ahhhhhhh, arianna

Way back when, in the days when I was still married, my ex-wife considered making a pet out of a pot-bellied pig. Never mind that fact that her cat had a pot belly any pig would be proud of, she thought a little pig running around the house would be fun.

To stave off the adoption, I insisted on naming rights.

Now, my ex was about as apolitical as they come, but an undeterred Reagan Republican – a contradiction, I know. Then again, facts never stood in the way for my ex, as the divorce petition proved. Her decidedly middle-class family also were staunch Republicans, spending the majority of their retired morning listening to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. While I helped them move into their new apartment when they moved from Royal Oak, Michigan to Bellevue, Washington to be nearer us, they played “The Best of Rush” on the radio. They at least laughed politely when I called that an oxymoron.

But I digress.

First, I insisted, it had to be a female pig. Second, my ex would have to choose from three names: Phyllis Schlafly, Gloria Allred or Arianna Huffington.

Needless to say, she never adopted a pig.

I tell that story in order to confess that I have changed my opinion on Arianna Huffington.

Unlike some of her conservative counterparts, Arianna always had a sense of humor. I laughed at the pieces she did with Al Franken on Politically Incorrect. I roared when Bill Mahrer proposed to her on the last PI episode – asking her to be his first guest on his next show. That sense of humor separated her from the Ann Coulters of the world.

And then she started to change her outlook. She started to stray from the ranks of knee-jerk conservatives.

And now she’s founded a progressive outpost on the Internet: The Huffington Post.

I’m not sure if I completely trust this about-face she’s made. Perhaps some of this change in attitude is simply that the enemy of my enemy (in this case, George W. Bush, et al) is my friend. Still, there is no doubting the contribution she is making to the voices of dissent in this country.

And now she’s gone and done something loveable. Damn. After this one, I may actually consider proposing myself.

You can see the whole thing here.

The aforementioned Ann Coulter is, in my mind, the most vile piece of dreck ever handed a microphone. Anyone who pays any attention to this shrew is in dire need of psychiatric counseling and, probably, a lithium drip. The fact that the right wing consistently gives this woman a microphone is the most effective indictment against the so-called conservative movement. She’s a liar and a bomb-thrower – a caustic, shoot-from-the-lip darling of those with small minds and me-first attitudes.

Sean Hannity, who has no redeeming social value in his own right, invited Arianna Huffington onto his show, Hannity & Colmes, along with the Vile, Blonde Twig.

Hannity’s modus operandi is to throw out quotes from some liberal du jour and then ask his guests of they agree with the statement, or if they’re embarrassed by the statement. On this occasion Hannity and his heavily sprayed coiffure turned Coulter loose to bash liberals at will.

Until Arianna turned the tables.

"Do you agree with your guest, Ann-do you agree that Democrats have an affection for terrorists? … Yes or no?”

Hannity started stumbling and Coulter had to rush to his defense.

The subject of the earlier tirade had been Hollywood actor/activist Alec Baldwin, and rather than answer Arianna’s question, Butt-boy decided to continue his rant against Baldwin. Arianna answered: “How many times are you going to say that? Would you like to go through a litany of the toxic statements made by your other guest, Ann Coulter, with which I’m sure you don’t agree? You know what? For you to be suddenly so, so, so hypersensitive about what Alec Baldwin said when you’ve allowed Ann Coulter to be on your show and say things that are so unbelievably toxic... Sending liberals to Guantanamo, having televised torture, sending Daisy Cutters to the Middle East… And I have not seen you distancing yourself from these toxic and (unintelligible) statements."

It’s about time someone, anyone, asked those questions of the talking heads at Fox News.

Thank you, Arianna. I could kiss you right now.

Hannity, et al, have been absorbed with the notion that Liberals are so extreme as to be out of the mainstream. The looney left, they assert, are so far overboard that there are no lifeboats available to bring them back.

They busily rustle up tempests in teapots. They drag in Hollywood activists like Alec Baldwin or Sean Penn and pillory them.

But the truth is, there is no voice on the left to match the extremism and bombast of Coulter.

Remember the criticism the right has traditionally leveled against the left? That we're a bunch of fuzzyheaded intellectuals who overthink everything. Coulter runs against that grain, charging the left with the Right's maladies and then attacking them for it.

It's just damned nice that someone finally calls her, and them, on it.

More soon.