Guest Post by Morbo
This week the Carpetbagger asked what it takes for a conservative pundit to achieve pariah status. How about an active campaign to put him or her there?
Ann Coulter’s grotesque attacks on four 9/11 widows will be forgotten next week — unless the progressive community takes a page from the right wing and acts like a pit bull on the pant leg of opportunity.
We have the opportunity. Coulter had made an indefensible statement that most Americans find appalling. Her jugular is exposed. Let’s go for it. Here’s what we need to do: Somebody in the progressive community must pull together some money and launch a campaign to put not just Coulter on the defensive but the entire conservative movement.
What I am proposing is simple: Every conservative columnist, TV pundit, blogger and radio talk-show host should be relentlessly hounded until he or she publicly answers this question: Do you agree with Ann Coulter that four 9/11 widows are grand-standing publicity seekers, that they are “harpies” and “witches” who are glad their husbands are dead?
How do we force the right-wing noise machine to take this seriously? Two or three full-page ads in USA Today and The New York Times should do the trick. You see, the ads themselves become part of the story. Ideally, once the media starts hounding guys like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, John Gibson, Michael Reagan, etc., they will have to say something.
Coulter is a prominent conservative pundit. Thus, if her rhetoric is deemed shocking and offensive, it is incumbent upon conservatives to distance themselves and their philosophy from it. Silence is not acceptable. If they disagree with her, all they need to do is say so.
What I’d like to see is a Web site with a running tally. It will list the conservatives who say they agree with Coulter. It will list those who say they don’t. It will list those who dodge or refuse to answer.
Those who say they don’t agree with her will be asked to back that up by endorsing a short public statement, just so there will be no doubt. They will be asked to affirm that Coulter’s remarks are hurtful and appalling and not welcome in the conservative community.
No quibbling. No equivocation. No gray zones. Coulter said that four 9/11 widows are money-grubbers who are glad their husbands are dead. If Michael Moore said such a thing, I would have no problem publicly signing an ad condemning him for it.
Bill O’Reilly has already criticized Coulter for her comments (though he later regressed and said Coulter raised a “valid point” about the widows). Where are the other conservative voices? This one is a no-brainer. Let them speak out. If they won’t do it spontaneously, it’s up to the progressive community to prod them — and keep score over where everyone stands.
And just so everyone is absolutely clear here, this campaign will not advocate censorship. We will make it clear that Coulter has a constitutional right to say any fool things she likes — but that decent people have the right, indeed an obligation, to stand up and denounce her for it.
I wouldn’t pay a plug nickel for Coulter’s book. But the last thing I want to do is censor it. She has devolved into a one-woman freak show, and I love nothing better than tying her “hate America” rhetoric to the conservatives. It only underscores the intellectual bankruptcy of that movement. I want her to keep talking.
Now for the hard part — paying for those ads. Does anyone have George Soros’ phone number?