Why I Would Date Keith Olbermann...

Hello all!

I've decided it's probably better not to publicly post about my real love life. It hurts feelings, engenders anger and mistrust and tends to scare away potential future dates, who fear our private lives may end up in this public forum. While I don't think I've gotten that personal in my posts about the guys I've actually dated (as opposed to the guys who have just written stupid things to me from dating sites,) from here on out, I will be confining my dating posts to commentary on people I haven't actually met...those are funnier anyway. In addition, I think I've been writing too much about my own navel...meaning, there are so many things going in the world today that are more important than whether or not some boy likes me. (Not to worry though, I'm still open to publicly mocking mean or rude idiots who send me stupid emails, without even knowing me.)

In other news, I just read a post on Miss Kitty's blog called, "ann coulter is hate-filled." That she is. Miss Kitty's post reminded me that I want to share with you all a "news" segment I saw on television the other night about Ann Coulter.

Ann Coulter, for those of you who don't know of her, is a right-wing pundit. She shows up on news talk-shows whenever Bush needs defending (or spanking, like when he nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court) or when there is a chance to criticize the Democrats for something. While she has plenty to do defending Bush these daze, there are few targets for her wrath on the Left at the moment...mostly because so few of them are powerful enough to be relevant enough to bother attacking (although I certainly hope that changes in November.)

In searching for targets of her venom, she has recently published a book that spews much of it at the out-spoken widows of 9/11, who have consistently fought for improving our National Security since the day they lost their husbands to the terrorists who smashed through a chink in that security. I actually think her point is well taken that 9/11 happened to all of us, and that the fact these women have suffered more personally from it doesn't make their positions infallible, any more than losing someone in a war means yours is the only valid point of view on the topic. However, she loses even the most conservative ideologues when she moves beyond that particular point into personally attacking the widows and their right to speak out. She suggests that these women should leave it to the journalists and the politicians, as their status as widows doesn't make them qualified to speak on such important topics as National Security.

What Coulter fails to acknowledge is that their status as citizens of this nation does qualify them...or at least gives them the right and some may argue the responsibility to stand up for their beliefs...just as both Coulter and I have the right to disagree with them or with each other because we're citizens too. Coulter is actually quite bright and articulate, but her political agenda, predictably, has once again led her to crash headlong into a big fat impolitic mess. Last week, when she started pushing her new book, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism, on the circuit, her nasty attacks on these women created a public outcry (and probably a spike in the sales of her book.)

Of all the people who commented on Coulter's malevolent rants, my favorite was a brief segment about her on Countdown with Keith Olbermann last Wednesday, June 7th. I really like Olbermann. He's funny, bright and not a partisan hack. In the article by Liz Halloran, "Making Sport Of It All," that ran last March in the Hartford Courant, he was quoted as saying:

"No matter what your political orientation is, if you don't stick up for freedom of all opinion, eventually the wheel will turn, you'll be the minority and you'll have written the rules by which you yourself are squashed."

You can't really argue with that...well you could, but I wouldn't agree with you. So, he's pretty cool and, as cable news shows go, his is one of the more entertaining ones. That being said, it's also one of the more informative, since he spends more time reporting the news and less time pontificating about it...and when he does throw in his two to five cents, I usually agree with him. Oh yeah, and he ends each show by telling the audience how many daze it's been since the President announced "Mission Accomplished." (I didn't say he doesn't have a point of view, I just said he isn't a hack about it.)

Anyway, here is the transcript of his Ann Coulter segment from June 7th:

KEITH OLBERMANN: Also here, Ann Coulter, the shrill, shill of the right has evidently run her mouth one too many times.  Outrage pours in across the country.  There have been complaints from everybody except the predators they caught on “Dateline.” 

(OTHER NEWS ITEMS)

KEITH OLBERMANN: Ann Coulter takes her cold condemnation of 9/11 widows to an unexpected high and low.

(OTHER HEADLINES AND A COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OLBERMANN: Honestly, if you were Ann Coulter's attorneys at a sanity hearing, where could you possibly start?  Our No. 2 story in the COUNTDOWN, eclipsing even Bill O'Reilly and Malmedy, the Connecticut screech has continued her assault on 9/11 widows.  After calling them "witches who acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them."  She's now told Reuters News they are, quote, “professional victims,” all as part of the promotion of a book in which she claims liberals are, quote, “godless.” 

(Video Clip starts in mid-interview between MATT LAUER, HOST OF THE TODAY SHOW and ANN COULTER, CONSERVATIVE SYNDICATED COLUMNIST...I've added the start of the 9/11 widows conversation for context.

LAUER: All right...on the 9/11 widows, and in particular, a group that had been outspoken and critical of the administration:

"These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently denouncing Bush was an important part of their closure process." )

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, AS SEEN ON COUNTDOWN)

MATT LAUER (CONT'): And this part is, is the part I really need to talk to you about:

"These broads are millionaires lionized on TV and in articles about them reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by "grief-arazzis." I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."

ANN COULTER: Yes.

LAUER: Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: ...To speak out using the fact that they're widows. This is the left's doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9/11 Commission—about how to fight the war on terrorism—how about sending somebody we're allowed to respond to? No, no we always have to respond to someone who just had a family member die...

LAUER: But aren't they the people in the middle of the story?

COULTER: ...Because then if we respond, "Oh you're questioning their authenticity." No the story is...

LAUER: So, "grieve, but grieve quietly"...?

COULTER: ...No, the story is an attack on the nation...

LAUER: And by the way...

COULTER: ...That requires a foreign policy response...  That does not entail the expertise...

LAUER: ...And by the way, they also criticized the Clinton administration for their failures leading up to 9/11.

COULTER:  That...oh...not, not the ones I'm talking about.

LAUER: No they have.

COULTER: No, no, no. Oh no, no, no, no.

LAUER: But is your message to them, "Just grieve" ...?

COULTER: No, no they were cutting commercials for Kerry. They were using their grief in order to make a political point, while preventing anyone from responding.

LAUER: So, if you lose a husband, you no longer have the right to have a political point of view?

COULTER: No, but don't use the fact that you lost a husband as the basis for your being able to talk about it while preventing people from responding. Let Matt Lauer make the point...let Bill Clinton make the point. Don't put up someone I'm not allowed to respond to, without questioning the authenticity of their grief.

LAUER: Well, but apparently, you are allowed to respond to them.

COULTER: Well, yeah I did.

(END COUNTDOWN VIDEO CLIP)

(Here, again for context, I've included the end of the LAUER/COULTER interview, although it was not included in the clip shown on Countdown:

LAUER: Right, so in other words...

COULTER: But that is the point of liberal infallibility...of putting up Cindy Sheehan, of putting out these widows...of putting out Joe Wilson. No, no, no you can't respond—it's their doctrine of infallibility.

LAUER: But what I'm saying is they've...

COULTER: Somebody else make the argument.

LAUER: I'm saying, I don't think they've ever told you, "You can't respond." So why can't they make their point?

COULTER: Look you're getting testy with me.

LAUER: No I'm not. I just...

COULTER: Ohhh.

LAUER: I think it's, I think it's, I think it's your dramatic statement. "These broads," you know are, are "millionaires stalked by grief-arazzi."

COULTER: You think I shouldn't be able to respond to them.

LAUER: (quoting her book again) "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands deaths so much."

COULTER: They're, they're, yes. They're all over the news.

LAUER: The book is called, Godless: The Church Of Liberalism. Ann Coulter, always fun to have you here.

COULTER: Hey where's Katie? Did she leave or something?

LAUER: She did. 7:17am. And now here's Ann.)

(BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

KEITH OLBERMANN: Let's return to this planet. To recap Coulter's argument, the wives of those who died in the worst attack in this nation's history enjoyed their husbands' deaths and profited off them. They have publicized 9/11...their positions as widows immunize them from any criticism or debate over their opinions...all of this stated by a commentator, much of whose income in the last four-and-a-half years has derived from her speaking and writings about the deaths of those same men on 9/11...all this stated by a commentator who staunchly, repeatedly, and enthusiastically defended an administration that began to politicize 9/11 within a month of the nightmare, and has never paused for a moment since...all of this stated by a commentator who has called those who have criticized her and her party "un-American" and now "godless"...all of this stated by a commentator who is bitching that these 9/11 widows can't be criticized, while she is writing a book and going on TV and venomously criticizing them. 

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP OF COULTER ON THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON)

COULTER: If people are going to use a personal tragedy in their lives to inject themselves into a national debate, I'm sorry, you can't say, "Oh, we're off limits. Oh, now we're going to invoke the fact that our husbands died and you can't criticize us." They were specifically using their husbands' deaths and there were, gosh, hundreds...

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST OF THE SITUATION WITH TUCKER CARLSON (duh): That doesn't mean they are enjoying it. 

COULTER: ...In fact thousands.

CARLSON: I mean, their husbands are gone, and kids are there. I mean, geez, it's so depressing.

COULTER: And so are the thousands of widows who are not cutting campaign commercials for Clinton. These women got paid, they ought to take their money and shut up about it. 

(END VIDEO CLIP, BACK TO KEITH OLBERMANN)

OLBERMANN: The way Ann Coulter always does when she's criticized. Ms. Coulter's monthly walk on the swaying tightrope of her own emotional stability did not end there. In her book she also wrote:

“And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies. Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”

OLBERMANN (CONT'): Appearing in Playboy and getting divorced, neither of those being scenarios Ann Coulter is ever going to have to deal with in her life. Five of the most politically active of the 9/11 widows, including Kristen Breitweiser and Lorie Van Auken have responded in a written statement:

“Contrary to Ms. Coulter's statement, there was no joy in watching men that we loved burn alive. There was no happiness in telling our children that their fathers were never coming home again. We adored these men and miss them everyday. It is in their honor and memory, that we will once again refocus the nation's attention to the real issues at hand:  Our lack of security, leadership, and progress in the five years since 9/11.”

OLBERMANN (CONT'): And lastly back to my illusion about the nightmare of having to defend Ann Coulter at a sanity hearing... that was inappropriate, because that was insufficient. Imagine, in fact, defending her on Judgment Day...trying to find her soul.

Funny, smart, kinda cute and not a Republican...I'd date him.

Speaking of funny, I have to leave you with this picture I found while I was looking up quotes for this post. It's the "Ann Coulter Talking Action Figure!" OMFG, it's hilarious...gotta love it! 

Just what every little girl needs—indoctrination!

She says 14 different phrases, including:

"Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of   our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race."

"At least when right-wingers rant, there's a point."

"Swing voters are more appropriately known as the 'idiot voters,' because they have no set of philosophical principles."

"By the age of fourteen, you're either a Conservative or a Liberal if you have an IQ above a toaster."

"Why not go to war just for oil? We need oil. What do Hollywood celebrities imagine fuels their private jets? How do they think their cocaine is delivered to them?"

"Liberals hate America, they hate flag-wavers, they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam, post 9/11. Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like Liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now."