WHY AREN'T THERE MORE LIBERALS ON TV?

Michael Moore has a problem: Nobody wants to put him on television. "I've been on a total of two network shows in nine months," the lefty filmmaker and author recently told The New York Times. "What's going on with that?"
It's a fair question. After all, Moore's book, Stupid White Men, has spent months on bestseller lists. His film "Bowling for Columbine," is the most explicitly political film in recent memory. Its concluding interview with Charlton Heston reduced one of America's leading gun fanatics to a state of embarrassing, self-incriminating incoherence -- and not, as his apologists insist, because Heston has Alzheimer's.
Moore's TV shutout is especially bizarre when you consider that author Ann Coulter, who's about as conservative as Moore is liberal and also has had a recent bestselling book, is so telebiquitous she might as well have her own channel. And even more bizarre when you consider the fact that Democrats desperately need to counter the conservative dominance of TV and radio.
As the Times reported the same day, "Democrats are scouring the nation for a liberal answer to Rush Limbaugh." Why isn't it Michael Moore? And why are there so few liberals on television?
Ann Coulter gets on TV because she rules the medium; she's poised, articulate and throws soundbites like spears. She's also good-looking, which TV viewers (and, consequently, producers) love. And she's provocative.
Back when I was executive editor of George magazine I hired Coulter to write a monthly column for just these reasons. Our readers -- especially the liberal ones -- couldn't get enough of her. Ann was the columnist liberals loved to read because she was the persona they loved to hate.
Every month we'd get sacks of mail from sincere, earnest liberals who were appalled that we'd print the words of "that woman." Not a few of those readers spewed venom about Ann's appearance, as if her good looks added insult to injury. Plus, Ann could get on TV with the chyron, "Columnist, George magazine" next to her name.
When you're trying to get people to read about politics, and you're competing with magazines that feature sexier stuff, like movie stars and home furnishings, every little bit helps.
Now, Michael Moore isn't ugly. In fact, he has a kindly, everyman face (which can belie a sometimes cruel nature). He's also funny and smart. But the sloppily-dressed, huffing and puffing Moore isn't exactly ready for TV. If Michael Moore looked like Michael Beschloss, you'd see him on TV more. But not, I think, much more.
The real reason that Moore doesn't get on television is because Moore isn't just a liberal. By today's standards, he's a radical. Moore attacks the power of big corporations, including General Motors, Nike, and Wal-Mart. No, he doesn't just attack them; he embarrasses them. And that makes people in television uneasy.
Ann Coulter is a Republican; she's okay with big corporations. (She just thinks they shouldn't be liberal.) But TV producers never know if Michael Moore will go off the reservation and start talking about, say, how NBC-owner General Electric polluted New York's Hudson River. (The same phenomenon applies to Ralph Nader.) And so they don't give him the chance. The irony is, if they did, and he did, it'd make great TV.
Why have conservatives have to dominate the punditocracy? That's a larger discussion that I'll devote several upcoming columns to. But let's start with this one lesson: Political discussion on television operates within very narrow parameters. Partisanship is fine. Attacking the very nature of capitalist America, as far-left social critics are wont to do, is not. And that gives the conservatives an advantage before anyone's even opened their mouths.