The Augusta Chronicle recently decided to drop Ann Coulter's column from their newspaper and replace her with Michelle Malkin. Here is the letter I just wrote them.
So ... you're replacing Ann Coulter because she called the 9/11 widows "witches" and said that they were enjoying their husbands' deaths. Fair enough. It's hard for me to understand why you would do it now, as opposed to when she saidand I could go on. (I'm sure you will say that she's just joking, as if that makes it all right). But do you think that replacing her with Michelle Malkin will be any better?
- "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors."
- "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
- "We Need Somebody To Put Rat Poisoning In Justice Stevens' Creme Brulee"
Were you aware of her reaction when the New York Times did a puff piece on Donald Rumsfeld's and Dick Cheney's vacation homes?"Why publish maps and specific street names and photographs of the private (not anymore) homes where the Vice President and Defense Secretary and their families spend their vacations?
Why?
Because blabbermouth Bill Keller feels like it, right? (Interesting timing, no?) . . . .
And because al Qaeda already must have an inkling that Rumsfeld and Cheney live somewhere in the greater Washington, D.C. area, right? So what's the harm in handing them all the details, right?"
And let's not forget the episode where she posted the phone numbers of some college students and a chancellor, after military recruiters were blocked access to UC Santa Cruz. All of them began receiving death threats, and Malkin was asked to remove their contact information from her site. She refused (the contact info is still there). The chancellor in question committed suicide a few months later.
You are replacing one hateful conservative pundit with another. I fail to see how this improves anything.
7 comments:
In the market place of ideas I fear that hatred sells papers in Augusta, GA.
// posted by Raised By Republicans
There is some benefit from the replacement. Conservative hacks like Coulter are just out to make money, plain and simple. By making the job slightly less lucrative on average (by spreading the wealth from Coulter to less-well-known shysters) this may discourage others from choosing "conservative hatemonger" as a career path.
But I liked your letter. The linking of Malkin through to the death of the UC Chancellor Denton's was fascinating.
Hmm.. Liberal definition of a "Hatemonger": Any conservative who disagrees with me.
Publishing the addresses of government officials in a time of war, in a publication that is most likely examined carefully by terrorists, is okay.
Posting the phone numbers of a bunch of terrorist supporting students is unforgivable. Students who actively campaign against their country, should not be suprised when people who, actually like their country have a strong reaction to them. As for the chancellor committing suicide , it seems that she had created enough of her own problems to send her over the edge.
// posted by Just Watching
Dear Just Watching,
I'm curious about what types of dissent you would condone in war or peace? If in time of war, citizens are not permitted to call for that war's ending, how are limited wars such as the one in which we are engaged in Iraq to end?
Also as for who is supporting the terrorists, I doubt they get much comfort from democratic protests in the US. They thrive on violence, poverty and political oppression in their homelands. What a bunch of students do or say about it in Santa Cruz is probably not noticed by them at all.
As for the address thing, if a terrorist could get at Rumsfeld just by figuring out the address of his palatial vacation home we have bigger problems than a newspaper!!
// posted by Raised By Republicans
Just_Watching is of course correct that Chancellor Denton had a great deal of issues and problems on her plate. I did not mean to suggest that she committed suicide due to the Malkin. I thought the connection was fascinating, that's all. But I really should have been more clear about that. Nothing makes the left look foolish more than being sloppy in making such connections--it makes it look like we believe in a vast, right-wing conspiracy (which, for the record, I do not.)
However I am irked by Just_Watching's idea that liberals call all conservatives "hatemongers." That's nonsense. Yes, sure, there are some so-called liberals who act in the idiotic manner Just_Watching has observed. But no one on this blog fits the bill. Most liberals are actually quite tolerant of opposing points of view. That's one of the proud hallmarks of American liberalism.
Alas, there are liberals who are intolerant--there are also liberal hatemongers. They are not nearly so widely known as, say, Ann Coulter--but I am sure they exist. It's embarrassing. As I said in the last paragraph, we liberals are supposed to be against that kind of thing, you know.
Many honest conservatives do not support conservative hatemongering either. But Coulter, Malkin, and O'Reilly (to name a few) are clearly hatemongerers. They're more shysters than conservativs--to call them "conservative" demeans conservatism. I just wish conservatives would express embarassment about the outrages of their prominent voices. Instead, people like Just_Watching tend to defend them.
Incidentally, the difference between the publication of the addresses of government officials and the publication of student phone numbers is this: the addresses were already a matter of public record. Nobody's privacy was violated in showing pictures of pretty vacation homes... in fact, the article was written wit h the homeowners' consent. There certainly no malice in doing so. Publication of student phone numbers, however, was done purely out of spite in order to intimidate others. The difference is like night and day--and has nothing to do with a state of war or who loves their country the most.
I agree that the link with the chancellor's suicide was tenuous. But I don't think the Malkin situation helped.
// posted by Bell Curve
When I read someone claim that that those who protest against war are "actively campaigning against their own country," I need read no further. It just makes me sad. The most important political freedom is the freedom to pubicly and vocally disagree with the government without fear of reprisal. If you don't believe in that, saying you are believe in freedom and democracy is just a lie.
// posted by LTG
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