MAMA COURAGE VS. MAMA COWARDICE: LONDON MUM WHO TURNED IN RIOTOUS DAUGHTER VS. RICK PERRY-BASHING EDUCRAT USING HER SON AS A SOCK PUPPET

Meet Mama Courage, aka Adrienne Ives of London, England.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article3748107.ece

Mrs. Ives' disgust as she watched the television coverage of the London riots turned to horror when she recognized her eighteen-year-old daughter, Chelsea, joining in the meaningless, wanton destruction of whichever London neighborhoods were found to be underguarded by masked, hooded hooligans. Chelsea is by all accounts a beautiful, athletic, bright, talented young woman with a hypnotizing eyes, pop-star looks, and an unlimited future ... that is, up until that moment when she was televised throwing a traffic barrier at a police car, and her mother dropped a dime on her.

Multiplying the embarrassment Chelsea has caused (and has become) is that she was among a chosen few selected to be "Olympic Ambassadors" for the London 2012 Summer Games. The ambassadors' mission is "to be the face of London [as] people who are passionate about the capital and want to tell millions of people about the hidden treasures that makes London one of the best capital cities in the world."  Instead, Chelsea showed how little she cared about her hometown before billions spanning the globe.  Her public persona as someone proud to show London to world visitors was diametrically opposed to what she expressed on Facebook about the riots in which she expressed support for the criminal hordes ("Ders a RIOT in tottenham KOOL"), disparaged the police ("pigs shuldnt ov killed dat guy last nyt ... Den dey wuldnt gt blown up"), and chuckled at merchants who didn't have sufficient security to thwart the roving mobs ("Cozzz the shop keeper aint f***** dere")  According to a prosecutor, Chelsea shouted to a friend "This is the best day ever!" before throwing a rock through a shop window.

More from Mrs. (and Mr.) Ives, from the August 23, 2011 edition of London's Sun tabloid:

Adrienne told of the horrifying moment she and Roger saw Chelsea flash on to their TV screens during Sunday night's appalling violence in Enfield, North London. 

She said: "We were watching the riots. It was sickening. Then we saw her. To say we were shocked ... Not only was it someone we knew, it was our daughter. She's studying A-levels, is a fine sportswoman and a great singer - a beautiful, creative and talented child. 

"I love her. But look at what she's done. These riots have cost people their jobs and even lives. We are going through hell."

Roger, 54, said Chelsea wept when they confronted her on her return home to Leytonstone, East London.

He added: "There were a lot of tears. She did not try to stop us phoning the police, she knew there was no point.

So in Mrs. Ives, we have the example of a parent stepping forward to encourage other parents to make certain their children take responsibility for their actions.  Which brings us to...

...Mama Cowardice, aka Kristin Bunce.

You won't see Kristin in this mislabeled video clip from ABC News until it's almost over (0:42 in), but you'll hear her all the way through in her vain attempt to humiliate Texas Governor and GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry.

That's Bunce, introducing Perry to her prepubescent son, saying "He's got a question for you." The query was "How old is the earth?" That was a bald-faced lie on Bunce's part.  The question wasn't her son's, it was hers.  Any doubt was erased as she began feeding lines to her boy when a cool, unflappable Perry apparently didn't sufficiently embarrass himself with his reply.  IMHO, Bunce probably expected him to respond with something in the realm of "six thousand years old and not a second older!"  When Perry was too fast on his feet to walk into Bunce's trap, that's when she started feeding him follow-up questions before he stopped talking ("Ask him about evolution."  "Ask him why he doesn't believe in science").

So who is this woman who used her son as a human shield-cum-sock puppet?  She's not your typical left-of-center woman heckling campaigning Republicans with raw-throated, unoriginal chants (which come at the end of the clip).  No, Kristin Bunce has the unmistakable pedigree of a cultural elite.  As was discovered by The Daily Caller's intrepid blogger Jim Treacher:

Here’s what she has listed on Facebook under “Education and Work”:

Grad School

John F. Kennedy School of Government [at Harvard]Class of 1996 · [Master's in Public Policy]

The University of Texas at Austin
MA Government

College

Wellesley College
Class of 1990

High School

Chatham High School
Class of 1996

Here's Ms. Bunce's wedding announcement, as published in the Summer 2007 edition of the Harvard Law & Policy Review

WEDDINGS; Marna Bunce, Silas Beane III
Marna Kristin Bunce, the daughter of Dr. Marna Louise Crim of Monroe, Ga., and Roy Karl Bunce of Longmeadow, Mass., was married yesterday to Dr. Silas Robert Beane III, the son of Rosa and Mr. Beane Jr. of Far Hills, N.J. The bride’s father, a United Church of Christ minister, officiated at Stanley Congregational Church in Chatham, N.J.

Mrs. Beane, 32, is a senior policy adviser in Seattle for the United States Education Department. She graduated from Wellesley College. She received a master’s degree in government from the University of Texas and a master’s in public policy from Harvard. Her father is the director of development at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. Her mother is the reading specialist at the Monroe Elementary School.

Jammie Wearing Fool did some more digging about Ms. Dunce ... er, Bunce, and found that while at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, she did herself some writing about politics! As is seen in a Google search, she wanted to help CBS News "present complex issues and increase [its] audience."

One wonders if her solution to Americans being "turned off by television coverage of politics and public policy" has anything to do with staging "gotcha" questions to conservative candidates.  After all, what could be more complex, more informative, more relevant, more fitting a Harvard graduate than accusing an out-of-the-closet Christian Texas Governor of "not believing in science" (and making believe that her son came up with the idea)? And what a great lesson for young Master Beane, teaching him early on that when it comes to politics, there are no depths, and the end justifies the means. With a start like this, and his parents' Ivy League pedigree, who knows?  Maybe someday he will become President of the United States.  After all, the last two Harvard graduates have done really, really great things for the country.

But seriously, folks: Why is it that Dr. Bunce-Don't-Call-Me-Beane didn't want to put her own face to heckling Perry as opposed to that of her son?  She must have known how lame it would make her look.  Oops, I didn't mean "would," I mean "does."  Now that she's been revealed, if she ever addresses her stunt, she'll probably pass the incident off as being reminiscent of Cyrano de Bergerac.  I think not.  I think she made her son into Mortimer Snerd, which, when you think about it, is an insult to Edgar Bergen.