The Congress of Racial Equality, the civil-rights group/shill for Big Oil, showed up as promised Wednesday to protest outside the Broadway Centre Cinemas - calling out Robert Redford for his efforts to prevent oil drilling in southern Utah wild lands.

CORE (led by Niger Ennis, pictured) makes the argument that blocking oil drilling raises the price of fuel, which hurts poor people more than anyone else. (What CORE doesn't say is how much money the group receives from the oil industry.)

"The high energy prices we're going to see this winter are essentially discriminatory," said Bishop Harry Jackson Jr. of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md. and chairman of an oil-industry advocacy group, the High-Impact Leadership Coalition.

The Tribune's Patty Henetz dutifully reported on Wednesday's protest. Tribune columnist Rebecca Walsh went deeper, as columnists can do in ways reporters cannot, decried the protest as "a dog-and-pony show":

"They slapped down the race card in front of a Sundance movie theater. It was brilliant. Movie star plus lots of Hollywood in town for the film festival plus middle-class white guilt equals exponential increase in media coverage. ... Turns out the 77-parcel sale to which Redford objected would amount to two days worth of U.S. consumption. But facts are beside the point. This is theater, media manipulation, politics -- or all three."

It's also patent nonsense. How many movies about the plight of the poor - "Frozen River" and "Trouble the Water" from last year's festival, just for examples - gained national recognition because of Sundance?

Labels: environment, Robert Redford