One of the benefits of living in the D.C. area is that you get to interact with the mentally ill in their native habitat. Throughout the course of one's life, one encounters a great many people with emotional and mental disturbances, especially in the food service and retail sectors; however, if you want to meet howling bat-shit crazies, I would enthusiastically recommend Southeast Washington, D.C.... especially at or around the area's many fine bus stops.

I was lucky enough to meet a personable schizophrenic last week, while waiting for the bus. To her credit, the woman wasn't a "stealth schizophrenic"; that is, the type of crazy that looks normal until you either say "good morning" or make eye contact... then, you spend the next thirty minutes on the receiving end of a lecture on the care and treatment of trouser hams or why the color blue is a government plot. No, you could tell that this woman was insane from quite a long way off.

There were five of us (on two benches) at the bus stop when she arrived. She sat first with a boy in his early teens and lectured him on the evils of masturbation. Then, she announced that she was going to sit next to "these two white motherfuckers," meaning me and the East Indian gentleman sitting next to me. Using enough swear words to meet the lifetime quota of a dozen or so sailors and a voice that ranged from slurred whisper to angry shouting, the woman completely unnerved my bus stop companion, so much so that he got up and moved out of the sheltered bench area. Then, she turned her baleful eye on me....

I have a theory: even the mentally disturbed know when their lives might be put into danger. The woman probably sensed that, as a gentleman, I wouldn't strike her; however, I was more than ready to push her into traffic. I looked calmly into her sunken-eyed, toothless face and watched her eyes slowly glaze over as she lost interest. She faced front and I returned to reading my book. Soon, our buses came and the curtain was closed on yet another M Street Organic Theater production.

Why did this remind me of Ann Coulter?

Well, if the bus stop lady were cleaned up, coiffed, given teeth and a wardrobe... then, her every word was taken down and put into a book, she would be Ann Coulter. Imagine someone sitting next to you at a bus stop and mumbling that Clinton "masturbates into sinks" and that the New York Times should be bombed. Would you give that person a hearty clap on the back and say "Ditto!" or perhaps "Boy Howdy!"? Or, would you work frantically to dig a hole through the Earth's crust with your buttock muscles and disappear?

So, why do so many people listen to Ann Coulter? What separates her from an insane bus stop lady?

Perhaps the difference is that she is invited to speak on television far more often than the crazy lady at the bus stop; in fact, far more often than all of the crazy bus stop ladies in all the world. Coulter's interviews are much like a conversation with a crazy person. When she is asked a question, she simply responds with "If you'll let me talk, I'll answer you", followed by enough non sequiturs to get her through the interview without answering any questions. Is she evil or evasive? Or is Ms. Ann Coulter simply insane?

Well, it is true that the conservative pundit never changes facial expressions. One gets the impression that, if her intestines were slowly pulled out and burned in front of her, she would still wear the same smug superior smile on her face. Did she learn public speaking from the Chuck Norris Performance Academy? Or, as I contend, was this expression surgically implanted upon her face?

Surgically implanted? Am I crazy? Heavens no! If I were crazy, I would be a successful pundit, spending my Sundays not answering people's questions on Meet the Press. I have constructed a scenario, which explains everything.

I believe that representatives of the Republican Party combed alleys and methadone clinics until they found Ms. Coulter with her torn dress over her head, talking to a soft drink can. They cleaned her, gave her cosmetic surgery, dyed her hair blond, and pushed her out into the public eye. By day, she amuses us all with her witty banter on the talk show circuit; by night, her handlers lock her up so that she doesn't try to inject oven cleaner into her arms. I developed this theory after I noticed that Ann Coulter never blinks... not even if debris is purposefully thrown into her eyes. She simply stares into the television camera like a lemur, trapped by a spotlight.

How can we rescue Ms. Coulter from a life of exploitative fame and fortune? We can simply ignore her. If we ignore her, as we did Marilyn Manson, she will eventually lose her usefulness and her handlers will release her back into the urban jungle from whence she came. She will probably continue to say the same things that she does now; however, she will be saying them to parking lot attendants, police horses, and trees. She will again be surviving due to the efforts of dozens of social programs initiated by liberal democrats. The irony will be stunning... if only she were lucid enough to understand it.

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