(...and why you should care.)



The thousand monkeys inside Ann Coulter's head have simultaneously stopped typing, so that must mean that Ann has completed a new "book" to inflict upon the world. It's only been a year since her last book, but hey -- this stuff ain't Shakespeare.

The new book, in turn, means she will now make the rounds of television programs that seemingly would want little to do with her, and in order to plug said book she will make a stream of absurd, ridiculous, conscience-punching, logic-mugging, baby-eating things intended to attract attention. And since she is already known throughout the land as a hatemongering nutcase, every statement has to top the last.

The absurd part about all of this is not that a serial scenery-chewer like Coulter would say shocking things. The absurd part is that, in spite of all the things Coulter says all the time, she still gets invited by major news outlets to make those comments. Every. Damn. Time.



So in this iteration of the story, CNBC's Donny Deutcsh invites her on his show, and then is shocked -- shocked! -- when she uses the opportunity to say the offensive and bigoted things. Media Matters:

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they -- DEUTSCH: Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian? COULTER: Yes. DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian? COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny? DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place? COULTER: Well, you could be a practicing Jew, but you're not. DEUTSCH: I actually am. That's not true. I really am. But -- so we would be better if we were - if people -- if there were no Jews, no Buddhists -- COULTER: Whenever I'm harangued by -- DEUTSCH: -- in this country? You can't believe that. [...] DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or -- COULTER: Yeah. DEUTSCH: Really? COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track. DEUTSCH: Really? COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey. DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that. COULTER: Yes. DEUTSCH: You can't possibly -- you're too educated, you can't -- you're like my friend in -- COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

You can't possibly? You're too educated? Please, give me a break: it's not even in the realm of plausible anymore. Asserting that Jews should not be Jews, and that Muslims should not be Muslims, and that as a "perfected Jew" she's in charge of who has to "obey" -- that hardly could make it to Coulter's personal top ten list of intentionally bigoted statements. Just among the most recent of Ann Coulter's hateful spews, she called a Democratic presidential candidate a faggot. She declared the widows of 9/11 were "enjoying" their husband's deaths. She declared that women shouldn't have the right to vote -- because they were doing it wrong. She asserted Islam to be nothing more than a "cult". And so on, and so on.

So if you can look at that record of bile and bigotry, and still invite her on your show, here's the rule: you own what she says. You don't have to invite her on. Just because she's plugging another book, a thin rewrite of the last four or five similar books about liberals-something-something-traitor-something-something, doesn't mean you're obligated to prop her up in a chair and help her promote it. You choose to put her on the air. You choose to give an audience to her crap.

If you invite David Duke or a Stormfront spokesman on your network to talk about the inferiority of blacks or Jews or Latinos, you have made the choice to give those hatemongers a mountaintop from which to promote their bigotry. If you invite hacks on the air to reiterate, for the umpteenth consecutive time, a discredited conspiracy about "Aztlan", you own that story. And if you invite Ann Coulter on the air to croak out statements of pure, unapologetic venom about other religions, other races, or other ideologies, it is your network that made the decision that a person known for making those statements was worthy of your audience.

Don't give us this crap about pretending to be offended by her bigotry. If you were truly offended by her bigotry, you wouldn't have returned her damn phone calls, much less hitched a microphone to her and placed her in front of a camera. In giving her an audience knowing full well what sorts of things she would say, you own her bigotry.