I love the idea that Chomsky fills the Coulter niche for a certain audience.

> the Coulter niche for a certain audience

Michael Moore is the closest I could come up with. What makes Coulter unique is that she actively tries to offend liberals. I can't really think of anyone famous for trying to offend conservatives (although lots of people have become "almost famous" that way.)

They're not alike in their tones or most famous aspects -- but their appeal to their ardent fans is similar. "Here's truth that the [corporate|liberal] media contrives to obscure." Each offers a mostly self-consistent (but in other ways bizarro) world to make their audiences feel among the enlightened minority.

I happen to think both sometimes make useful and thought-provoking points, though followup conversations about them are prone to derailment into all sorts of superficial reactions and over-rehearsed ideological set-pieces.

I agree with "both sometimes make useful and thought-provoking points".

The problem is that these people create true believers. The world could really use sane alternate viewpoints -- and we mainly get lots of conspiracy theorists unable to change viewpoints.

I would be interested in a citation for this observation as far as Coulter goes.

I am European, so the only thing I know about Coulter is that she is some form of right wing crazy; a less formally polite Chomsky... :-)

That is also more than I care to know; the US extreme left/right looks equally insane. I just wish neither was popular here. But I guess you get the good with the bad.

I agreed with a quote as a way of saying that they generate hypotheses that probably aren't correct, but potentially fruitful to work from.