Stephen A. is sane.

Clearly, compared to the world of sports punditry on ESPN, political pundits have a stranglehold on crazy if Smith sounds like the only one on this CNN segment on "atheists on the attack" with a functioning brain.

Smith may be part of what I call the Olbermann Rule: when you see journalists and pundits with a sports base move to news, generally, they're more incisive, because in sports, you have yardsticks to go by for evaluation (stats, won-loss records, actual skills on display on tape or TiVo), they actively seek out the similar measurements in politics. Political pundits have eschewed this approach to talk about the theoretical and anecdotal -- so much the better to spin, since the majority of the pundit class now consists of former campaign types and politicians (George Will, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough) and their acolytes brought up through talk radio. That said, he still had to profess his faith in the Lord and buy the spin point of the U.S. being a "Christian nation" -- please find that in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence where it specifically says that, or I will push this button for electroshock.

I don't advocate violence against women. I advocate violence against people who apparently haven't read the Constitution at all, also against constant idiocy. The woman on the left saying atheists need Hallmark cards and holidays...oof. And Debbie Schlussel, always up there with Dennis Prager as particularly repellent self-hating members of the tribe (just go sign up for Jews for Jesus already), has a new nickname thanks to the Deadspinners -- Fat Rachel Dratch. Absolutely no recognition at all that prayer in public schools is by nature coercive.

I'd get seriously reprimanded or fired if I had booked a segment like this when I did a morning show. How do you have a "debate" about whether atheists are on the attack without someone to represent them?