Reliable Sources – about the 1/11/09 ‘episode’

Written : Jan. 18, 2009

Please forgive me because I have to admit to being tickled when liberals, reporters, and/or pundits get angry over Ann Coulter. It’s like the laugh I feel the need to suppress when “Bush Derangement Syndrome” occurs. This is when a supposedly neutral reporter, pundit, or pontificator gets very angry at President George W. Bush. They seem to hate him and insult him verbally with unjustifiable venom and vigor. “Bush Derangement Syndrome” is a phrase which was apparently coined recently by the conservative genius Charles Krauthammer. However, people don’t generally get as red faced over Coulter as they do over George W. Bush.

Although it’s the fairest news program on CNN by a long shot, I had an issue with (and a laugh over) last week’s Reliable Sources program which is hosted by Howard Kurtz. By the way, Howard Kurtz is fair at least 90% of the time (that’s unscientific of course), and so he’s almost completely believable in my eyes. His panel of Frank Sesno, Mark Feldstein, and Alicia Shepard were about as fair as they could be when they discussed Ann Coulter’s supposed ban from the Today Show on NBC. That is, until Sesno went off about her mention of “B. Hussein Obama”. One could tell Sesno wanted to go absolutely crazy on this subject, but all he said was that it was “amazing”. It’s hilarious to see a serious newsman start to go obviously ballistic and then, kudos to him, restrain himself completely.

The issue of saying the full version, “Barack Hussein Obama”, and watching people get angry is especially funny to me for some reason. Perhaps it’s because I was taught in my life (by liberals) that getting upset over words is silly. My parents taught me that old nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me”, and emphasized it many times. The “B. Hussein…” phrase has delighted and was highlighted over the last year or so especially by Sean Hannity on the now defunct FOX show “Hannity and Colmes”. During many of those shows Sean would say it, much to the chagrin of his co-host, Alan Colmes and other libs. They all thought it was quite the insult, they’d get so visually upset, and then Sean would explain that, well, we say “John Fitzgerald Kennedy”, “Lyndon Baines Johnson”, etc., so what’s wrong with saying “Barack Hussein Obama”? He was absolutely right, of course. But, liberals got so frustrated by this – until of course, the O’ man himself said he’d use his middle name during the swearing in ceremony on inauguration day, Jan. 20, 2009. That made their anger over it ultimately ironic, nevertheless it’s still makes me chuckle.

Mark Feldstein ultimately revealed his true political position when he said, “I’d trust NBC over Coulter”. (No conservative would ever say that, nor should any moderate.) I believe he inferred the words ‘any day’ but as I recall, he didn’t actually say them. He did say that Coulter is (in the future) not “entitled to a megaphone whenever she wants”, which is akin to saying that conservatives are not entitled to voice their opinions whenever they want over the airwaves. Liberals are the first to say they hate censorship. Whatever. They’re only against it when it’s censorship against liberals. When it’s censorship against conservatives, well, that’s ok.

I used to get irritated over Ann Coulter myself, but I’ve come to realize that she’s taking the jabs at liberals that most of us don’t have the guts to. She takes what the liberal media does to conservatives and turns it on its head! She’s occasionally over the top, but she’s funny, sarcastic, different, and she’s actually correct many times. As we conservatives have to do when we listen to Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert, liberals should really try a sense of humor when it comes to Ann Coulter.