Coulter: I Think I'm Comin' to Boston...

...and New York and Chicago, too.
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter will debate liberal commentator Bill Maher at the Wang Center in Boston on March 10. The Athens of America is one of three stops for Coulter and Maher, who will also duel -- oratorically, that is -- in the Big Apple and the Second City.
On the surface, it's encouraging that a prominent liberal and conservative are debating like this. But it will only be a true exchange if it's done in a debate-style format instead of a format of one person addressing the audience and their counterpart issuing a rebuttal, as was the case when Coulter debated Air America's Al Franken in Los Angeles in 2006.
Let's hope, also, that neither Coulter nor Maher uses the occasion not as a promising exchange of ideas, but as a way to slur an individual or group. Coulter's latest offense is slandering single mothers in her new book "Guilty." She also derided Mexicans during her stop in LA. Maher, meanwhile, called the 9/11 hijackers "not cowardly" ... on Sept. 17, 2001. And fate joined both pundits almost two years ago: Maher, in the wake of Coulter's use of the F-word while discussing John Edwards, then made ill-considered comments himself, about then-Vice President Dick Cheney.
Still, perhaps, with the presence of a live audience before them and a willing partner in debate, Coulter and Maher can show the country that liberals and conservatives can share a stage cordially. For far too long, the Left and Right have seemed too comfortable excoriating each other. It's good they'll get to listen to each other now.