WELL, HE IS THE EMBODIMENT OF MODERN CONSERVATISM, NO?

There's a lot of grumbling over here on the left because Eric Erickson, the chief honcho of RedState, has been hired as a commentator by CNN; it's been noted that he called David Souter a "goat fucking child molester"; that he attacked feminist critics of of Tim Tebow's Super Bowl ad by writing, "That's what being too ugly to get a date does to your brain"; that he suggested, in response to a piece of state environmental legislation, that it might be time for citizens to "march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot"; that he attacked liberals by asserting that right-wingers "have families because we don't abort our kids, and we have jobs because we believe in capitalism"; and that he described Barack Obama's Nobel Prize as the fulfillment of "an affirmative action quota."

So, um, what's the problem?

CNN shouldn't have hired him? Why not? Who should have been hired -- a right-winger who doesn't say things like this? A person like that would be utterly unrepresentative of the modern American right. Putting a so-called conservative on TV who wasn't a hate-filled bigot would thoroughly mislead CNN's viewers. They might think modern American conservatism eschews hate and vitriol and prejudice. That would be very, very misleading.

Erickson's the right guy for the job because he's the quintessential ugly-souled right-winger. With him you know you're getting the real deal.

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(Quotes via Steve Benen.)