Why try to prove your open-mindedness to folks who aren't playing the same game? Until you hear Dick Cheney distance himself from Ann Coulter, don't be an apologist for Michael Moore.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_gops_wingnuts.php
The GOP's Wingnuts
Paul Waldman
February 23, 2005
Yet you won't hear anyone asking prominent Republicans to "distance themselves" from the wingnuts in their midst. Reporters and pundits won't be fishing out controversial statements from CPAC conference speakers and asking elected Republicans to repudiate them. Conservative writers won't be penning magazine pieces advising the RNC to hold the center by purging activists whose views are "outside the mainstream."
But the story is far different on the left, where the circular firing squad is a regularly scheduled event. This is not to say that conservatives don't sometimes go after their own, but the critical difference is this: The right purges its moderates, while the left purges its liberals.