Fewer Haters, Please

Bad behavior is too often rewarded.

For example, Ann Coulter, one of America's most prominent public intellectuals, is fired from magazines or removed from syndication with some frequency, but we still hear from her far too often. Far too often for someone who laments that Timothy McVeigh didn't blow up the New York Times building intead, for someone who advocated executing the American Taliban only in order to intimidate liberals, for someone who thinks we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.

Whereas most public intellectuals would be widely condemned for such sentiments and then ignored, Coulter has evaded such a fate. She has done so by upping the ante, among other things. She has just released a book entitled Treason, in which she attempts to rehabilitate the reputation of Joseph MCarthy and to tar all who don't subscribe to her extremist views as traitors. For this, prominent righty blogger and columnist Andy Sullivan has sort-of called her on her schtick. But, as is his custom, Andy stops short. He even calls her a babe(!). That anorexic horse-faced viper? Not in a million years. But for Andy, it's a good start.

Television, which is the medium through which Coulter has developed her fame, is well suited for the extremism, opportunism, and sensationalism that is her hallmark. For the last two weeks, you could not watch the cable news networks without seeing the brittle hysteric hustling her McCarthy apologia. In writing this entry, I am a guilty party, but it is my great wish that Coulter fades into the obscurity she so sorely deserves.

It seems possible, even likely, that a right wing demogogue who shares many of her characteristics maybe headed to such a fate. I write of Michael "Savage" Weiner. This cultural pollutant has been fired from his MSNBC gig spewing hate on Saturday afternoons. Apparently he told a homosexual who called into his show he should "get AIDS and die." By the way, "Savage" has also lost syndication of his radio show in some major markets recently. It seems "Savage" is on the outs.

Hooray. If only the same thing could happen to O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Joe Scarborough.