Mundanely Profound

Sigh. I'm very busy writing papers, so I probably should not dedicate myself to bashing conservative high school aquaintances.

Or at least I shouldn't bash them so thoroughly, going point by point on their post.

It's just if you follow the link to Lyon's post you'll see that equating Coulter and Franken is a strong belief of his. And honestly if someone of any political persuasion becomes more than casually familiar with Franken's work, and reach the conclusion "Oh, he's just the liberal Ann Coulter.", then that upsets me, because it indicates a dismissal of political dialogue that can include sharp satire, friendly debates and discussions, and an apolitical humor that indicates a personality beyond yelling and demonizing their opponents. There are meaner liberals out there, such as Lyon's friend Ward Churchill and Mike Malloy, a fire-breathing late night radio talk show host which I admit is a guilty pleasure for me to listen to sometimes, but will be more difficult to take seriously once Democrats get some hold on power.

If you want to view liberal talk radio as the opposite of conservative talk radio, and say that Franken is the "liberal Rush Limbaugh", then fine. Both have different things going on in their shows, but they do have to remain partisan in their own unique way and keep a show giving the audience what they want for 3 hours. But Ann Coulter is a whole other animal. As my links have shown she is incredibly dishonest in an escalated way, where instead of bending malleable truths she creates ones, and not primarily to promote a conservative viewpoint, but to give flimsy backing to her neo-Nazi rhetoric against liberals and liberal journalism. Compare her malvoelence and her outright lying to Franken's gentle ribbing and factual analysis, and you can see they aren't the same partisans. The fact that Coulter is a popular attack dog for the right (and according to Time magazine a legitimate political figure now) while the few equivalent partisans on the left hardly have a voice is, if anything, an indication of what type of ideological spokesperson hardcore conservatives are willing to prop up.

Yeah, so that's what I have for tonight.