, it appears that some of these Ron Paul supporters are along for the ride, just like the self-proclaimed "clones" that follow Jim Rome around, or the "dittohead" devotees of Rush Limbaugh, or the Howard Stern devotees who can respond "Baba Booey" to questions of national importance...or some importance.

Mr. Higgins purported to have knowledge about a certain man inside a certain automobile, knowledge that Jennings and you and I lacked, that we were all achingly watching a video feed for, that Jennings and his producers would, understandably, have loved to be the first ones to air.

O.J. Simpson, Mr. Higgins reported, was slumped down in his Bronco in the driveway of his home; we couldn't see him, from our helicopter-cam vantage point, but Mr. Higgins said he could. Was he still alive? Did he really have a gun? Was he pointing it at anyone? "I see O.J.," Mr. Higgins told Jennings. "He looks scared." Then he announced, "Baba Booey to y'all!" and cut out.

Salon pontificates on the event:

Peter Jennings was not the first news anchor to be Baba-Booeyed. But in that moment, when one Stern soldier pantsed the ABC anchor on national television, in the middle of the defining media episode of the decade, the balance of power in America changed....

The call summed up, for better and worse, the media environment that would come after it and crystallized much of what had come before. If it was the moment that I became a media critic, I don't mean that in any momentous, epiphanic sense. It was also was the moment that caller became a media critic. It was the moment you did. "We are at moments like that," Jennings would later good-humoredly say, "reduced to roughly the same level as that of the audience." But the media, this time around, did not get back up.

It's already become a game to see how many times the words "Ron Paul" can be uttered and result in pandemonium. (And Ron Paul supporter tactics are getting more press than his ideas.)

The words "Clay Aiken" have a similar power, which really scares me when Clay turns 35.

But are we going to have people calling into Regis and Kelly, or appearing in man on the street interviews, who suddenly utter "Ron Paul" like if it were a cool catch phrase? It looks like Ron Paul has already jumped the shark:

Strippers for Ron Paul needs to be more that a catch phrase. We need groups with members and web sites. We need a 527s like "Music Lovers for Pot".

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