The Issue is NOT Elizabeth vs. ann coulter.

[MarianJack]

That was a loss for coulter as soon as she spoke to Elizabeth. She was the unarmed "person" in a battle of wits.

The issue is, as it has been for longer than I care to torture myself to remember, our lazy, incompetent, corrupt and complicit "news" media.

This week Dick Lugar, a republican senator who would be a likely Secretary of State in a sane republican administration, broke publicly with this twice un-elected criminal of a president over his catastrophic war. He was cheered on by 2 other republicans including John Warner, who is hardly a foreign policy slouch himself. We also saw the vice-president boldly and publicly wipe his ass with the Constitution to cover up his lies and law breaking

What have the big stories been the past few days?

Paris Hilton, a steroid fiend wrestler murdering his family and himself and Elizabeth vs. ann the man.

Disgusting.

I am usually the most critical of the CBS Morning "News", which should be called the morning comedy show instead. This week however, I have to tee off on Meredeth Viera. She who paraphrased Gerald Ford to refer to paris hilton's release from jail as "our long national nightmare is over". Even if said tounge-in-cheek, this was irresponsible. This morning, she barely held her own as Vince McMahon espoused that the problem with Chris Benoit was NOT steroids.

What makes coulter's recent exposure so detestable is that ALL responsible news outlets now know that this "woman" brings NOTHING to the table. She is compelled to raise the level of shrill venom to try to keep herself in the headlines. It seems that the media feels a need to lift the rock high enough for ann coulter to crawl out when they have to cover up bad news for president moron.

I don't buy the argument that they present what the public wants to see. A responsible media shows the public what is really going on.

During the Vietnam war, the public didn't want to see a Vietnamese girl running down the road naked as napalm burned her skin off. They did not want to see a South Vietnamese officer blow a Vietcong's brains out. They saw it anyway and became outraged.

During the Civil Rights movement, the public didn't want to see Blacks being fire hosed or Freedom Riders being beaten. They saw it anyway and became outraged.

Celebrity news was what filled in the few seconds between weather and sports.

The past few days have made or reconfirmed 3 points to me.

1. WE have to be the media. What we have now is an international embarrassment.

2. I will wait until voting actually begins to consider the race for the nominations over.

3. I had been leaning toward HRC because I considered her to be the only D willing to fight the rw moron punditry. ChicaAzul and I are now looking HARD at the Edwards campaign.

I look forward to the day when we will be able to get responsible news coverage from more than a former sportscaster and 2 comedians. I'm 52. I hope I live to see it.

PEACE!