Todd Starnes, Fox News’ resident culture warrior, has joined the outrage chorus over the latest conservative martyr: Gerald Molen, a Marine veteran and Academy Award winning film producer who says he was barred from speaking to a U.S. government class at a Montana high school because he was “a right-wing conservative.” 

According to Starnes’ article, when Molen showed up at the high school for his speech the principal told him it had been cancelled because some people had called to complain  Why? Maybe because Molen (whose Hollywood credits include “Schindler’s List” and “Jurassic Park”) was producing a documentary based on Dinesh D’Souza’s book The Roots of Obama’s Rage, which was praised by Newt Gingrich, panned by many others, and earned the author some guest spots with Glenn Beck. I haven’t read the book but its promo promises us that if we read it we will learn:

• Why Obama’s economic policies are actually designed to make America poorer compared to the rest of the world
• Why Obama will welcome a nuclear Iran
• Why Obama sees America as a rogue nation—worse than North Korea
• The real reason Obama banished a bust of Winston Churchill from the White House and ordered NASA to praise the scientific contributions of Muslims

Molen, in a letter to the local paper, said he wasn’t planning to make any political statements in his speech at the high school. “In America today, are our children taught or indoctrinated?” his letter concluded.” Is there censorship? I’ll let the reader decide. Me? I now have the answer.” 

According to Starnes, the school superintendent and local state representative have called the disinvitation rude and demanded an apology. And yes, you might argue that the principal did show bad judgment in cancelling the speech at the last minute. He may be regretting it now that he's handed the right-wing media another martyr on a silver plate. Molen's story has earned him a post on the Fox Nation (where it’s getting the usual feedback about left wing bigots in the schools) and an interview on breitbart.com’s “Big Hollywood” site, which laments that none of Molen's Hollywood peers have reached out to him about the cancellation. In a few days Molen will probably be on Hannity’s show, and Fox News hosts will be whining that the mainstream media hasn’t carried the story because it’s in bed with all those damn Obama-loving lefty liberals in Hollywood. Fox is nothing if not predictable on these matters.