Quote of the day: Zimmerman's future

(Updated below.)

 

I think that's Zimmerman's future -- being a sad man who briefly became a hero to angry people for doing a horrible thing, but who, fortunately, will never fully exploit the situation.

Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog, explaining – correctly, I think – why acquitted Crimestopper George Zimmerman will never become the multibrand that many people hope or fear he will be, as the latest darling of the gun lobby/white supremacist/ALEC-libertarian nexus.

Steve's argument is worth reading in full, but the nub of it is that Zimmerman doesn't seem to have the media-fueled narcissism (or the literary moxie) necessary to go the book deal/FOX and Friends/syndicated column career route. Steve compares him to Bernie Goetz, who mostly, but not completely, sank back into obscurity after he shot four would-be muggers on the subway.

I think the useful touchstone is Joe the Plumber – a man whose name wasn't Joe and who wasn't a plumber, which means the only thing about him that was authentic was “the” – who milked his 15 minutes of celebrity into about two years of far more attention than he deserved. Zimmerman isn't even remotely in the same league, delusions-of-grandeur-wise. True, Joe simply mouthed off to a canvassing presidential candidate in his neighborhood, while Zimmerman shot an unarmed man in his neighborhood, but if his acquittal teaches us anything, it teaches us that what Zimmerman did is scarcely even a crime anymore. It's a good start, as media launches go, but he doesn't have the self-promotional hunger to live the dream.

Another analogy, if that one doesn't do it for you: George Zimmerman will probably end up like the noodge from Bats Breath TN who wins the lottery: He isn't remotely prepared for what's down the road for him, and in a couple of years his life will have changed impressively for the worse.


(Update 7/31/13) And so it begins. Here's the headline in my newsfeed a few moments ago:

Zimmerman Stopped for Speeding – with Gun in Car (Watch the Video)

This was somewhere in Texas, the natural home of armed yahoos, although Zimmerman offered no explanation as to what he was doing there.  Mark my words: It's simply a matter of time until Zimmerman is arrested in Las Vegas for attempting to steal sports memorabilia from a hotel room. That's how these things go.