…no, I’m not talking about cussing — which they do lots of and do well. And I’m not talking about Cheryl Cole “singing” (good God, Britain, really?!?!).

I’m talking about hearing Nick Griffin, the head of the British National Party be interviewed on BBC1 (as he will be tonight, in just under 4 hours). There’s been a storm of protests over the Beeb’s plans to have the guy on “Question Time” — oh, his views are too vile, they say, and having him on the air gives people with views like his credibility, etc.

Very true, all. But, here’s the thing: That’s not enough of a reason to boot him off the show. That’s not how a democracy, one that values free thought and free speech, works. Those freedoms, by the way, are enjoyed by the very people protesting Griffin’s upcoming appearance. In fact, protesters stormed the BBC’s grounds earlier this evening in an attempt to express their anger.

Now, granted, Griffin is an unsavory guy with less than evolved views. And that’s really putting it nicely.

From his profile, on the BBC site:

A smartly-dressed, Cambridge-educated family man, he has written of the need to “normalise” a party which has its roots in the fascist National Front and, when he took over as leader in 1999, was chiefly associated in the public mind with skinheads and swastikas. (…)

But he has a controversial past, which includes a 1998 conviction for incitement to racial hatred relating to material denying the Holocaust.

And to his opponents, his decontamination of the party is only skin deep.

In April 2006, he told the Mail on Sunday: “‘Yes, Adolf went a bit too far. His legacy is the biggest problem that the British nationalist movement has to deal with. It just creates a bad image’.”

Wait, wait. There’s more. Here’s something from the Times:

Mr Griffin, who once called for a defence of white rights with “well-directed boots and fists”, began changing course in 1998. He told the BNP: “We must at all times present [the public] with an image of reasonableness.”

He added: “Of course, we must teach the truth to the hardcore, for, like you, I do not intend this movement to lose its way.” Asked if the past decade had merely been an exercise in rebranding, he says: “I had already decided that things the BNP were saying were futile, a menace and wrong.

“I changed my mind about some things. We used to look at problems with immigration in just a simplistic way.” That was unfair, he says, because the bigger issue was Islam.

Sure.  Oh, hang on, just one more graf:

How does he feel about President Obama? “He is an Afrocentric racist bigot.” He thinks American blacks should have been resettled in Africa “because the two peoples living side by side would cause problems forever”.

Yeah, a man after Glenn Beck’s own empty heart. Still, the man is the head of a political party, he holds a seat in the European Parliament. Fearing what he has to say gives his views even more power. So let the man speak, however vile and ill-conceived his words may be. Besides, there are others like him out there and it’s always good to know what sort of rhetoric they’re holding on to.

And because I’m a terrible human being, here’s Cheryl Cole’s unforgivably bad song & video…