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Tuesday, July 29, 2003
"...does the ailing profession of American journalism really need to be indulging freaks right now?"
Great letter in the local paper:
"Manifestly there is no civil liberties crisis in this country. Consequently, people who claim there is must have a different goal in mind. What else can you say of such people but that they are traitors?"
Huh? Even if Coulter had actually invested the time and wit to show that "manifestly" there is no civil liberties crisis in this country, how does she possibly come to the conclusion that those who say there is are traitors? Aside from the very specific legal description of treason, of which Coulter, as a lawyer, should have some passing knowledge, this doesn't even measure up to the most superficial layman's understanding of that highly charged term.
Someone who says there's a civil liberties crisis in the country is not engaging in treason, but rather the oldest, most honored act of Americanism – expressing a free opinion.
What is difficult to understand is why the mainstream media persist in providing this unstable woman with a platform for her extremist ramblings. I know that she has a legion of fans who buy her books to feed their fantasies of a one-party state, not unlike those in Cuba, Iran, and Korea. And I know there's a tendency in the culture to find amusement in over-the-top caricatures modeled after professional wrestlers. But does the ailing profession of American journalism really need to be indulging freaks right now? Is rational discourse in this deeply polarized country at all served by her willful slanders?
I know it sounds like I may be calling for the media to blacklist Ann Coulter. But all I'm really calling for is a little editorial judgment. If it ends up being a blacklist, however, as an avowed champion of McCarthyism, Ann Coulter won't mind.
-DAN RILEY
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