Ellen DeGeneres, George W. Bush, and the death of uncritical niceness

On Sunday, Ellen DeGeneres spent her afternoon in a luxury box at a football game in Texas, watching the Dallas Cowboys play the Green Bay Packers and laughing cheerfully next to former president George W. Bush. The TV cameras panned over the pair sitting together, apparently in the midst of a friendly exchange, and on social media, people erupted into outrage.

Ellen is a trailblazer who taught middle America not to be afraid of lesbians. Most famously, she came out of the closet in 1997 while still the star of a primetime network sitcom, and weathered both the ensuing controversy and her show’s cancellation to survive and thrive in Hollywood.