Is it funny? Or racism?

Ann Coulter uses language to shock, as when she said that Jews need "to be perfected" and suggested the nation would be better off if it were all-Christian.

Her blog is headed by a frequent update of "LIBERAL LIES ABOUT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE.” In the latest posting she attributes the Democrats’ loss of Congress in 1994 to Clinton’s sudden transformation from “an old-school, moderate Democrat” to “Che Guevara.”

Then she punctuates her argument with this question: “What is it with all our black presidents and these bait-and-switch tactics?”

It’s meant to be funny because Clinton sometimes was called the first black President. But it’s not funny any more than perfecting Jews was funny. Obama is our President, not our black President.

Listening to Ann Coulter

Before my Democratic friends get too excited about the crazies who seem to be taking over the Republican party, consider Ann Coulter's column of Wednesday. She points out that it's not the Republican party that contains 99 percent of the people who believe that:

--Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance
--The Bush family clandestinely spirited the bin Laden family out of the U.S. after the 9/11 attacks
--Bush went to war in Afghanistan to help the Unocal Corporation to obtain a natural gas pipeline there
--Sarah Palin's infant son Trig is actually her daughter's child

Fair enough, the Democrats have their share of crazy conspiracy-believers, but that's not the worst thing: the worst thing is that respectable politicians on both sides feed these ugly stories for political gains.

Where are Reinhoold Niebuhr and Jim Leach now, when we need them?