The point I am trying to make on the Coulter article is this: Democrats have put up with that stuff for years. Corporate America and the Republican party choose to give her and a whole bunch of other right wing radicals a prominent place in the public dialogue - a bunch of them have even been allowed to broadcast their hate-radio shows from the White House itself. For years they have attempted to make the term "liberal" synonmous with the way the Hitler used the term "jew".

Now it upsets people that Democrats are beginning to respond in kind. Too fu*king bad. They want to play the game that way, thats the way it is going to be played. If these people are going to be treated as "mainstream" and are the featured opinion makers of the right wing media, its about time Democrats fought back. We didn't start this $hit.

do even republicans give coulter any credibility any more? It seems that the more she has been marginalized and dismissed the more she has turned up her rhetoric.

USA Today hired her to cover the Dems and Moore to cover the Repubs. She submitted this column and they fired her.

She's on Fox all the time. Clear Channel runs Savage all over the country at drive time, a guy who stops just short of calling for firing squads for liberals. He no longer stops short of calling for mass arrests of Democrats. Every democrat in this country should listen to that guy - and see where this is headed. Bush lets guys like Mike Gallegher, a Savage-clone radio host who called for the complete cancellation of the November elections, to broadcast right from the White House. They are mainstreaming hate. It has become poison for this country, and while these people were rising to prominence I heard no Republican *****. The Democrats waited for years for them to put a muzzle on these guys, and instead they have turned the entire hate machine into the GOP propaganda machine.

This morning, Pat Gray, the local Houston Savage-wannabe literally said on the air that Democrats were allied with terrorists. And people are wondering why Dems are upset? I am telling you man, if you are a progressive, you have no idea what is going on out there with these people. Take a minute to give them a listen. Its time for us to fight back.

Even by Coulter's standards, that column sucks. I wonder whether she was sober when she wrote it. I have never heard anything to suggest that she has any substance abuse issues, but that article appears to have been written by a person under the influence of alcohol. Why else would she think that anyone would find the article funny?

Here, look at this guy, a real Mouth of the South, Neil Boortz, saying the Democrats are just as much of a threat as Bin Laden:

BOORTZ: Frankly I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out who is a greater threat to this country and I -- I don't -- I don't ask this question or make this statement for the purpose of saying something outlandish that you will repeat at lunch or dinner today. It's not why I'm doing this. But there's two different groups of people out there that present a threat to this country. Well there's many different groups. But I'm just singling out two different groups of people right now that present a threat to this country, and frankly I just cannot tell you which one presents the greater threat. One group of people: Osama bin Laden and his Islamic terrorists. The Islamic jihadists. The other group of people: those of you who would vote for John Kerry. And both groups present a threat to our safety and a threat to our future. A threat to our freedoms and a threat to our economic liberty.

And again I'm not saying this for effect. I mean this. I can not make up my mind which group is most dangerous. I can't. Because those of you, out there, who would vote for John Kerry for president of the United States, I have -- I deeply, deeply, feel that you present a danger to this country. To our freedoms. To our very safety. And to our future. Just as the Islamic terrorists do. And I hope you know what in the hell you're doing, but frankly I doubt it very, very seriously.

Here's Mr. Savage on the ACLU:

The ACLU is the most dangerous organization in the history of America. They should be closed down under RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] Statutes. Now we invited the ACLU of Michigan on The Savage Nation, they refused to come on the show. We invited the New York office, and the Washington, D.C. office ... on The Savage Nation, these big-mouthed, phony scum of the ACLU, who should be rounded up, arrested for sedition. Their property seized, and they should be put into Abu Ghraib prison as far as I'm concerned. That wouldn't be enough of what I'd like to see done to the ACLU. They're the worst vermin America has ever tolerated. The worst vermin in the history of America are the vermin in the ACLU. They've broken the crosses off war memorials. They attack everything to do with Christianity. But the Muslim prayers are just fine. I wrote about it in The Enemy Within. All Religions are attacked except one.

Gee, I thought it was funny in a Dr Demento sort of way. But WTF, I like Hunter Thompson too, so there you go.


Bauers, I believe that you believe what you say.

B

It just shows that rightwing hate sells. Have you ever actually tried to read one of her books? They all sound like that. Nevermind the politics, the stuff is written so poorly its unreadable, yet she sells tons of books to people who want to read stream-of-conciousness hate. This is going beyond politics. There is a group on the far right who are barely stopping short advocating violence and mass arrests against Democrats. They are also the people who are actually running the Republican party grassroots operations now. The whole thing is sickening, and everyone needs to be aware of it.

...in comparison to the honest, moral, calm, sober, decent Democrats of any sort.

Like F911 right?

I'm now reading through the time period at the end of Clinton and early 2001. This is where the analysis is really tedious. There is an awful lot of contrdictory oral evidence presented without any written supporting documents. Some of these differences in memory are darned important, too. This is not restricted to either administration. I think the conclusions that readers will reach depends an awful lot on what readers believe about the individuals going into it.

For example if you think (Bush, Clinton, Berger, Rice) is (honest, lying, deceptive, forthright) then you will see the lack of supporting documentation according to that view.

To me, this is a terrible shortcoming of the most important records on the planet. People in policy positions should have permanent records of what was said and by whom. Even if its embarrassing. But I guess thats too much to expect of frail humans put in positions of incredible power and responsibility.

SO FAR! The biggest deficiency attributable to a single attitude is the total stovepiping of information. It is terribly inhibitive of creative thinking to restrict raw data. From a security standpoint, stovepiping is great--it allows the control of info so that "Need to Know" trumps everything. This keeps bad people from data grazing and it keeps idle curiosity from distributing information. But its horrible for analysis.

The result was that each intelligence agency has its own sources, archival methods, databases and analysis for its own purposes. Nobody has access to all of the data from all agencies. It would be impossible, for example, to Boolian search for --> "Osama Bin Laden" OR "Al Queda" AND "Threat" <-- through all potential data sources. Partly because of legal issues and partly just plain old turf wars. Finally, even if you could perform such a search, you'd miss data because of the multiple spellings for arabic names. Unlike Chinese which has a standard translation lexicon, arabic does not. Usama, Osama, Al Quida, al Qeda, Al Queda, etc. are all found in gov sources.

The danger of consolidating management and resources is that the problem of group-think increases dramaticly under centralization. That's the source of merit and how advancement in bureaucracies always works. Good luck changing THAT!

Bot

Okay, to name, names: I think Ashcroft comes across as, "The Weakest Link" in the Bush administration and Berger in Clintons. In both cases, good chances of disrupting Al Queda were possibly missed.

Ashcroft seems not to have wanted to be bothered with Al Queda--allowing the FBI counterterrosim effort to be underfunded and the FBI itself not specifically tasked to sleeper cell detection as a priority. In testimony, Ashcroft contradicted the acting FBI director who made this claim but neither could offer evidence to support their claims. To me, the acting director was more credible. But then, I think Ashcroft sucks, so there you go.

In contrast, Berger believed that Al Queda was a real, murderous threat but demanded very high standards for covert or military action against it.

In Berger's case, we apparently had a pretty good idea where Bin Laden was from live Predator film but he (Berger) wouldn't allow action unless the target could be gauranteed to be correct (was Bin laden in fact) and in place when the cruise missles arrived in a couple hours. He (Berger) feared lots of non-combatant deaths due to attacks on a soverign, reluctant nation (Afghanistan).

CIA would not sign-off on these restrictions so no attack too place.

Bot

Go see the movie. Not a whole lot of name calling. No body called republicans "Satan's Spawn".

Hey, what's the big deal. May as well be called Rudolf the Red Nosed reindeer fodder, for all it means. Just give'em the ol' KISS tongue-extended grimace.

Beside, Democrats are Satan Spawn. Everybody knows that. Want help? Send me $5 and I'll go into my prayer tower and save your soul.

Call me at BR - 549.

B

I cannot think of any left wingers who are as lame as Coulter and who have achieved her prominence. Can you think of any?

Same with Limbaugh. What left wingers compare to him?

I don't pretend to be objective about this, but the right wing seems more accepting of the type of nonsense peddled by Coulter and Limbaugh. Is it my imagination?