far be it from me to defend Andrew Sullivan. . .but I do have the impression that Romenesko is liberal (not that there's anything wrog with that!) The reason why Sullivan hates Romenesko is that Romenesko reliably linked to all the most slashing, embarassing and prurient Sullivan stories, especially the ones writthen by Signorile of the NY Press. Whatever you may think of Sullivan, nobody should have had to go through what he went through.

Conservative rage at the liberal press won the battle a decade or more ago. What liberals have survived are tiptoeing around (Bob Somerby compares them to the team that was scripted to lose every time to the Harlem Globetrotters.)

The rage we hear from Ann Coulter, Sullivan, et al, is a mopping-up operation. They are angry that there are any liberal voices being heard at all. In a free, democratic, two-party system there should be no problem with the fact that some of the media have one slant or point of view, and some have an opposite slant. But any liberal or Democratic point of view enrages these people.

I really think there is something fascist about a lot of this. I have something at might site about this at /coulter.htm (scroll down).

The object of the right is to intimidate or by being vituperative change the argument from issues to self-defense. The fear of Sullivan and Coulter is reason and research, so name call.

Uh, fellas, Ann Coulter is not displaying "rage". She's making fun of you, and having the time of her life doing so. Getting rich in the process.

Coulter not serious? Be fun to see what would happen if he told her that. But it does provide a segue to the larger question, i.e., when did the Republicans become the party of ruffianism? Democrats, of course -- the party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion. And the GOP has always had its shouters -- William Loeb, Westbrook Pegler and, oh yes, Joe McCarthy. But if Henry L. Stimson were a blogger, he would not send an email saying **** you you ****ing ***hole I hope you *** in your own ****. Nor Dwight Eisenhower. Even Barry Goldwater -- he could play to the galleries (some of his friends complain he couldn't do much else). But in private life, I gather he was always pretty much of a mensch, a gent. I mean, it's one thing to read AC, to listen to Limbaugh, but to /brag/ about it? Even Tucker Carlson, notwithstanding the bow tie, is doing his best to play the part of a knuckle-dragger. Does his mother what he is up to? (Attribution note: someone made a version of this point on Salon, but it deserves wider attention).

No doubt Patrick R. Sullivan is right, and that is a sad commentary on our times. Disingenuousness and bluster seem to be serving the party in power very well, even as the rest of us suffer under the result.

'Uh, fellas, Ann Coulter is not displaying "rage". She's making fun of you, and having the time of her life doing so. Getting rich in the process.'

Right, she calls for the execution of liberals in a happy-go-lucky manner.

Actually, Ann Coulter is a single mother of three who used her Earned Income Tax Credit to buy Pampers. Having left her last job (scraping gum off the underside of swivel chairs at Enron), she now devotes herself to her insidious project of discrediting the responsible right.

BTW Patrick Sullivan is an endearing snub-nosed rodent with hopes of getting his own sitcom. You didn't know? Sheesh, some people are so naive ...

Responding to P. Sullivan:

Ann Coulter's stuff isn't really humorous (for example, the way P. J. O'Rourke's stuff is). She just claims to be kidding whenever she has to disavow something especially nasty she said.

You don't show that you have a sense of humor by laughing at Coulter's "jokes". You show that you sense of humor by changing the channel to something funny.

Coulter routinely misrepresents facts, makes wild accusations of treason and the like, and vaguely instigates violence with unmistakable (though rather ludicrous) threats. She get far more attention in respectable circles than she deserves, and she gets an unbelievable amount of air time and press. For these reasons she should be taken seriously.

The fact that she's laughing her way to the bank doesn't make her funny.

Just to return to the despicable andrew sullivan for a minute - not only is his judgement on romanesko, as noted by others already, part of the right wing intimidation game, but his contribution to the deranged right-wing trope that under Howell Raines the NY Times has swung dramatically leftward is a despicable manifestation of that game.

As Zizka sorta says above, this is totalitarian behavior by people who whatever they may claim, actually hate freedom and free expression, since free people are allowed to disagree with andrew sullivan (or ann coulter, or michael kelley, or robert bartley, mouth-foaming haters all), and we can't have that.

I find Romanesko's media reports (and his Obscure Store) to be fair and present several sides of a story, when available. Naturally, fairness is seen as 'liberal'. To the Taliban wing of the GOP, anything that isn't touting their spin and isn't being unrelentingly nasty is The Enemy. This is sad; the shame of being a conservative has never been greater.

If Ann Coulter thinks she is being funny by encouraging terrorist attacks on people she disagrees with, then she's sick and should be in rehab with Noelle. Better: Handcuff her to Al Sharpton for a couple of weeks and see who survives. (My money is on Sharpton; he knows how to play an unsympathetic crowd, Coulter only knows how to play to dittoheads.)

'Whatever you may think of Sullivan, nobody should have had to go through what he went through.'

The right of public figures to privacy, in general, is a point up for debate. The right of public figures like Andrew Sullivan, walking collections of self-exposure and moralizing, are pretty settled: zero.