Well, here we are again: Free speech, the crowded theater and Brambleberry's muzzle.

The Tribune’s city council coverage focuses on Monday evening’s leadership contest and CM Jeff Gahan’s goals for his second term as council president.

Gahan remains council president; He bested Dan Coffey by a 6-3 vote, by Amany Ali, (News-Tribune).

Jeff Gahan is determined to change New Albany City Council meetings …

… “The ultimate goal is to make New Albany a better place to live, work and play,” Gahan said after the meeting. “We have to have good decisions. To do that, we have to get all the information on a timely basis.” …

…Gahan has also pledged to transform council meetings from their current state to that of a more dignified forum …

… Gahan began his new approach during Monday’s meeting when he kept tight reins on David Huckleberry, a citizen who consistently speaks at council meetings. Huckleberry often releases verbal attacks on the administration.”

Not unexpectedly, Citizen Huckleberry is being portrayed as a hero within the cluttered confines of the spitwad blogyard, where selective enforcement is far less of a problem than selective interpretation.

Citizen Huckleberry’s well-rehearsed shuck and jive – the voice of doom at the end of the Pledge of Allegiance, the sheaf of soiled newspapers, the folksy delivery that wouldn’t be out of place as a subject of Gene Kelly’s barbs in “Inherit the Wind” – can be humorous the first four or five times that one is forced to endure it and then, like reruns of Gillgan’s Island, it becomes progressively sadder with each repeated viewing.

But … aren’t Citizen Huckleberry’s juvenile antics representative of the price we must pay to preserve freedom of speech?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

After all, the sergeant at arms is there for a reason, and most – not all – of us understand that free speech is accompanied by a responsibility to use as directed.

That’s right, wee ones; you must play “by the rules.”

Recalling the last council meeting of 2005, when Citizen Huckleberry’s embarrassing patter took a profoundly dark turn when he began berating the Mayor’s elderly mother for intimidating his own parents with regard to the necessity of stifling his shtick, CM Gahan can be easily forgiven for greeting the speaker’s homily-draped slanderous talons with considerable preemptive caution.

Would the county council’s Ted Heavrin have been as indulgent toward Citizen Huckleberry’s antics as council president Gahan has in the past?

We think you already know the answer to that question.

What is painfully obvious to all but a few Lite-soaked Luddite Bar & Grill patrons is that there’s no one stopping Citizen Huckleberry from displaying his performance art when and where he pleases, just so long as he doesn’t do his politically-motivated soft shoe (with hidden dagger) when the routine is calculated to disrupt, which absolutely is his grandstanding intention at city council meetings.

Just because someone is perfectly content to see New Albany remain a third-class city (Citizen Huckleberry’s own words) doesn’t mean that he has a “right” to reduce any proceeding in which he takes part to that level of underachievement.

After all, that's CM Dan Coffey's job.