Easy Freeper

In the midst of the horrific stories surrounding Katrina, the Iman bridge collapse in Iraq, and the controversy surrounding the John Roberts Supreme Court nomination, I found out something yesterday courtesy of Gail Shister and the Philadelphia Inquirer which truly “shook me to my foundations” so to speak.

Dennis Hopper is a Republican!

"People would be surprised to know that," says Hopper, maverick star and director of the '69 hippie-stoners-on-bikes classic, Easy Rider, in a recent interview.

"I've been a Republican since Reagan. I voted for Bush and his father. I don't tell a lot of people, because I live in a city where somebody who voted for Bush is really an outcast."

Man, how do you like that? I guess that explains some things, though. I can picture Frank Booth of “Blue Velvet” tutoring at the feet of the late (but hardly lamented) Lee Atwater, whose protégé at that time was this obscure hack and opportunist still working out the kinks in his despicable act named Karl Rove.

“Lee, dude, you are so bleeping suave! You’ve got to send a crate of rubbing alcohol to Dukakis’s wife and get photos of the slime in Boston Harbor and blame him for not cleaning it up! DON’T YOU LOOK AT ME!”

Or the stoned photojournalist in “Apocalypse Now” (actually, “stoned” something or other was a standard Hopper role for a long time), talking to Martin Sheen trapped in the tiger cage:

“Like, Kurtz, man, he’s…he’s the master. He is all knowing. And don’t ask how, he just is. You see these guys running around with the machetes and grass skirts? You think they’re Filipino, but noo maan! They’re all Contra refugees. Kurtz called Reagan and got a bunch of Hueys to transport them over….hey, look maan, I know this movie is about Vietnam and not the 80s, but do you think this is reality? Where do you think Brando is getting his dialogue from? He’s making it all up – he read half of it from the box of Cocoa Puffs he ate for breakfast this morning!”

I can also picture Hopper, as the patsy in “True Romance,” giving the speech he gives to Christopher Walken before Walken shoots him to Barack Obama instead (oooohhh – watch it!). Also, I’m sure Dubya rides a horse as successfully as Hopper did as Rock Hudson’s son in “Giant.”

Well, this is just one case where I’m going to respectfully disagree and leave it at that. I give Hopper credit for making a successful career for himself and managing to stay alive. Maybe one day he’ll see the light, but if he doesn’t, that’s OK too.