By Melanie Morgan

Ronald Reagan often used the line that political candidates claim when they look at Washington, all they see is a cesspool. But once they get elected on the promise of changing Washington, Big Government seduces them, and suddenly, it feels more like a hot tub. 

People laughed at funny jokes back then.  Unfortunately, liberals have lost their sense of humor and want to lynch conservative columnist Ann Coulter for being downright funny at their expense.

An example: Ann Coulter’s comments about presidential candidate John Edwards at this year’s CPAC convention.

Most members of the media left the building thinking that Ann Coulter had launched a vicious attack against both Edwards.

In fact, the target of Ms. Coulter’s biting sarcasm was actually the Hollywood elite and liberal media.

Following intense pressure by liberals against Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington, the ABC television network decided to send Washington off to a rehab clinic to be re-programmed and ‘cured’ of his homophobia.

Ann thought the whole incident was preposterous, and she’s dead on right. Allowing the liberal thought police to force people into rehab to alter how they think and what they say is a twisted Orwellian fate that she rightly mocked.

However, the liberals in the media and in Hollywood were so dense that they didn’t realize the joke was actually on them!

The bookers at ABC’s Good Morning America couldn’t resist going for the bait, thinking they would make some ratings hay and earn more Coulter cash. GMA’s Chris Cuomo began the questioning by asking whether the criticism Coulter received from her comments at CPAC was "fair criticism" of her, or "a shift toward the tolerant among the GOP."

There’s a fair question! So Ann, were your critics correct about you being evil or do you think the Republican Party has instead decided they don’t want to associate with evil people like you?

Ann smartly got out of that no-win question by noting that she has been roundly criticized for sarcastic remarks made at the expense of liberals that are nothing more than jokes, but that liberal pundits routinely make deadly serious remarks that truly deserve scorn, ridicule and condemnation. (Yes, I’m referring to Bill Maher’s recent discussion about Dick Cheney when he said if Cheney did die in an assassination attempt, "more people would live.")

Liberals think that if they make Ann Coulter radioactive, they can silence people like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and myself.

They want conservatives to give up Ann’s long blonde locks with her scalp attached. But if we allow Ann Coulter to be taken down for having done nothing wrong other than exposing their foolishness, then we will have allowed one of our conservative icons to fall for no other reason than a misguided notion that by dumping Ann somehow the liberal media will treat conservatives more kindly.

Let every liberal critic know that if you want to take down Ann Coulter you’ll have to get through me first.

It’s time for all of us to fight back against this attack on the free speech rights of conservatives. I don’t want to be visiting rehab if the Left decides I’m not particularly funny.