The challenge is not hating the haters

The engine had barely cooled on the Obama Victory Bus when the haters began fighting the next battle.


It was Wednesday morning on the West Coast, and the electoral votes in Missouri and North Carolina hadn't even been determined, and Rush Limbaugh was already saying it was time for the game to begin. The game, of course, being the battle to defeat Barack Obama by hamstringing his administration and then beating him in the 2012 election.

A few hours later, Sean Hannity was saying that he wanted Obama to succeed but then following it up by saying Obama was still a mystery to him because of all these iffy connections like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

One day later, Anne Coulter was writing in her syndicated column that now that the election was over, Obama could go by the name he really wanted to be called by -- B. Hussein Obama.


The important thing to remember about these people and the others like them is that they never stop battling, that any defeat is seen only as a temporary setback on the road to ultimate victory. Limbaugh has been on the air for more than 20 years now, and he has often said that he won't retire until everyone in America agrees with him.

Since he has somewhere between 15 and 20 million listeners out of more than 300 million Americans, the Fat Man might be broadcasting long after he no longer has anything to say.

Hannity and Coulter are actually far more obnoxious than Limbaugh, largely because Rush at least makes the effort to seem friendly and amiable. Both Little Boy and Rabid Annie make frequent use of anger, sarcasm and total disdain for those who disagree with them.


One of the major differences between those on the left and those on the right, at least the ones who aren't the most extreme, is that liberals are usually willing to grant that their opponents might have a point. Conservatives tend to feel their way is the only way and their opponents are not only wrong, but stupid or even evil.

That's where Coulter comes in.

Her entire schtick is outrageousness, and she feeds off the hatred of others. The thing I've seen that seems to bother her most is being laughed at -- or ignored.

That's actually the best route to go with all three of them. We need to listen to reasonable people on both sides, but we don't need to make the extremists on either side richer or more famous just by letting them upset us.

It's why I'm actually not that upset that Al Franken appears to have lost his bid for the Senate in Minnesota. It isn't that I wouldn't have minded another vote for the Democrats, but I really don't think that one of the qualifications for being a senator should be writing a book called, "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot."

Even if he is.