Roger Ailes wrote last Monday about schlock jock Howard Kurtz’s penetrating interview with Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame. Congdon, we learn, is young, hot and fond of brevity. Kurtz, we learn, is none of these things, although he confesses to being one of them some years ago.
On the same show, and succinctly covered by the same Roger Ailes, Kurtz interviewed the unfortunately imitable Tom “Six Months” Friedman, out and about on a day pass from The Home For Shell-Shocked Pundits.
And on the same show still, Kurtz moderated a discussion on the hypnotic appeal of professional bigot and indiscriminate violence advocate Ann Coulter. Participating were Kurtz, legacy pundit Jonah Goldberg, the New Republic’s Michelle Cottle and Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty.
Time, of course, did a cover feature on the impossibly leggy Coulter not too long ago. Kurtz began the discussion with a video clip showing hard-hitting Today Show journalist Matt Lauer questioning Coulter about her characterization of women widowed in the 911 attacks as harpies reveling in their husbands’ deaths — absent Lauer’s parting remark: “Always fun to have you here” — and asked Tumulty what she thought of her magazine’s decision to feature Coulter.
TUMULTY: I think she also very shrewdly recognizes that the level of discourse now has become so loud and so angry that you have to go that much further over the top than you did the last time to get anybody to listen to you.KURTZ: … screaming to be heard. But of course, in terms of attention, it’s not just television. “Time” magazine did a long cover story on Ann Coulter last year, got a lot of flack for that.
TUMULTY: We got thousands and thousands and thousands of letters. Mostly in protest over that cover story and guess what? The cover that’s gotten the most letters since then was the one we did on the Dixie Chicks.
KURTZ: Why do you think that — why give Ann Coulter that kind of prominence, a cover story usually reserved for, let’s say more important people.
TUMULTY: Well, again —
COTTLE: It sells.
TUMULTY: And she’s, you know, she’s a phenomenon. I mean we do cover stories on all sorts of phenomenons and like I said, most recently on the Dixie Chicks, same kind of reaction.
KURTZ: Are you struck by the fact that a number of prominent conservatives this time have turned to Ann Coulter and said that she went too far and that her remarks were despicable.
COTTLE: I’m not sure that you need to be struck by it. She has set the bar so high for getting attention for herself that she has to say something that everyone else has to be horrified by. And if you’re Bill O’Reilly or someone along those lines, if you don’t come out and say oh my gosh, what’s going on, then you run the risk of having your entire movement viewed through this prism of this woman who will say what everyone in their most horrible moment would never whisper aloud.
KURTZ: Or she becomes viewed, if people don’t protest, is like a typical conservative commentator.
COTTLE: Absolutely.
And there it is. Coulter’s sociopathic approach to the issues of our day is entertaining, profitable and, by golly, necessary to make herself heard over the din of all the other hatemongers. She generates letters. She’s the equivalent of the Dixie Chicks, with their murderous embarrassment at hailing from the same state as the president and their chutzpah in outselling Coulter by various factors of ten. But let’s return to the video.
KURTZ: Bottom line, are media organizations willing to say there is a line in discourse and we won’t interview people who make fun of widows who lost their husbands in a monstrous act of terrorism or do media organizations, simply unwilling to do that because they like good television and they like good cover stories and so forth.COTTLE: Yes, option B and what they will do…
KURTZ: Isn’t that embarrassing to you as a member of this profession?
COTTLE: They will say this is so shocking we can’t believe it, roll the tape.
KURTZ: It’s like Janet Jackson’s breast. They’ll play it 500 times. Everybody can be shocked but meanwhile…
COTTLE: So you’ll all be appalled at how horrible it is.
And now, Ann is the equivalent of a nipple; mmmmmm, nourishing. Suck on that. You’ll note that no one answers the question of whether the perpetual willingness to provide Coulter a platform bothers the folks who do it. And of course Kurtz is doing the same damn thing all the while, playing the clip of Coulter and Lauer, playing the clips of other television personalities reacting to that clip and hosting yet more personalities reacting to the reaction. What we have here is an entire class of people voluntarily serving as Coulter’s dildoes.
You’d be hard pressed to find a better 30 minutes of press porn. All hail Howie.
legacy pundit
ha ha ha
AC’s an ass.
Tumulty’s proven herself to be one, too.
Why care about AC’s opinions? Did anyone care what Eva B. thought?
Coulter has the moral authority of a germ. The less thought given to her, the better off we all are!
MSM – Ignore her!!!
Let her opine in the vacuum. She’ll hate that!
If a shrew screams in an empty forest, can anyone hear IT?????
I’m sorry, did I just hear some noise?
So if I go on TV advocating the rounding up of liberals into concentration camps, and exterminating them with gas, and maybe offering up their children for human sacrifice, hey! I’m just trying to be heard above the media din and I’d make a swell guest on television!
In a decent society filled with mature people, Ms. Coulter would get the same amount of attention as any other six year old engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct solely to get attention — none.
But Amuurrrikka is full of 3.5 million fat, lazy, deliberately ignorant Survivor watchers who themselves are cases of arrested development.
It is no wonder that this country has become a laughing stock. When discourse ceases and the airwaves and print “media” are taken up by shrill, childish name calling and endless finger pointing and nya nyaing, suitable only for six year olds (and that frankly, may be shortchanging six year olds) it is easy to see why civilized people everywhere more and more view Ammurriikans as spoiled, cruel, selfish children.
Some may not care. But the way others perceive you determines how they will treat you.
Unfortunately, Ms. Coulter, rather than being ignored as she should, is given access to every forum imaginable and a voice everywhere as a “pundit”. (Setting aside Ms. Coulter’s generous and unattributed use of the copyrighted works of others)
This does not reflect well on Amurrikka…principally because most of the world has grown up while the Amuurriikkan people have remained stagnant and immature.
Shame on us
This comment, right off the bat, lets you know what sort of whoring is being committed here:
TUMULTY: I think she also very shrewdly recognizes that the level of discourse now has become so loud and so angry that you have to go that much further over the top than you did the last time to get anybody to listen to you.
Um, Karen dear?
ANN COULTER AND HER ENABLERS IN THE PRESS — of which YOU are one — ARE THE ONES SET THE DAMNED DISCOURSE LEVEL ON ‘LOUD’ IN THE FIRST PLACE! It didn’t ‘just happen’ to be loud — you clowns MADE it loud, and the only reason you’re whining now is because the non-whores are fighting back for a change.
But then, as always when discussingthe long-standing US press whoredom for The Man, we must go back to Upton Sinclair for the root cause.
The first thing that I thought of while I was watching Lauer’s interview with Coulter (well, right after “Oh great, now I have to go shower again!”) was “unbelievable, the Today show is trying to start a food fight between Coulter and the 9/11 widows, whom I’m sure some producer is contacting right now to line up a rebuttal interview that’ll really smoke the ratings.” Unfortunately, I can’t give my mind a shower.
I continue to be amazed at how these corporate media types continue to give Ann Coulter protection by making ridiculous comparisons to others. No, Karen Tumulty, the Dixie Chicks are not analogous to Ann Coulter. The Dixie Chicks’ lead singer made one off the cuff remark about being ashamed to be from the same state as Bush. Nothing else. No hateful, sick remarks that Ann Coulter specializes in.
The other ridiculous analogy is that Ann Coulter is “like” Michael Moore. If Moore had said the sort of things Coulter did, he’d be run out of the nation on a rail. The closest analogy one can think of is Ann Coulter equals Ward Churchill, but even there, Churchill’s one comment about 9/11 victims is about the only thing of a sick nature that the fellow appears to have said–and he was just a small time college prof outed by the conservative corporate media, not someone who gets Time magazine front page suck up coverage.
Howard Kurtz’s penetrating interview with Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame. Congdon, we learn, is young, hot
Did you mean this comment to have the implication it does or do I just have a dirty mind?
Anyway — agreeing with Mitchell Freedman: what is the deal with equating Moore with Coulter? Michael Moore has been proven right about many fundamental things (remember he predicted we would need to have a new “cold war” over 10 years ago?). Why are certain people so wont to dismiss Moore? Because he is “low class” (an honest discussion of classism being the third rail of American politics — indeed, call me paranoid, but notice MLK wasn’t bumped off until he started widening his cause from ending racism to addressing the issues of a social class system of which racism was just one part?)? Because he is right and “right is the new wrong” and “wrong is the new right” (e.g. look at how those who were wrong about Iraq are still celebrated as “at least being serious about defending our country” while those who were right are still dismissed)?
What’s the deal here? It’s very bad for our country, ya know — the whole point of a liberal democracy is so the best ideas win out. But if bad thinking is what gets rewarded in our political culture, we will simply slide into mediocrity and dictatorship — unless that’s the idea …
The passive voice. She ‘needs to be say something outrageous to be heard.’ A representative of Time magazine says nothing about its active decision whether or not to feature her. It’s just passive. Lying there. Hearing. Hearing the most outrageous comment.
Let’s just designate our major media’s sense of their journalistic duty as, ‘passive invertebrate.’
DAS: well, first we have Janet Jackson’s breast and then a minute later we have the young, hot Amanda Congdon in a T-shirt. I think Howie had a theme in mind.
Mitchell, PW: yeah. Equivalencies ‘R’ Us. And where do they get this? From Rush and his ilk. FemiNazis, etc. Mainstream, baybee.
Garry: One word: Scotchgard.
Jon: Thanks.
(Not ignoring anyone else, just nothing sensible to add.)
The MSM in America is ALL Tabloid Press.No Substance Just the Glitz.It’s Showmanship All MSM has Gone Hollywood.Our CBC in Canada has at least 9 foriegn Journalists reporting from varied Places in the world.How many Foriegn Reporters do the US MSM have???CBC is Public Owned and it has Cross Country Coverage and it reports on the views from ALL Parts of Canada so we get a Broad View of the Country’s Problems.We Don’t have alot of Glitz here in Canada but we do have Substance and many great journalists.
yAP yAP yAP When are you Americans going to FIX your US FED private off-shore bank problem?