THE SAGA OF

STEPHANIE MILLER

AND HER ARCHNEMESIS,

SOCK

For those not in the know, Stephanie Miller is a liberal radio talk show host. I personally have heard her only rarely as she is not broadcasting during the time when I'm usually listening to the radio, but from what I understand she's talented and entertaining and really knows her stuff. She has made numerous television appearances on various talking head shows on the cable news networks. One such appearance on Hannity & Colmes program earned her this delightful missive from a viewer. I transcribe it in its entirety (warts and all) from Bradblog:


Dear Stephanie:

As with Cindy Sheehan the best thing that could happen to you would be seeing some WONDERFUL activist sticking an AK-47 up your Glory Holes and sending you to eternity. But this is not a threat as I am a paci-fist preferring to confront dumb fucks like you two cunts with words rather than violence. But I would gather my 1st amendment rights permit me to HOPE (!) and PRAY (!) that someone decides you're better off as statistics. Honestly, should I hear of either you leaving this earth prematurely I would initiate a personal celebration that would make Animal House appear to be just another quiet Sunday in church.

However, again an exercise of my individual rights even a liberal Supreme Court can't take away. I will be mailing copies of your appearnace on yesterday's Hannity & Colmes to some WONDERFUL people. Without including a cover letter and without a return address we will be mailing copies of your anti-America rhetoric together with any personal information we can cull off the Net to the following recipients. Receivers will be families and friends of others lost in Iraq but who believe their sons/daughters died nobly, others with a SPECIAL fervor and fire-in-their-belly for this country and who totally and completely despise renegades as yourself and, too, several others whose "credentials" I will keep to myself but assuredly shall we say devoted people to this country's future. As the phrase goes we must identify this nation's enemies and though we keep friends close, we MUST keep our enemies even closer and your two vile bitches are just that, Benedict Arnolds to the country who gives you the freedom to embarrass yourselves and make as ass of yourselves also, and simultaneously.

Therefore, I trust the both of you mother fuckers will continue to show yourselves on TV shows, exposure to more and more people, as GUARANTEED your words will someday possibly accelerate your demise again not on my hand but by someone who believes in such finalizing action. So, PLEASE, don't stop, even expand your words of HATE for America and this Presidency because the more you talk the better my hopes and prayers are fulfilled. Would love to celebrate and would for days on end as I always wyould and will when still another America HATER meets his/her maker.

From the right 'Right,

"Sock" Sokolowski


Kinda messed up, huh? Yet, Steph is made of sterner stuff than I as she actually gave the nutbag a call on her radio show. See, the guy put his phone number in the letter. Not missing an opportunity to question someone of obviously questionable mental faculties, Miller gave him a call (full audio is available at Miller's website).

When confronted by Miller (in a really friendly manner considering Sock would like her dead) he continually denied wishing death upon her. Go back and read the letter I painstakingly transcribed. I would tend to think putting AK-47s in "certain places" and sending them to eternity is some sort of code for death, but perhaps I'm mistaken. He started by denying he said he wanted Miller (and Sheehan) dead, then denied hoping that others would take up the cause of sending Miller "to eternity". Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but that whole second paragraph seemed to spell out in detail how it was going to go down. It's odd because he's not denying that he wrote the letter; what we're apparently dealing with here is an argument over semantics, I suppose. He goes on to say that his letter was not a threat; rather it was just how he feels about people like Miller, which is to say, anyone who disagrees with whatever it is Sock believes in at that point in time.

Sock takes a shot at Michael J. Fox (which is apparently the "in" thing to do on the right these days), claiming that he overmedicated in order to make himself more animated. He claims doctors advised him that overmedicating on "Parkinsons medicine" has the same effect as not taking the medicine at all. Of course, this tells me that he never talked to a doctor at all since if overmedicating led to an effect of not taking the medicine at all, it would have decreased Fox's ability to move, not increase, since Parkinson's renders its victims less mobile, not more mobile. See, he sort of contradicts himself there, but then again, one should never go to a man named Sock for sound medical advice.

Anyway, getting back to Sock himself, Miller tells him that she didn't care to receive a death threat like the one she received from Sock, and he once again entered denial mode. He tells her to go back and read it. I took his advice and did so. If that isn't a death threat, then I'd hate to see what he writes for those. He claims that the people he hopes will answer his prayers and do away with scum like Miller are actually patriots and not the cold blooded murderers they actually would be. When Miller stated that Sock was essentially hoping for her and Sheehan's death, he again flat out claimed that he wasn't. "No, I'm not. Not at all," being Sock's exact words. When Miller again points out that, yeah, he sort of did, what with the AK-47 in the glory hole line, Sock finally shuts down. He decides that he no longer wants to continue the conversation and ends it.

This is what we as liberals are up against - (aside from people who vociferously defend free speech, except when you say something they disagree with; then they want you dead)individuals who will alter their perception of reality in order to fit whatever point they hope to make at a given moment. When faced with their own words, they'll tell you to your face that while they did say that, they didn't really say that. We've obviously already seen this on a larger scale with Bush and his "stay the course" rhetoric. And now we see it from a guy named Sock. Here is a guy who readily admits to writing all manner of disturbing thoughts yet refuses to understand that they are in fact disturbing or that the essence of what makes the disturbing doesn't register to him as something that anyone would find remotely disturbing. He hopes and prays for their deaths, yet doesn't; except he does.

Certain rightwingers revel in coming up with clever names to describe the left, like looney or unhinged, yet it appears to be the sole purview of those on the right to wish all manner of death and mutilation on any who disagree with their particular worldviews. Sock is simply another example. Granted, his targets aren't as grandiose as someone like Ann Coulter, who desires to see a certain Supreme Court justice injest rat poison or her considerations on the assasination of a sitting president, but it is no less important to document sick people like Sock. Free speech means free for everyone, Sock, not just for psychotic "patriots" like yourself who would see harm be done on those you disagree with.