FREE TO CHOOSE

I'm not sure why a profile of dopey Saturday Night Live cast member turned dopey wingnut commentator Victoria Jackson is the cover story of this week's Village Voice -- the story is only intermittently interesting, in a Wes-Anderson-meet-Fox-News way (Jackson had Bible-thumping grandparents and tried to win SNL cast members over to Jesus, her father is a self-declared homophobe and ex-gymnast who's obsessed with fat people, her first husband was a fire-eater). But I very much enjoyed the lead paragraphs:

Victoria Jackson hurtles through intersections and down side streets while using her left hand to hold a Flip cam to her face. The inside of her car -- a weathered Honda Civic with "Nobama," Marco Rubio, and Tea Party bumper stickers -- smells like it has been fumigated with sweet incense. Steering with elbows and the occasional pinkie, she opens a Bible inscribed with her name and quotes Scripture in her inimitable high-pitched voice. Then she turns the camera on a reporter riding shotgun. She suspects he's a socialist. "Don't you think that some people are on welfare from cradle to grave," she demands, "because the government is encouraging them never to work?"

"Leaving on a Jet Plane," her ringtone, blares from some unknown recess of her purse, and she's suddenly burrowing through loads of makeup cases to find it. "What if we crashed and died on video?" she says, laughing wildly. "That would be the most viral video of the world! You'd be dead, but you'd have a really viral video!"

Can you believe all those nanny-state liberals want to crack down on "distracted driving"? What could those behavior Nazis possibly be thinking? Why on earth are they so afraid to trust the people with freedom?