I have a serious bone to pick...

... with celebrities these days. I was, for lack of something better to do, watching the Emmy awards last night. A few weeks ago, I also happened to catch a portion of the MTV awards. At the opening of that show, the host... whom I had never previously heard of, and can only describe as some bizarre english fellow who seemed to think he was a lot more well-known/important/funny than he was... had scarcely welcomed the attendees that evening before he spouted off on some political tirade about the importance of electing Barack Obama in the upcoming election. Mind you, he doesn't actually possess an American citizenship, but he felt it his duty to interject political opinions wherever he could about a country in which he does not reside.

This brings me to last night's Emmy awards. I counted twelve... TWELVE... speeches by both presenters and winners that inlcuded some sort of political jab at George Bush or John McCain, or at least in attempt to coerce us common-folk into mindlessly voting for Barack Obama... simply because we've been told to by some celebrity with a Tom Cruise-style superiority complex and an over-heightened sense of self worth.

I cringe everytime I hear a celebrity get on tv or in a magazine and start telling people... particularly the younger, more impressionable voters... who they should and should not vote for. As Amy Poehler so poignantly put it on Saturday Night Live one night... "women in this country fought hard for the right to vote for whoever Oprah tells them to". It came like a breath of fresh air, late in last night's Emmy broadcast, when some writer, during his acceptance speech... finally challenged people to decide which candidate stands for the things they believe in, and VOTE for them. Finally, someone understands what it means to have a democracy.

I don't have a problem with celebrities believing in a candidate and campaigning for them. But campaigning for a candidate should not consist of getting in front of any camera they can find and telling people to vote for someone based ONLY on the fact that they are too, and because that's what all the cool kids are doing. If they genuinely want to campaign for someone, why don't they get out on the street and start putting up signs, or why don't they sit down at a phone and start calling supporters or raising money, and leave their name out of it. What they should not be doing is abusing their priveleged status and position in the public to sway voters.

Celebrities should use their public platform for one thing, and one thing only... and that is to challenge people to learn about the candidates, decide who they think would best serve the country, and VOTE for that person. No one in our nation's history has fought in order that we might have the right to vote for whomever we're told to... they fought so that we could have the right to vote and have our own voices heard.

Sorry for the rant, just wanted to get that off my chest.