DENNIS MYERS Against the Grain Advertisement

On Jan. 8, 1954, Nevada newspaper publisher Hank Greenspun wrote in his Las Vegas Sun column, "Sen. Joe McCarthy has to come to a violent end. Huey Long's death will be serene and peaceful compared with the demise of the sadistic bum from Wisconsin...Destroy people and they in turn must destroy you!"

Greenspun was indicted and prosecuted on charges of attempting to incite the assassination of McCarthy.

On Nov. 15, 1969 at a rally in San Francisco, criticizing interference with the Panther children's free breakfast program, Black Panther Party official David Hilliard said, "Nixon is an evil man...responsible for all the attacks on the Black Panther Party...We will kill Richard Nixon."

Hilliard was arrested and charged with threatening the life of the president.

Greenspun was found not guilty and charges were later dropped against Hilliard. Today we seem to have moved beyond prosecuting inflammatory language that nevertheless is plainly political speech, protected from being treated as criminal. That is all to the good.

So Ann Coulter is not likely to be put through any similar ordeal with her wish for John Edwards' assassination. With any luck, Coulter's influence will decline because she is seen as the reckless person she is.

She and her supporters are excusing what she said by saying it's similar to something Bill Maher said about Dick Cheney in March. And her critics want to excuse what Maher said by claiming the two incidents are not comparable.

Loose talk about assassination, from left or right, can wash over unstable minds and produce a result. Maher said, "I'm just saying that if he [Cheney] did die, other people - more people - would live." Sure sounds like an invitation to me. These things don't merit prosecution, but they do warrant a stigma that turns people and audiences away from them.

But that will not happen if responsible people continue giving Coulter and others who speak so recklessly forums from which to launch vitriol. In the current controversy over her comment expressing approval of the idea of assassinating John Edwards, one entity has gotten off scot free - Good Morning, America. It was on this program that Coulter made her comment, and it is fair to ask, why did its producers invite her on the program in the first place? Then the next day Chris Matthews, ready to milk the controversy a little more, had her on his show.

Coulter's past includes an unbroken string of hateful and irresponsible comments about Islam, September 11 widows, gays, women voters, the Depression/World War Two generation, Episcopalians, Princess Diana, and God. She has defended civilian massacres, equated taxation to abortion, called a disabled Vietnam veteran a loser, used racial epithets.

So it's not as though Good Morning America's producers and Matthews didn't know what they were doing when they gave exposure to Coulter. They chose to put their imprimatur on her, to help make her respectable. Would they have done the same for a corresponding hater on the left such as Louis Farrakhan? It's not hard to imagine them mentally anticipating the ratings benefits of the latest firestorm reaction to whatever wild thing Coulter might say on their programs.

Ann Coulter will always be able to get a speaking engagement, but it matters whether she is speaking on programs and before groups that give her legitimacy or before fringe groups and on broadcasts hosted by people like herself.

Coulter went into decline once before--whereupon Time magazine put her on its cover and gave her tawdry career a whole new lease on life.

Republican leaders like John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudolph Giuliani have long since disassociated themselves from Coulter. Broadcasters like Mathews, programs like Good Morning America, and publications like Time should do the same. Maybe if she, and Maher, found themselves with fewer listeners for a while they would learn to elevate the dialogue.