Monumental Misfire

"After O'Reilly wrote in his column he couldn't take a break from his day jobs (radio and TV shows) to visit Darfur, Kristof asked readers on Feb. 7 ($) to pledge the amount of money they'd be willing to spend to send O'Reilly because maybe money, not time, is what's kept the TV host from making the hajj. This jab fails to qualify as wit because O'Reilly's TV and radio contracts and his best-selling books have made him hugely rich."

Ann Coulter is drawing fire in the blogosphere, and not just from the left. I'll let Michelle Malkin explain:

"There is much buzz this weekend about comments that conservative author/columnist Ann Coulter made at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, a speech which I missed due to a book signing at the same event.

"Ann used the term 'raghead' when describing what our homeland security policies should be: 'I think our motto should be post-9-11, "raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences."'

"Ann says many deliberately provocative things. This one was spectacularly ill-chosen and ill-timed. I want the young conservatives who attended CPAC--particularly young conservative Muslims--to know that not everyone uses that kind of epithet.

"I don't. Not in public. Not at home. I have no ill will towards peaceful people who happen to cover their heads for their faith.

"My problem, as I've made clear on this blog, is with radical Islamists at home and abroad who threaten our existence. I don't care what they wear on their heads. I care what's in their heads and what's strapped around their chests and what's hidden in the soles of their shoes and what's being cooked up in their labs and nuclear reactors . . .

"The Left side of the blogosphere is working itself up into a lather, calling on conservatives to condemn Ann's remarks. But as I have noted many times, the Right is far more self-critical than the sanctimonious liberals who never say a peep about the routine hatred and poisonous ethnic/racial/religious identity politics exhibited by their own. We don't need your prodding."

Jonah Goldberg (of National Review, whose editors Coulter once called "girly-boys"), says:

"I don't think Ann does anybody but herself any good when she jokes about killing presidents, Supreme Court justices or uses terms like raghead. I don't think she should do it and I don't think conservatives should applaud it. I'm all for shattering the stereotype that conservatives can't tell a joke, but that doesn't mean any joke is worth making just because it gets a laugh (indeed, some jokes shouldn't be made for fear that they will generate a laugh). Regardless, if anyone thinks Ann is going to stop her act simply because she gets heat from the likes of me, they're crazy."

The Washington Monthly is touting a study by a liberal group which says that the guest lineup on the Sunday talk shows leans right, and that this has been true under both Clinton and Bush.

Bill Kristol explains why he ran the cartoons: