Though ash is more motivated to respond to letters with which she disagrees than ones she approves of, sometimes an exceptionally well-written letter inspires her to add her own commentary to the points already made. In the case below, ash writes not simply to praise the previous correspondent, but to correct what she perceives to be a misconception about a columnist syndicated by her local paper.
[Name withheld], writing in Sunday’s paper, appeared genuinely outraged by what he saw as [the house cartoonist]’s gratuitous lampooning of Rush Limbaugh and his comments on Michael J. Fox.
[Name withheld]’s umbrage is understandable in view of the delight Britt seems to take in satirizing the self-righteous, hypocritical and irresponsible demagogues (and their stooges) who have ensconced themselves in our midst. In that respect, Britt is very effective, with many people considering his work a service to the public.
Tragically, Limbaugh, Ted Rall, Ann Coulter and their ilk lack the competence to be legitimate analysts, journalists or even objective observers of world and national events.
They are, however, eminently qualified as successful “entertainers” whose shtick (often boorish, buffoonish and always irresponsible) has a significant appeal to the fears and mindset prevalent among many fatuous circles in this country. They, too, perform a service to the public in that they provide living testimony to our reverence for the First Amendment of our great Constitution.
So let the Limbaughs of this world entertain and shock us with skewed commentary and perverse humor. We can laugh with them or at them, but we can only believe them at our peril.
[Previous correspondent]’s (excellent) letter on media charlatans practically could have been written by me. But rather than reply simply to commend him, I am motivated by one significant point of dispute.
It is with the columnist, cartoonist, and author Ted Rall, whom [previous correspondent] implied is as illegitimate as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, the PT Barnums of the political right.
Admittedly and unashamedly, Mr. Rall is as far left as it gets. That hardly makes him irresponsible or incompetent. When Mr. Rall asserts, for instance, that the United States should not have attacked not only Iraq but Afghanistan in response to September 11, with which the vast majority of Americans (including myself) would disagree, he is credible. He supports his argument with serious substance, including the fact that he has visited Afghanistan and written books about it. To lump Rall in the same category as Limbaugh, Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, et. al., who clearly entered the fray for fun, profit, and exploitation of the ignorant, is to discredit the personal experience which informed his sincere views.
As for the question my defense of Rall begs – who, then, is the Limbaugh/Coulter of the left? – I am the wrong person to ask. It may be because of my admitted and unashamed liberal bias, or it may be that there simply is no one, that liberalism is incompatible with such behavior and that, in this case, a “fair and balanced” moral equivalency formulation (on the one hand conservatives, on the other hand liberals) does not apply. But for those insisting there must be a liberal Coulter or O’Reilly, here’s a guideline: check the best seller lists for a book that shoots to the head of the line, stays there a few weeks, then suddenly drops out of sight. It indicates an artificial boost by a partisan organization buying in bulk then selling cheap, and no legitimate writer of any political persuasion would rely on it.