When words are cheap

Ann Coulter, awarded
the Bronze Chicken for
meritorious insults to
widows and war veterans

Ann Coulter rolled over on George Carlin and Jay Leno, no amateurs at taming drunks, on Wednesday. As is to be expected.

Peter Daou is asking why does the media tolerate her cowardly visciousness.

They always do.

Charles Lindburgh had to attack the Jews in public.

Fr. Coughlin ranted well into WWII, until the Church shut him up

Walter Winchell kept ranting until he went too far with Josephine Baker.

These kinds of people usually self-destruct in the end, and Ann Coulter will end up alone and a relic of the past.

But the people who say she should be ignored are wrong, and here's why: as long as her words go unchallenged, she will continue to debase and cheapen them.

More importantly, the overarching meme of the right is that the left is weak and feckless. When you don't respond, you encourage them. They don't expect a response. They are bullies and they expect weakness. They do not expect strength.

Coulter will falter the day someone challenges her, an Iraq War vet, mocks her words and then walks away. You cannot expect to challenge her with outrage. Just contempt and ridicule. Leaving her with only scorn as a comeback.

But until then, you have to challenge her, keep the pressure up, make sure no word she writes goes unchallenged. Coulter is a human blitzkrieg of words, but they mean nothing. Joe Conason tried to make an issue of her sex life, but it came off wrong, leering. That can only be done by a woman, who nails her hypocrisy.

The key to dealing with Coulter is to throw her off balance, then ridicule her ideas.

"Divorce? At least they had husbands to divorce, unlike you, Ann. Too busy insulting widows to have your own family? Jealous of their happiness?"

She expects to debate ideas, not her choices, and to be taken seriously. The next time she goes off, people have to debate her and ridicule what she writes. They have to stop letting her get under the skin, while not ignoring her. Coulter has worked extremely hard to be taken seriously, and hell, Chris Matthews wanted to talk about her looks. Diminishing her is the way to send her to oblivion.