Liberal Talk Radio

I have to admit that I was a little surprised when McNewspaper booted that scion of objectivity, Anne Coulter, off its editorial pages. And then I read the article.

Who takes this woman seriously? Any liberal who feels bad for degrading political discourse should read this and feel better. If there’s an effort made here to actually convey some relevant fact (or even a substantiated rumor), you tell me where it is. When USA Today boots you for being unjournalistic, perhaps it’s time to look in the mirror.

While there’s so much here to dissect that it may seem like a stupid thing even to try, we must at least make the effort to rebut. Like monks transcribing Greek in the 7th c., we must believe that someday it will be important that we have a created a record of our opposition to this vitriol. Someday, in the general ledger of our nation’s rights and wrongs, perhaps small tokens like taking five minutes to point out what a jackass this jackass is will matter.

So let me dive in. Since there’s so much here, I’ll take an easy one. Coulter writes: “For 20 years, the Democrats wouldn’t let Jimmy Carter within 100 miles of a Convention podium … Maybe they just want to remind Americans who got us into this Middle East mess in the first place.”

Ah, Anne? Jimmy Carter is not the cause of Islamic fundamentalism. As Stephen Kinzer persuasively argues, in his book All the Shah’s Men, the U.S. IS to blame for the modern jihadis, but it was because of the CIA’s decision, under Eisenhower, to use religious Iranians as a counterbalance to Persian communists in the 1950s.

Of course, facts seem not to matter to either Anne or to her devotees. More’s the sadder that so many of her loyalists stand to benefit most from the new, compassionate and informed, society we progressives seek to create.