As an actual satirist who always acknowledges Twain as my greatest
influence, I have some thoughts on the Coulter matter. Until now,
they were just written to myself, to let off steam and keep me from
fueling a fire  that lights the stage upon which this horrendous
bigot and oaf spends far too much time. So last week I wrote the
following and thought I'd offer it to this discussion. Here goes:

If she had been the runaway bride, gone to Aruba, abducted Natalie
Halloway, commandeered a cruise ship full of honeymooners and threw
them to the sharks off the Great Barrier Reef, stopped for a photo-op
with Brad, Angelina and the kid before meeting Michael Jackson on a
secret island devoted to pedophelia, Ann Coulter couldn't have gotten
more publicity than she has in the last few weeks.

One of the big mistakes we make is to take the bait again and again
and provide forums for people so insane that they are not deserving
of a second thought – the first being to jaywalk across the street as
soon as we see them coming.

For instance-- six crackpot white supremacists decide to hold a
march. On the average Friday night a lot of us bar-hop with more
people than that. But word gets out about the march and ten thousand
protesters show up. And so because of the ten thousand protesters  --
and not the six nuts --the incident is covered live on four networks.

What we should do with the likes of Ann Coulter or Fred Phelps or the
Grand Exalted Uncle Dad of the Knights of Hatred For the Protection
of the Good Name of Jesus is belittle the hell out of them. But only
if we happen to run into them at random, when we're out barhopping.

Believe me, you couldn't drink enough margaritas to make yourself
stupid enough to lose an argument with these mutants. And once word
gets out, the bars will empty and the hate-mongers will be stomped so
badly that they'll never, ever get the stains out of their sheets.

So enough taking the bait. let's all make a pledge to ignore any
further  publicity for Ann Coulter. She's just Joseph McCarthy in
drag, which is something that only Gay Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn
should have ever seen.

The entire upshot of her latest campaign can be summed up thusly:
it's not fair for people with moral authority to participate in
public discourse concerning crucial matters of the day. It gives them
an unfair advantage over riffraff like Coulter, whose opinions should
be taken as seriously as comeback bids by 70 year-old boxers. People
with exactly zero moral authority should be ignored like the
spiritual rat carcasses that they are.

So Ann, I hope you're reading this because you aren't going to be
sinking any more hooks into my haw. No more distracting me from the
issues raised by valid people like Cindy Sheehan, the Jersey Girls
and Jack Murtha shall occur. You will not keep me from discussing the
crisis we find ourselves because of the evil leaders from whom you
attempt to draw focus.

I hope you get psychiatric treatment. I hope you repent.  But I know
you won't because like a space-walking astronaut with a severed
lifeline, you are too far gone and cannot be retrieved.

No matter what you say, your words will never be as obscene as the
atrocities being committed against the people of the world by the
corporatist fascists you so worship.

Someday you will be buried, just like Joseph McCarthy. And like
McCarthy, you will only be remembered for the vile, un-American
hatred and lies you spewed. And no one will be anything but glad when
you go.
  Your legacy is assured. There is no taking back what you have done
and which side you've been on. A pox of your own making has made you
uglier than any amount of plastic surgery could ever remedy

I don't care if you paint yourself Cheney Orange and torch the
Washington Monument. Enough already. Widow-baiting, mourning mother
bashing, domestic terrorist-endorsing is  enough. You are officially
marginalized.

I don't care how blonde you bleach your hair. That only appeals to
your Aryan base. Go speak to those nuts--just hope I'm not out
drinking with seven of my friends that night because it will end
badly for you.

Your soul is the video version of a Portrait of Dorian Gray. To
reasonable people you don't exist because you have absolutely nothing
to offer. And you will soon evaporate from the public eye and be left
alone in the cesspool of your soul, to decompose with all the noxious
fecal matter that is your stock in trade.

Drink the poison, Eva. It's over.

Barry Crimmins

PS- Loyalty to government when it deserves it.