What's he on about now?

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   Wednesday, June 07, 2006

   STICKS AND STONES

This Ann Coulter thing is still with me but I'll quickly explain why -- aside from her obviously monstrous comments, I am truly unsettled by the complicity of the media in her career. Yesterday's disaster marked the third time she's appeared on The Today Show this year. Novelist, biographer and essayist Gore Vidal -- to name but one other -- is a brilliant, venerable commentator on American culture. I think he was last on TV in 1974.

This is worse than just bias. Allowing people like Coulter or Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh the time, money and exposure to vent their bigoted, ill-informed drivel cheapens the entire media, once known as our 'guardians of democracy.' We're seeing the results first-hand. If Coulter can airily toss off hate speech on national TV and be met with yawns and comments like "that's just her opinion" and "who cares, anyway?" then there's no need for anyone to do any research, to consider the experiences of others, to commit to any kind of civil discourse. Of course this matters. Lost in this fog of idiot pseudo-dialogue, how can any kind of consensus happen?

Thankfully, I can follow up that clip of Coulter's horrid ranting with an example of its opposite -- Jon Stewart's deft confrontation with Bill Bennett over gay marriage. Stewart is as forceful as Coulter, except that he listens to Bennett's objections, he counters them with informed wit and he's not incredibly fucking evil: