O'Reilly and Coulter: Lefty Websites Fomenting Violence

Sometimes a blogger doesn't have the time and attention for complex policy analysis. For those times there's Bill O'Reilly. Yes, Bill makes it easy to look smart with a minimum of effort. Take his rant about being intimidated from his show last night with Ann Coulter as guest, transcribed by Media Matters for America:

O'REILLY: Yeah, but on a policy basis, what they're trying to do on these far-left smear sites is intimidate people with whom they disagree, and then choke off their ability to get their message out. I mean, freedom of speech means nothing to these people. They really want to just bludgeon anybody with whom they disagree, or am I wrong?

What I find remarkable is ease with which O'Reilly and Coulter assume the role of victim. We've had five years of conservative Republican rule in Washington. These two media stars command big speaking fees and publish books that regularly appear on the bestseller lists, but there is nothing they enjoy so much as crying in their beer. Here's more from last night:

COULTER: If you go speak at a college campus, I promise you, if you don't have a security detail, they will physically attack you, because they are the party of ideas, and they're so intellectual their ideas just can't fit on a bumper sticker. You know, everything else they're always saying about themselves. But when it actually comes time to formulate a counterargument, all they can do is throw food.
O'REILLY: All right. But it gets to be frightening. And I -- look, in my own case, I have to have security, and obviously --
COULTER: Any conservative does.
O'REILLY: Yeah, but I think liberals, some -- well, I don't know. Look, there's no question --
COULTER: No liberal has to have security. Though I'd like to change that.
O'REILLY: Well, there's no -- let me just ask you this. Do you believe that these smear sites on the Internet are encouraging violence against you and others?
COULTER: They may be intended to. I think what mostly encourages violence is their incapacity to formulate an argument.

Cheap laughs? Easy pickings? Perhaps. Next week, we'll get back to the typically trenchant tommywonk treatment of the news you all have come to know and love. After all, we have to do our part to raise the level of political discourse in this country.