I appeared on Fox News once, many years ago. I had publicly resigned from my position as an adjunct professor at Boston College, because I found the administration’s decision to award then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree despicable. This position, naturally, brought me to the attention of Sean Hannity’s producers.

I was promised a 15-minute segment on "Hannity & Colmes," which I figured would afford me the chance to discuss Rice’s role in promoting the misinformation that led to our disastrous invasion and occupation of Iraq. I told myself that delivering this message to Fox viewers was especially important, because what they usually heard was the Bush company line.

If you want to see how that bright idea went, you can read the transcript. Be warned: The entire segment is 6 minutes, and I am allowed to speak for a grand total of 1. The rest of the time Sean Hannity yells at me. The moment I start to push back, the segment comes to a crashing halt.

I mention all this by way of praising our senator-turned-presidential-candidate Elizabeth Warren for flatly refusing to appear on a Fox News town hall.

Of course, Warren would be granted more than a minute to make her case on the network. And other Democratic candidates, most prominently Bernie Sanders, have made compelling cases for their policies, to viewers who are more accustomed to hearing his name invoked during paranoid rants about socialism.

But Warren’s decision to boycott Fox isn’t predicated on her personal strategy as a candidate. Her concern is broader and more profound. As she noted on Twitter:

Fox News is a hate-for-profit racket that gives a megaphone to racist and conspiracists. It’s designed to turn us against each other, risking life and death consequences, to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.

Warren recognizes that larger game here. The central reason Fox invites Democratic candidates to appear isn’t to expose Fox viewers to new ideas or policies, but as a corporate ploy to keep advertisers from bailing on their increasingly unhinged propaganda.

As with any dose of principled common sense, Warren’s stand immediately offended the pundit class, whose profession requires them to rank the pursuit of ratings above the pursuit of democratic ideals.

Whoopi Goldberg, one among the gaggle of deep thinkers on "The View," offered a typically brainless hot take: "You know what, if you can’t face a Fox audience, you can’t face the U.S. — it’s that simple."