Ann Coulter is obviously off her medication again, why do these "news" programs have her on anyway? who is she? all she does is spew hate filled craziness. why does this woman warrant so much t.v. air-time and space in the newspapers? i notice she is never quoted saying anything remotely sane, she is just a publicity hound.

CHRIS CUOMO (co-host): Some tough words for you by the three top candidates in response to what you had said. Some were calling it a homosexual slur, you said it was a taunt. They all came out when you were talking about John Edwards and said, "This was wrong. We must deny it." Fair criticism of you or a shift towards the tolerant among the GOP?

COULTER: No, no. There were -- I was denounced all over. All over. I think the one that hurt the most was from I'mALittleGirlInAPinkPartyDress.com.

CUOMO: Why?

COULTER: Very upsetting.

CUOMO: You --

COULTER: Though about the same time, Bill Maher said -- and by the way, I did not call John Edwards the F-word. I said I couldn't talk about him because you go into rehab for using that word.

CUOMO: You say you were joking.

COULTER: About the same -- oh yeah. I wouldn't insult gays by comparing them to John Edwards. Now, that would be mean. But about the same time, you know, Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.

Maher: What about the people who got onto the Huffington Post – and these weren’t even the bloggers, these were just the comments section – who said they, they expressed regret that the attack on Dick Cheney failed.

Joe Scarborough: Right.

Maher: Now…

John Ridley: More than regret.

Maher: Well, what did they say?

Ridley: They said “We wish he would die.” I mean, it was (?) hate language.

Barney Frank: They said the bomb was wasted. (laughter and applause)

Maher: That’s a funny joke. But, seriously, if this isn’t China, shouldn’t you be able to say that? Why did Arianna Huffington, my girlfriend, I love her, but why did she take that off right away?

After some discussion about why Huffington should or shouldn’t have taken these comments down, the following occurred:

Ridley: It’s one thing to say you hate Dick Cheney, which applies to his politics. It’s another thing to say, “I’m sorry he didn’t die in an explosion." And I think, you know…

Maher: But you should be able to say it. And by the way...

Frank: Excuse me, Bill, but can I ask you a question? Do you decide what the topics are for this show?

Maher: Yeah, I decide the topics, they don’t go there.

Frank: But you exercise control over the show the way that she does over her blog.

Maher: But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow. (applause)

Scarborough: If someone on this panel said that they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say…

Frank: I think he did.

Scarborough: Okay. Did you say…

Maher: No, no. I quoted that.

Frank: You don’t believe that?

Maher: I’m just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.

why do these "news" programs have her on anyway?

Because people are sick of hearing about Paris Hilton and they need a new dumb blonde to fill the airways.

This guy has the right idea:

Bill,

Next time just call Cheney a faggot, for some reason that word is not the least bit offensive and considered a perfectly appropriate name for politicians according to the right wingers.

Actually, Annie serves a very useful purpose -- helping us distinguish the good-hearted conservatives with character apart from the deeply malicious, conscienceless ones.

The deeply malicious ones are the ones who defend her at all costs.  We owe it to her for making the separation of wheat from chaff a much easier task.

I don't know.  I seem to remember Joe Scarborough frowning on it.

But I see your point.  A decent conservative -- let alone a liberal or libertarian -- has a much tougher time getting and keeping a job in the national opinion media.

Slight change of subject:

It's nice to see that Hugh Hewitt, himself a far-righter, holds a very low opinion of Dinesh D'Souza's latest hate-spewing.

Why cant they just put Ann Coulter back working on the street corner like they found her.

Hardliner, I don't read that into Hewitt's column at all.  What he's saying (IMHO) is that yes, we need to hate teh gay and the liberal Hollywood elite are despicable slime (but gimme that blockbuster summer movie anyway) *BUT* just agreeing with the Islamoramofascists won't keep them from killing us all.  Oh, and their idea of America is decades out of date, from the Good Old Days when gays and nigras and wimmin knew their place, dammit.  Hewitt doesn't need the threat of Islamaramadingding to hate libruls, he's got his own reasons. 

.

Sure, he throws a bone towards unity--but that's because the country *IS* unified.  He's just on the wrong side.

Random, you're forgetting that to wander just a step or two off the thin red line of opinion conformity risks being labeled a traitor.

Matt and Pete, just for you (heh), we'll add a strikethru to the RTE, next to bold, italicize and underline.  (Don't ask me when, though, but we'll do it.)

But re: your suggestion, the RTE does have 6 fonts in a pull-down menu, plus a size menu and a format menu, plus a color palette and the aforementioned styles (bold etc.).  What else did you want?  :)