Coulter vs. Kos

Ann Coulter, a rabid right wing columnist, has been known to argue opinions that most Americans would be hard pressed to defend. In fact, the homepage of her website, which gives dozens of examples of federally subsidized forms of "anti-American" or "pro-terrorist" free speech, in the form of college professors, museums, or monuments, should come as little suprise to those readers familiar with her rhetoric. However, while browsing the blogosphere, I encountered the liberal response to the Coulterish rhetoric in the form of a list composed on the Daily Kos, a well known liberal blog.

The Coulter list is largely absurd. Although it's reasonable to question why the National Endowment of the Arts would fund an exhibit depicting Jesus Christ, a figure of great importance to many Americans, in a jar of urine, it's rediculous to take offense at a Smithsonian exhibit which said that "In America, sugar meant slavery". Slaves were a valuable component of the American economy before the civil war and to ignore that is to rewrite history. The exhibit at the Smithsonian was not a display of opinions, but of facts.

It's harder to comment on the Kos list because the "religious right" is not a set organization. However, I'm skeptical about Kos's comments about the Taliban's stance on stem cell research. It's hard to imagine that in a country that, until the U.S occupation, had only one internet connection, stem cell research was a major issue.