Dear Katie,
I guess it must be worth $15-million for you to sink from the courage of your public colonoscopy to the cowardice of your current gig. All right, I realize you can't be Keith Olbermann--the most outspoken, witty, progressive newscaster on TV--but please don't try to sell me on the notion that your precious little "freeSpeech" moment, with a different guest commentor each week, is a genuine contribution to the open marketplace of ideas. I mean, c'mon, Rush Limbaugh? Like he doesn't already have a forum? Okay, it's nice that you invited Bill Maher too, since he also has a forum, but he wanted to talk about religion, and that was on the list of subjects CBS News would not allow him, or any guest, to tackle. Free speech--are you kidding me? Don't you know there's a Holy War going on! Jehovah vs. Allah. Jesus vs. Muhammad. Fanatics vs. fanatics. What's a poor atheist to think? They're foisting utter anguish and devastation on each other in the name of deities that I believe exist only in their minds.
Bottom line is that your network news bosses have declared religion to be an unacceptable target, and sitting on your desk with your legs crossed at the end of the news show won't help a nano-iota, you living monument to suppressed perkiness. Who'd you copy that pose from, Edward R. Murrow? Maybe Walter Cronkite should take back his disembodied voice that introduces you every evening and stop lending credibility to a deadbeat program. Mr. Cronkite, tear down that loan! I'll believe you have "freeSpeech" the day Pee-Wee Herman does that segment and talks about the joys and perils of masturbation. Or when a venture capitalist comes on and shares his plan to open Rapture chain stores that will sell all that clothing left on earth by those lucky winners of the ascend-to-Heaven lottery. Listen, Katie, if Muslims got really, really upset over a bunch of cartoonists, how do you think they're gonna feel about being insulted by the fucking pope?! Well, here's a scoop for you. Pope Benedict has just apologized to worshippers of Islam around the globe. "I'm sorry," he said, in a snippy tone, "but I'm not infallible, you know."