Polarization continues

Ann Coulter, calendar girl of the far, far right spoke yesterday at Philander Smith College, an historically black university in Little Rock, Arkansas. During her speech, filled with her usual incendiary rhetoric, she joked that Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens ought to have "rat poisoning put in his creme brulee."

As students discussed Coulter's presentation after she spoke, one sophomore said: "We need someone on the Democratic side who is just as outspoken as she is." So what the left needs is a vitriolic liar who's willing to say virtually anything in order to keep her name in the papers? I don't think so. I realize this sophomore is just one person, but I think her remark is indicative of a trend I see all over the place -- the polarization of rhetoric that is threatening to rip the solid center of this country in two.

Call me an optimist, but I think what we need to fight people like Coulter is not a corresponding shrew on the left, but more reasoned, rational voices who appeal to the mass of Americans who respect the Constitution of the United States and the country it created.