Oscar Diversion--Ann Coulter on "The View" (or Ann Coulter in general, for that matter)

I find myself fascinated by Ann Coulter. I can't quite help it. She's insane, many of the arguments she make absolutely fall apart under any sort of microscope and she's just...wrong. But she is fascinating, holds steadfast to her beliefs. Even more baffling than Ann Coulter herself is the liberal media's (I can't believe I just typed the words "liberal media") complete inability to handle her, as made evident by her appearance on "The View." This makes me angry because I disagree with Ann Coulter on most everything, simply on principle, but the ladies on "The View," particularly Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar, have put me in the awkward position of having to defend her, which really upsets me. In her new book "Guilty," Coulter talks about (among many other things) the issue of single motherhood and illegitimacy and how it plays a role in rearing criminals. In fact she states (correctly) that if you take the issue of illegitimacy out of the equation, the black and white crime rates are almost the same. Do I agree with Ann Coulter? No, but this is something to consider. There are many things in this video that they can argue with her on. Like her point that Hollywood promotes single motherhood (and single fatherhood is never uplifted). That's bullshit. You can go back as far as "Kramer vs. Kramer" or as recently as "The Pursuit of Happyness" to find examples of uplifting single fatherhood. Because men are never expected to be primary caregivers, they are uplifted and canonized, whereas women are chastised for being whores and chasing the fathers out of the home. It's an obvious double-standard, but one that's very pervasive and ingrained in our cultural ethos. Yet, none of the women could raise that point, or any intelligent point to combat Ann Coulter. The most salient points raised came from (believe it or not) Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who asked Coulter why she doesn't scorn the fathers who are absent instead of the mothers who are raising the children. Sherri Shepherd had a rare moment of non-retardation when she asked Coulter about birth control, and whether Coulter was simply pointing out all of these statistics, rather than offering up contraception or prevention as a solution. Well done, Sherri.

I would have expected the typical angry sidestepping of issues from Behar, but surprisingly, not from Whoopi. I'm kind of disappointed. Ann Coulter is someone who is full of hate, vitriol and shaky facts. She's also not nearly as clever or funny as she thinks she is, and she's not great at turning a phrase. If you're mildly intelligent, taking her down a peg shouldn't be too difficult as evidenced by her interview with a Canadian (woot) journalist, who figuratively bitchslapped her when she tried to argue that Canada sent troops to Vietnam (which they didn't, for the record). But then I forgot, if one is looking for intelligent discourse, one ought not look to the show created by the "legendary journalist" who asks what kind of tree you'd be, and is softer than a plush toy.