When Will The Jackassery End? Stop The Madness!

What do Birthers, Kanye West, Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, town hall protestors, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Jordan, and LeGarrette Blount have in common? They are all, to use President Obama’s terminology, jackasses.

Indeed, you could say 2009 has been the year of the jackass. All year long, people have been intent on showing out and behaving in an embarrassing manner.

The most recent example is West’s drunken disruption of the MTV Video Music Awards, where he took the microphone from Taylor Swift and informed her that Beyonce should have won her award. West, who has a record of acting a fool in public, was roundly criticized for his latest egotistical outburst, eventually going on Jay Leno’s show to issue a mea culpa and apologizing to Swift days later.

Days prior to the West-Swift incident, there were several Jackass moments from the sports world. Serena Williams had a meltdown at the US Open and was fined for her behavior. Michael Jordan spent the majority of his Hall Of Fame induction speech making catty remarks about everyone who didn’t bow down to him, from the coach who cut him in high school to Bryon Russell, the man he fouled while hitting the game-winning shot in 1998 in what was assumed to be his last game. Russell, to his credit, responded by saying he was glad to still be on MJ’s mind after all these years. Blount started off the college football season by punching an opposing player, effectively ending his career and hurting this NFL prospects.

You may assume that entertainers and athletes, being coddled and catered to for their entire lives, are prone to juvenile outbursts. But the political world has had its share of jackass moments as well.

The birthers and tea partiers, thanks to media cheerleaders like Lou Dobbs, dominated headlines with outrageous claims that Barack Obama isn’t an American citizen. Discussions to gauge public opinion on health care reform were disrupted by people shouting down politicians and threatening violence, including one man bringing a gun to an event. Parents kept their children from school to boycott Obama’s speech to kids on the importance of education.

South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson interrupted Obama’s health care speech to Congress with “you lie.” His governor Mark Sanford disappeared for several days before admitting that he was having an affair with a woman in Argentina.

Rush Limbaugh is no stranger to jackassery, but even he took it to a new level by calling for the return of segregation. Glenn Beck’s attacks on Van Jones led to his resignation from his advisory role to the President on green jobs.

This explosion of craziness has made people question why civility seems to be a lost art.

Some point to the influence of media, since reality television, tabloid journalism, and Youtube rewards people for their outrageous antics. Others blame the excesses of the 1960s and 1980s, arguing that people feel entitled to do whatever it takes to get what they want.

Regardless of its origin, it is time for people to calm down and start acting like adults. You expect this behavior from children, but when you can’t distinguish the adults from the teenagers, you know something is out of whack.