Free Republic

"Just to be clear, that is not what the Republicans are saying. Ever since Mamie Eisenhower and Barbara Bush, however, the Republicans have seemed a bit defensive about the women in their party. Take Tim Pawlenty: The governor is married to "a red-hot smoking wife," he has said, which is the kind of crack that might get a Democrat a wife who would just be hot under the collar. And Sarah Palin? Her handlers apparently worried so much that she wasn't smokin' hot enough for prime time after McCain picked her as her running mate in 2008 that the first...

The NBC/MSNBC family of networks has been getting maximum mileage out of Chris Matthews's interview of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last week. Matthews himself has been recycling clips ever since. This morning, David Gregory narrated a Today show segment about the interview and its aftermath. The only journalist whose views Gregory aired were those of Nick Coleman, columnist at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. NICK COLEMAN: I think Michele Bachmann unfortunately is one of those politicians who doesn't understand the boundaries of common sense and sometimes common decency. View video here.

Ann Coulter is gone, but now we're having fun. Because listening to her is like hitting your head with a hammer: It's fun when she stops. The conservative pundit on spiked heels came to town last week, and they are still picking up the pieces at two citadels of saintly scholarship in Minnesota -- St. Olaf College in Northfield and the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. I have already written about the miniskirted screechfest at St. Thomas, and I'd be glad to never mention it again. Except for the fact that left behind her, amid the wreckage of...

Nick Coleman: In the Coultergeist's wake, a teachable moment Ann Coulter is gone, but now we're having fun. Because listening to her is like hitting your head with a hammer: It's fun when she stops. [...] What have we learned, class, about free speech after listening to Coulter call Democrats traitors to the country, threaten to give a Muslim student's name to homeland security and toss insults faster than a kid with a Dixie cup full of fish parts can toss herrings at a seal exhibit? Her herrings are all red. [...] At St. Olaf, Coulter's ugliest comments were returned...