Ann Coulter's new book "Guilty" is out and two things are certain: It will surely be another best-seller, and she will once again drive the Left bonkers. No institution will be more offended than the national press. Prepare to witness their meltdown. The Drudge Report caused a firestorm when anonymous NBC insiders leaked the word that Coulter had been "banned for life" from that network. CBS featured her on "The Early Show" and a combative Harry Smith tried to insult her to the extreme. He called her "goofy," "simplistic," "sophomoric," and a "whiner." "You should have a cross," he said... continue reading
The Hartford Courant recently reported on a somewhat shocking teenage contrast. Picture a band of boys calling themselves "Society in Ruins" playing thrash-metal music so loudly it would make your ears bleed. But the teen rockers also have committed themselves to what's called the "Straight Edge" lifestyle of no drugs and no alcohol during high school. Courant writer Teresa Pelham reported the teenage rockers don't have a formal pact, "just an understanding that there will be no pressure, at least from each other, to drink or try drugs." The term "Straight Edge" is inspired by the 1980s punk band Minor... continue reading
One sign the liberal news media live in a plastic Manhattan bubble is their undying ardor for the Kennedy Myth, best known by that public-relations construct "Camelot." Instead of a president and First Lady, they believe, we had the King and Queen of Glamour. Never mind if their marriage was a joke and his list of presidential accomplishments was short. Never mind if the Republican half of the country feels sickened by the obsession. The media preferred the myth - and they still do to this day. It is why they are promoting the anointment of unaccomplished Caroline Kennedy for... continue reading
December can be such a refreshing month for television, especially the warm-hearted Christmas specials that make the holiday about giving, not mall-emptying materialism. This year, for example, NBC aired a new Muppet special where they helped Santa Claus make children's wishes come true. There's a reason why "A Charlie Brown Christmas" never gets old and "Miracle on 34th Street" remains timeless in its black-and-white glory: They champion the good, and the holy, and the pure innocence of Christmas. And it's worlds apart in tone from today's usual TV fare. Switch the channel and you'll find a young man coming back... continue reading
Sean Hannity marks 2008 as the year journalism died. But it could just as easily be the year journalism felt a thrill going up its leg. That Chris Matthews announcement in February, that a Barack Obama speech caused him a mild ecstasy, represented the everyday "mainstream" media view. Reporters didn't so much produce "news" during this election year as they tried to make a sale. Every story seemed to say "You know you want Obama." Chris Matthews won the "Quote of the Year" for 2008 in the Media Research Center's annual tally of the year's worst reporting, or "The Best... continue reading
Even in economically troubled times, Christmas is still a prime opportunity for children to be showered with the latest in electronic gadgetry, from I-pods to laptops. For decades, parents have worried about children wandering into the scariest corners of television. But with new technologies come a lot of new and even scarier trails to follow. Imagine a young teen with a new laptop, and add YouTube, now owned by Google, which performs 63 percent of the world's Internet searches. It's not a far-fetched thought: Nearly half of boys and a third of girls ages 13-17 name YouTube as one of... continue reading
In October 2006 the national media projected Rep. Mark Foley's online sex chats with House pages into a disaster that would swallow the Grand Old Party whole. CBS, for example, proclaimed it the "congressional equivalent of Katrina." In 2008, when federal investigators found Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich trying to put Barack Obama's Senate seat on the auction block, these same "news" gatherers found a storm, to be sure, but a storm they suggested would in short order be "pushed out to sea." With the governor caught on tape unloading obscenity after obscenity about how he expected to reap a financial... continue reading
It was 13 years ago that O.J. Simpson was acquitted in the stabbing murders of his wife Nicole and waiter Ron Goldman, two grizzly deaths for which he was most certainly responsible. On December 5, Simpson was sentenced to at least nine years in a Nevada prison for a Las Vegas robbery attempt of what he claimed was his own sports memorabilia. We live in a crazy world, and the shamelessness never ends for Simpson: on the same day he was sentenced, Xtreme Entertainment Group (XEG) announced they would be selling a new comedy DVD starring Simpson called "Juiced!" It's... continue reading
The nation's economy is causing great anxiety, and no corner seems untouched by the blight of layoffs, or the fear of further stock-market erosion. It probably should come as no surprise that in this crisis, the journalists who have hailed Barack Obama for two years as the Messiah would want their savior's arrival to be accelerated. They've broken out in cold sweats, displaying a bad case of Inauguration Impatience Syndrome. You can't reason with them and suggest that several months of transition are necessary to build a new administration, and for Obama it's not different. They certainly aren't showing the... continue reading
Hollywood can still mount a soapbox and recall the dark days when people lost their jobs in show business for daring to take an unpopular political position that was outside the mainstream. Whenever they're criticized, they proclaim "McCarthyism," accuse their critics of "blacklisting," and condemn the deplorable "intolerance." Hollywood has yet to accept, perhaps even to understand, that it is the entertainment industry that excels at this slanderous behavior. After California voters narrowly approved Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, it was revealed that Scott Eckern, the artistic director... continue reading