sociopath - defn: A person affected with an antisocial personality disorder.
That's what Ann Coulter is,
demonstrated most recently on NBC's
Today Show: (emp add)
Speaking of the 9/11 widows:
These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands'? death so much.
Those words are intended to hurt. Not just the widows, but anybody who has sympathy for them. It's a whole level lower than the standard "You hate America", which, while obnoxious, doesn't tread onto emotional soil.
Another sociopath is the
Rev. Fred Phelps, who goes to protest at funerals for soldiers killed in Iraq (which got the Congress to
pass a law restricting such activities).
And judging from the acid tone of many post over at Powerline, we'd be inclined to say they have the same inclination to hurt, as opposed to insult.
And Limbaugh and Hannity and Savage do much of the same thing.
These are sick people, and any attempt to get
them to change is futile. And those who admire the Coulters of this world are not much different, though the degree of unpleasantness varies and there is some hope of changing their attitudes.
So, who is to blame for this situation? As Eric Alterman has frequently said about Coulter, "Why do we even know who this person is?" We know about Coulter because she is useful to the right wing. She's an extension of Newt Gingrich's campaign to demonize the opposition. So she gets the book deals and radio and television exposure from right wing organizations. Not much you can do about that.
But where the real damage is done is when Coulter appears on the cover of
Time magazine and gets to appear on the
Today Show. There is no excuse for that. While it's true that most people viewing Coulter on NBC were turned off, her mere presence was a stimulus to those who share her hatred. That's the real damage inflicted on this country.
So, what is to be done? The sociopaths and those that love them will always be with us. They have to be marginalized, which is mostly a matter of getting them considered bad company, and that takes time and an attitudinal change by the media bosses. But with Murdoch funding Fox and other media that host these sociopaths, you've got a tough row to hoe.
posted by Quiddity at 6/07/2006 10:22:00 AM
And she's a best-selling author! I sure can't think of a lefty who is anywhere the mainstream who would spill such bile. Yet lefties are often called "haters."
Phelps is a speck in the mediaverse, but Hannity, Limbaugh, Savage, et al have made Coulter's rhetoric acceptable. Entertaining to righties even.
IOKIYAR
I live in a different hemisphere and she is on the cover of time here, we get CNN, Fox, NBC etc. This looks to the rest of the world like mainstream american opinion because its on MSM...
Where I am from left and right are stil as divided as ever but there is a thin veneer of civility missing with some of your commentaters.
last anon: At the time the 9/11 widows were active, there was nobody else out there of stature to challenge Bush. They were a force for the 9/11 commission, something that Bush opposed. It's preferable to have people engaged in a debate who do not have to flash their "emotional credentials", but in the aftermath of 9/11, that situation did not exist. It was all emotion and Bush was using it to his advantage. That needed a counterpoint.
"Uhh... just turn on Air America."
And then what? Air America advocates beating wingnuts with baseball bats? Air America thinks that Timothy McVeigh should have attacked the Washington Times building? What?
