Coulter gets the mike.

Very little needs to be said about Ann Coulter that has not already been said. She is a screeching harpie bitch. What has not been said enough though is how much scum like her have contributed to the disintegration of discourse in America. The elevation of the putrid rants of people like Coulter do more to hurt us than her idiotic words. What is this bitch doing on TV at all? Why is Matt Lauer even doing the interview? Coulter and her ilk have always been around. What is different in the last 20 years is the size of the soap box. Can anyone imagine some far lefty who thinks Bush planned 9/11 - these types are out there - being on the Today Show? No. Because it would never happen. Some how Right wing freaks are allowed to get the Main Stream Media mike. They rant, enrage - then the MSM gets to fill yet another news cycle with the response. It then gets stretched out further when some less vitriolic, but just as smug, conservative tries to defend what Coulter is now repeating on another show. Coulter gets what she wants - attention - and the MSM media gets what they want - a 4 minute segment of people yelling over each other. The rest of us are "entertained" or distracted depending on one's point of view. It's a circle jerk we are forced to participate in.

What gets lost? Decency. Any sort of moral standard we can point to for what is acceptable in the national conversation and what is not. Criticize what the 9/11 widows did to force a 9/11 commission all you want. Criticize who they may or may not have supported in any election. But in a sane society barking on a "news" program that 9/11 widows were probably going to be dumped by their husbands anyway deserves one response from all TV talking heads "That is out of bounds. This conversation is over." And move on to the next story. Say a story about the war, or health care prices. Sadly, we are no longer a sane society. The only things at play in all of this are ratings and book sales and distraction. Decency has left the conversation. Fair play left a while ago. (There are plenty of freaks out there insisting that Bush is drunk half the time and that Laura is about to divorce him. We will not be seeing any of them on MSNBC.)

So what happens to a society when the main conduit for information - television - is always making room for the most hysterical (right wing) voices and moderate voices are ignored? Hard to say. It probably does not include democracy, though.