Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Alexander Cockburn has an idiotic rant about the Ward Churchill case. It seems to be an excuse to make zingers about Schwarzenegger's manhood and Ann Coulter's underwear. You certainly can't justify the piece on the basis of common sense.

He opens with: "When it comes to left and right, meaning the respective voices of sanity and dementia, we're meant to keep two sets of books."

He defends Ward Churchill's screed, then he points out cases where pundits in the right (none of them a professor) have said things he finds just as offensive as many of us find Churchill's written remarks.

And he says:

Right-wing mad dogs are licensed to write anything, and in our Coulter-culture they do, just so they can burnish their profiles and get invited on Fox talk shows. Why else would Tony Blankley call on the Washington Times editorial page for Hersh to be imprisoned or shot for treason? But it's a PR game only right-wingers are allowed to play.

Ward Churchill offends many Americans and gets slammed for it by Bill O'Reilly. Tony Blankley offends many Americans and gets slammed for it by Alexander Cockburn. Ann Coulter goes on Fox News. Cockburn gets into Counterpunch. Some on the right want Churchill fired. Some on the left want Fox taken off the air.

His point in a nutshell could be this: "America is an unfair nation because only right wingers are permitted to do what I, a left-winger, am doing right here and now."