Friday, October 12, 2007

End of the road for shock punditry?

The blogosphere is all atwitter at Ann Coulter's nakedly anti-semitic blast. But more significant is the fact that Coulter had to loose a second attention grabbing zinger less than a week after lamenting votes for Women.

After a while the shock pundit has little left to shock with. Having attempted to rehabilitate Hoover and McCarthy and attacked the families of 9/11 victims, Coulter's creativity gave out and she was forced to rely on traditional bigotries. Having done race and gays it was only a matter of time before she got round to anti-semitism.

The establishment media will continue to book her as a 'controvertial' guest. Sontag and Maher were instantly banished for merely critcising the use of the term 'cowardly' to describe suicide bombers. But Coulter's politics being considered favorable to the party of the boardroom she will probably continue to be booked, albeit with diminishing frequency as her ability to shock continues to dwindle.

Eventually the only way Coulter will be able to grab attention is to run for President in a series of LaRouche like campaigns for the Republican nomination.

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