.....the presence of these books on the best-seller lists is a living civics lesson

Arthur Salm

In all, the presence of these books on the best-seller lists is a living civics lesson: It's democracy in the real world, an honest exchange of ideas in the intellectual marketplace.

To which one can only reply, "Oh, give me a break." I've no studies to back this up, but five'll get you 10 that these pundits are cashing in on the choir. There's no exchange of anything going on here, except for the 20-plus bucks people fork over to bookstores to have their belief systems stroked and their enemies savaged.

For what left-leaning reader would even pick up Coulter's toxic, fact-challenged screed ("Progress cannot be made on serious issues because one side is making arguments and the other side is throwing eggs – both literally and figuratively," she writes on the first page; her appending "literally" says it all), except, perhaps, with a pair of tongs?

[snip]

(A curious sort of counter-logic is often applied to folks who criticize the government. Since they have the right to do so, the argument goes, they shouldn't – the old "They-wouldn't-let-you-do-that-in-Moscow" routine. In other words, we've got free speech in this country, so shut up.)