My letter to the editors of Time "Magazine."

Editors:

I am deeply offended by Time Magazine's decision to run a cover story about Ann Coulter on the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.

As a major media outlet, I would like to think that your company had more sense than to write a puff piece on Ms. Coulter, especially given her animosity to mainstream media in general. She is a partisan demagogue devoted to destroying the great democratic tradition of this country by being a tireless advocate of single-party Republican rule. Her "humble" beginnings as one of "The Elves" -- a band of neo-conservative idealogues bent on the destruction of Bill Clinton's presidency -- should give anyone pause when assessing her journalistic credibility. Her role in the "new media" was to spread misinformation about the political positions of the American left as surrogate for the Republican Party in general, and Richard Mellon Scaife in particular.

Her vile invective against people with whom she does not agree has no place in the public discourse. Comments like "my only regret" about the people that perished in the Oklahoma City bombing "was that Tim McVeigh did not go to the New York Times building," even with the shoddy disclaimer that she only wished that reporters and editors had been killed, is simply beyond the pale. Not only does it dishonor the memory of the senseless murder of 168 innocent people, the fact that a bastion of American journalism would glorify the career of a woman who advocates the murder of journalists -- even in "jest" -- disgraces, debases, and dishonors the practice of journalism.

There is a long tradition in the journalistic craft within my family. My grandfather worked for the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times, my father worked for the Danville Commercial-News, and my step-father works for the Battle Creek Inquirer. I shudder to think that anyone would find her comments about murdering journalists "cute" or "part of the agitprop" were some terrorist bomb to have blown up one of these institutions of the Fourth Estate in lieu of destroying the Murrah Building.

And as far as the notion that she is merely being provocative? Please. Lenny Bruce, she is not. Bill Hicks, she is not. H.L. Mencken, she is not. Hunter S. Thompson, she is not. She is neither comedienne nor journalist, nor is she possessed of any special insight or genius. She is a sorry footnote to a sorry campaign to destroy American progress in the name of conservative hegemony.

Has Time Magazine sunk to such depths of self-loathing that it feels it must demonstrate kinship with one of the most disgusting practitioners of right-wing conservative advocacy, even at the expense of whatever shreds of journalistic integrity that your institution still might pretend to hold?

Sincerely,

[Andy Axel]
Nashville, TN