The mainstream media is sometimes reluctant to have liberal bloggers, who have millions of readers, on TV because they might not be credible. But they bring on Ann Coulter without a moment's hesitation. Let's review some of Coulter's recent statements and at the end you tell me if this sounds like a credible person:
About the wives of 9/11 victims:
If attacked by terrorists, "they would immediately surrender."
On Muslims:
America should "invade their [terrorists'] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
Called legendary journalist Helen Thomas, "That old Arab Helen Thomas." Thomas is of Lebanese descent.
Called Mahmoud Ahmedinejad a "jihadist monkey." Then she followed by generically calling Middle Easterners, "camel jockey[s]" and "tent merchants."
On journalists:
Wished it was true that American journalists were being assassinated in Iraq, "Would that it were so!"
"My only regret with [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."
On President Clinton:
The debate should be "only about whether to impeach or assassinate."
On liberals:
On women:
First of all, just consider if she had said the things she said about Muslims about Jews. That they lacked personal hygiene, that they were camel jockeys, that we should televise their torture as sport, that we should bomb their cities indiscriminately. And imagine if she had said about Barbara Walters, "Oh, that old Jew!"
Other than the fact that just one of those comments would have gotten her banned for life from all the TV networks (although these days I'm not sure, is there anything a conservative can say to lose credibility, just look at the quotes above again), it also would have gotten her the label of neo-Nazi. Actually, to be fair to the neo-Nazis, I'm not sure they're even calling for the indiscriminate murder of Jews or torturing them on television.
In what world is this acceptable language for a so-called "analyst" on a news station? What have we become?
I am not going to get into the details of arguing any of these absurd statements here. They speak for themselves. For comic value though, my favorite is the comment on New Yorkers. She says they would surrender if they were attacked by terrorists. They were attacked by terrorists! I don't remember them surrendering on 9/11.
If a liberal said half the things she said about 9/11 victims, they would have been run out of the country by now.
Maybe if she said one or two of these things and they were taken out of context, she could salvage any shred of credibility, or just simple humanity. Given that she's made all of these comments and 78 other vile comments I didn't bother to get into here, there are only two possibilities:
1.She is kidding on a massive scale. This is one of the biggest put-ons in American history. She is making a fool out of all the mainstream media that take her seriously and introduce her as a real "analyst." She is laughing the hardest at the dumb, ignorant, poor bastards who cheer her on thinking she is a patron saint of hate for the right.
2.She is serious. In which case, why would anyone give her an ounce of legitimacy by putting her on-air anywhere? Every time she goes on someone's station, that station is implicitly stating that they don't think it's that big a deal to call for the assassination of journalists and the indiscriminate murder of Muslim civilians.
Just think about that last one for a second. She advocates the random murder of Muslims and for the ones that haven't been killed or tortured on national television, forcing them to convert to Christianity. If she isn't kidding, she is worse than David Duke. As loathsome a racist as Duke is, he at least doesn't publicly call for the murder of anyone.
And after all this, the cable networks have the nerve to question the credibility of any liberal activists. People who work to bring peace into the world are not credible. But people who call for indiscriminate murder of civilians are credible. What does that say about our society - and, most relevantly, our television networks?
If Ann Coulter has credibility in the eyes of our mainstream media, then the word credibility has no meaning.