In his writeup of Shirley Temple Black following her death last night at the age of 85, Oscar prognosticator and noted wifi connoisseur Jeffrey Wells begrudgingly acknowledged the accomplishments of, arguably, one of the biggest stars in the history of Hollywood before closing with this cutting jibe:
In the same way it’s better to remember Elvis Presley from ’54 to ’58 and forget the rest, it’s better to remember Temple as a cute little kid and forget that she became a Republican sometime in the ’60s.
Who actually thinks like this?* Let's leave aside the bitchiness and the cattiness and instead focus on the fact that Wells wants to excise from her life an impressive record as a diplomat and representative of the United States at home and abroad. From CNN's obit, here's what she did post-Hollywood:
She embarked on a new career as a foreign diplomat: She served in the U.S. delegation to the United Nations from 1969 to 1974 was U.S. ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, and U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1989 to 1992.
But yes, let's just consign that all to the dustbin of history because Jeffrey Wells hates the GOP.
This wouldn't be terribly remarkable—Republicans are one of Jeffrey Wells' biggest bugaboos, along with Hispanic upstairs neighbors and gay upstairs neighbors—if it wasn't for the fact that in the post immediately preceding this one he hadn't denounced the "leftist Stalinists" who attacked Zero Dark Thirty for its various thoughtcrimes and torpedoed its chances of taking home gold at the Academy Awards.
Now, as it happens, I was with Wells in that fight. I defended Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow against charges they were tacitly approving of things like extraordinary rendition and waterboarding simply by depicting them. I did this despite the fact that they are liberals and, I presume, Democrats and I frequently disagree with liberals and Democrats on a wide variety of issues. I did it because their being liberals and Democrats has no bearing on the issue at hand. Just as Shirley Temple Black's being a Republican is no reason whatsoever to slag her after her death.
I'm not going to change Wells' mind on this because you can't teach an ancient dog new tricks. But the rest of you out there with slightly more open minds should try not to be a dick when someone who you disagreed with about politics dies.
*I'll answer this for you: Those who live the politicized life.