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.