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God, I hate Anniversaries. Writers without imagination look at their today in history section of Yahoo and decide to interpret that history for their own means. These are the type of people that try to tell you that Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech is indicative of his opposition to affirmative action.

My friend just sent me an editorial from the American Spectator of all places about John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon. Its author Greg Gutfield just couldn't resist the 30th Anniversary of Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols to relate a drunken conversation he had with Lydon and thus portray him as a big fan of the Iraq War.

The American Spectator is sort of the National Enquirer of the Republican Right. They mounted a full out war against Bill Clinton throughout most of the ‘90s and their audience base is such they probably consider Newt Gingrich to be a political moderate. Gutfield’s article must be read, if only for the sheer absurdity of its premise. Lauding Lydon as a Right Wing hero is almost as sane as nominating Joseph Goebbles for a posthumous B’Nai Brith commendation.

Gutfield enjoys jovially pointing out how drunk he was when he talked to Lydon. One shouldn't talk to John Lydon when they are drunk. He's liable to tell you anything and laugh uproariously at your ignorance the second you walk away. He's an angry prankster of the first order and just about the last person on earth I thought I'd see lauded as a Republican hero. This is a guy who scared the Conservatives in England so much that when his "God Save the Queen" reached number one on the British music charts, they chose to leave the spot blank.

Here’s an actual quote from Lydon on Iraq. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how concerned the real Lydon is with the islamofascist threat. When asked if he was against the war in Iraq. Lydon replied, "Before you kill anybody you'd better have a bloody good reason. And that nonsense [about WMD] wasn't good enough. And so they're War Criminals. These are dangerous words I speak, [but] I'm not ashamed to say what's right. People have died because of these two cunts."

As if the article weren’t humorous enough, Gutfield offers the following affront to sanity "Johnny Rotten — the thinking Sex Pistol, as opposed to the nihilistic Sid Vicious — is really nothing more than a louder and more musically talented Reagan."

Oh, really!

Wow, that’s quite a statement.

Ronald Reagan is something of a modern deity to the far right. They credit his mad military spending with bringing down the red menace of the Soviet Union, and his strong nationalistic fervor with reinstating pride to an America that had lost faith in itself after Vietnam, Watergate, and the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Given their way the Spectator would turn Mount Rushmore into a one man portrait of Reagan.

Additionally, Reagan catered to both the rich and religious right. He did his best to stack the Supreme Court with pro-life jurists in order to overturn legal abortions, and continually assured the poor that the increasing wealth of the rich would eventually trickle down to their neighborhoods, while cutting social spending to fund his inane fantasies of force fields that would turn Russian nuclear missiles into harmless pieces of scrap metal.

Let’s look at what Lydon really has to say on these issues. Lydon on abortion (from VH1's Greatest Albums): "It ain't about morals because it's immoral to bring a kid into the world and not give a toss about it."

Lydon on America, which Gutfield claims Johnny loves just as much as Reagan did: "Yeah, I do like the people here. You're easier going in many ways. Except the foo-foo. The more wealthy the people become here, the more conservative and more dangerous. That's an odd thing, but the poorer classes are absolutely fine by me."

Oh and that fierce Reagan national pride? Lydon said, "I think national pride leads to nothing but wars and hates."

Gutfield sees Lydon mock Democrats and decides that he's clearly a Republican when, in actuality, he hates both political parties.  He's been quoted as saying, "They're all out for the same greed. And it's all about power and position, isn't it?"

Here's some more fun Gutfield, "I am probably nuts — but I always sort of thought that the punk movement made Ronald Reagan more than a bit possible."

Yes, indeed, Greg, you are nuts!

I wonder how Ronald Reagan and his fundamentalist Christian friends would feel about this Lydon statement: "All my best friends are black, gay, Irish or criminals."

Saying that John Lydon helped paved the way for the Reagan revolution makes about as much sense as crediting Suge Knight with preparing America for the credible candidacy of Barack Obama.

So read Gutfield's article and laugh out loud, but please don't tell him that this year also marks the 25th Anniversary of the release of "Rock the Casbah," because that song doesn't mean what those people think it means either.