Thank you, CNN, for continuing to elevate the discourse in this great land, and proving that, while you may not be the most trusted name in news, you can certainly take any element of news and turn it into a journalistic car crash worthy of attention all on its own. Ann Coulter converses with CNN's Glenn Beck...

BECK: You know what? You know what? As uncomfortable as you -- as uncomfortable as you are with Hillary Clinton or I am with John McCain, you are with John McCain, it is not somebody who says, "Hey, I'm going to sit with leaders of Iran and Syria and Cuba and Venezuela who hate us. And by the way, my record on judging people is I didn't think this hatemonger was a hatemonger for 20 years." COULTER: Right, right. And calls -- and obviously hates the United States. This is part of the traitor wing of the Democratic Party. And I guess the question is: Is Obama a Manchurian candidate to normal Americans who love their country -- and he secretly agrees with the Weathermen and the Reverend Wright faction? Or is he being the Manchurian candidate to the traitor wing of the Democratic Party? And he, I guess, has to take the position now that, "No, I was just trying to hoodwink the traitor wing."

Ah, yes, a "Manchurian candidate" to the "traitor wing" of the Democrats. Because really, there's absolutely nothing you can't vomit up onto the screen that would fall below whatever standards of integrity CNN once claimed to have. Nutjob right wing radio host with extended history of saying vile, unconscionable things? Hell, let's make him one of our most promoted talking heads! But wait -- that might not be as insulting to the American public as we could be, so let's let him invite people like Ann Coulter on to talk with him and assert that both a party's presidential candidate and an entire segment of the population might be traitors.

That's certainly worth the broadcast might of a supposed news network, is it not? Mind you, I'm not entirely sure when suggesting the mere possibility of diplomatic talks became an act of high treason, given that selling weapons to people that hate us sure doesn't count, and violating the Constitution on a daily basis doesn't count, and lying to the American people frequently and directly doesn't count, but what the hell do I know -- I'm not CNN. Maybe they should book me, and I can explain in great detail how Glenn Beck got syphilis from his frequent trysts with Kim Jong Il, and as long as I have either a flag or a cross pinned to me I should be able to get away with pretty much anything, yes?



Of course, CNN is not the only provider of supposed "political" figures behaving badly. Rush Limbaugh's wistful hopes for violence at the Democratic National Convention are already been much-noted, though to absolutely no effect...

We need the American left -- and this is another great thing about Operation Chaos; nothing to do with my ego. We need as many ignorant Americans to wake up and find out exactly who the modern-day Democrat Party is as dominated by the far left in this country. We need that to be seen. Now, I am not inspiring or inciting riots. I'm dreaming. (singing to the tune of White Christmas) "I'm dreaming of riots in Denver."

"Operation Chaos" is Rush's name for his continued urging of callers to create "chaos" in the Democratic party by pretending to be Democrats and doing things to hurt the Democrats, so every single thinking human in America, even Rush's own dim-as-a-candle-in-an-oxygen-deprived-room callers who called to chastise him, took his remarks to be inspiring or suggesting riots.

Rush is, of course, known for such speech, so it barely makes news. But he counts even the Vice President of the United States among his frequent guests, and not one of them has been asked to denounce the corpulent, hoping-for-violence blowhard. Why should they?



And let us examine the fine specimen of Republican surrogacy, Chuck Norris, whose religiously motivated, godfearing promotion of the candidacy of Republican Mike Huckabee was the subject of much attention. In his latest commentary, Norris has an explicitly conservative "solution" to illegal immigration:

If these solutions don't stop the tides of illegal flow in and out of our borders, a friend of mine has a Texas-tough alternative and answer to replace the government's virtual fence failure. In fact, he says, we don't need a security fence at all. All we need to do is to post signs and position manned trucks at key points, just like our government does at Area 51, the top secret militaryairfield in remote central Nevada, around which there are no fences or walls. There is never a breach or unwanted border crossing there, at least that we hear about! And why? Because the boundary sign reads and is never questioned, "Warning: Use of deadly force authorized."

Now, there once was a time when using your political column to suggest the government execution of ethnic types found on the wrong patch of land was considered acceptable behavior -- oh, who am I kidding, it has always been acceptable behavior, whether in Germany or here -- but surely, one can marvel at the tight embrace of the Republican Party with those that promote such notions. Even if they are washed-up TV action stars who leaven their calls for final solution with appropriate Christian rhetoric. I realize that, since Huckabee is out of the race, we need not concern ourselves with his own surrogates -- in the vast wasteland of American journalism, thousands and thousands of reporters and pundits strong, we only have time to focus on one surrogate at a time, and the rest will have to be ignored -- so I can only presume all other Republicans have already denounced their very visible supporter.



Nothing's quite as impressive as having a nationwide multiweek media pants-crapping over some guy's ex-minister saying mean things, then demonstrating vividly to the world that hoping for violence, accusing the other party of treason, or suggesting organized ethnic murder are all firmly in the realm of reasonable Republican discourse. So firmly in the realm of reasonable discourse, in fact, that they hardly bear remarking upon... except by those devious liberals with their possibly treasonous ability to hold multiple things in their minds at one time.