Shocking none but a handful of her less-conscious fans, media personality Ann Coulter revealed on her website last week that her public persona has been an act, aimed mostly at garnering attention for herself and secondarily at exposing the uglier side of American extremism. While some may think her confession represents the curtain call for Ann Coulter (The Character), we'd like to remind people how Bill O'Reilly successfully boosted his career by coming clean on his fakeness.

"Bill O'Reilly," the comically self-certain commentator for Fox News, puts on a thinly veiled act. His is a carefully crafted character, always balanced on the precipice of incredulity and insanity. Playing the anchor of a non-revolving, spinless sphere where even the laws of physics are suspect but the acoustics are adjusted just Right to amplify his stentorian pronouncements, he has delivered great ratings, if not great journalism.

It's a terrific piece of art, but apparently some people were taking it seriously. Dean Livingston, the actor behind O'Reilly, came clean to Brainsnap about his role more than three years ago [see 'Fox News Only Satire'], but it didn't make a ripple in the news. Perhaps it was for this reason that when O'Reilly sat down to talk on The Colbert Report he quickly clarified: "This is all an act; I'm sensitive."

Ann Coulter has been following a similar strategy, though with less subtlety (which is itself quite an accomplishment). With the path already blazed by people like O'Reilly, she needs to push the envelope to be noticed - after which the envelope is handed back to her with a nice check from book deals and speaking engagements.

The bottom line is, even when people know it's an act, they still like being put on. Authenticity is the least important quality when making a name in the infotainment / enternewsment / enterforment industry. With so many problems facing the country, the viewing audience needs something to distract them. We need characters on TV who make for compelling viewing, whose foibles and hypocrisy only make them more interesting.

In politics, it has been said, character is important. It turns out the characters one has played may be even more important. In a society where elections are in danger of devolving into sober discussions of facts and policy, we need people like Fred Thompson, Stephen Colbert, and Al Franken in the running.