Conservative author Ann Coulter appeared on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight on Tuesday evening to promote her new book, Demonic, which argues that liberals are historically prone to a mob mentality. But host Piers Morgan used Coulter's thesis as a launching pad to make several insulting jabs at the Tea Party, even suggesting that those protesting against big government are somehow "similar" to the mobs drummed up by fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
And, when Coulter said she "loved" the Tea Party, Morgan seemed flabbergasted: "I don't get that because you're a smart cookie," before again impugning the Tea Party: "They're not among the brightest of spellers."
When Coulter defended Tea Partiers as "smarter than any liberal," Morgan could not accept it, repeatedly asking: "Do you think so?...You really think that?...In your heart?"
Here's the relevant transcript of the June 7 exchange:
PIERS MORGAN, HOST: Where is the similar mob to Mussolini's and Hitler's in the modern democratic era?
ANN COULTER: Well, I would say that there are a lot of similarities. The French Revolution.
MORGAN: Tea Party?
COULTER: No. No, no, no.
MORGAN: Nearest thing to it?
COULTER: No, they're much closer to the original Tea Party, which, and actually not as, not as much of a rabble as the original Tea Party, which as I point out, the Founding Fathers weren't wild about the original Tea Party curiously enough because they were so against mobs.
MORGAN: Are you wild about them?
COULTER: About who?
MORGAN: The Tea Party.
COULTER: Oh, the current Tea Party?
MORGAN: Yeah.
COULTER: Oh, yeah, I love them.
MORGAN: See, I don't really get that.
COULTER: I speak to them.
MORGAN: I don't get that because you're a smart cookie.
COULTER: So are the Tea Partiers!
MORGAN: What do people think about you? You're intelligent. You live a provocative life.
COULTER: I believe you're insulting the Tea Partiers.
MORGAN: Well, they're not among the brightest of spellers, are they?
COULTER: They're smarter than any liberal.
MORGAN: Do you think so?
COULTER: Yeah.
MORGAN: You really think that?
COULTER: Yes, I do.
MORGAN: In your heart?
COULTER: I meet them and speak to them and they get my jokes which already makes them smarter than the average liberal.
- Rich Noyes is Research Director at the Media Research Center. Click here [1] to follow him on Twitter.