Leftist hysteria is fueling the rise of their nemesis, Milo Yiannopoulos, to superstar status. And CPAC, with a nose for publicity, has invited him to be the keynote speaker at next Saturday’s conservative gathering.

Matt Schlapp tweeted:

We think free speech includes hearing Milo’s important perspective. #CPAC2017 pic.twitter.com/ssDS6HVmLN

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) February 18, 2017

The address will be televised on C-SPAN, and can be expected to get higher than normal ratings for the channel.

Update: The decision appears to be controversial within CPAC:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The ACU board was not consulted on this, nor was there a board vote. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CPAC2017?src=hash">#CPAC2017</a> <a href="https://t.co/wZ08cmbrHB">pic.twitter.com/wZ08cmbrHB</a></p>&mdash; Ned Ryun (@nedryun) <a href="https://twitter.com/nedryun/status/833041246792867846">February 18, 2017</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">He&#39;s not keynoting and the ACU board had nothing to do with this. Report: Milo Yiannopoulos tapped to keynote CPAC. <a href="https://t.co/iV4sYIN95v">https://t.co/iV4sYIN95v</a></p>&mdash; Ned Ryun (@nedryun) <a href="https://twitter.com/nedryun/status/833056786835988481">February 18, 2017</a></blockquote>
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The appalling violence at Berkeley was the best PR possible for the eloquent, funny, flamboyant performance artist, creating natural organic interest in what could possibly spark such intense interest.

Here is a hint for the lefties, offered in the secure notion that they would never pay attention to me.  Back in the day that Boston was a stronghold of Yankee Bluenoses, getting a book or a play “banned in Boston” was a surefire path to prosperity selling books or tickets to the public. Milo being “banned in Berkeley” is the best thing that ever happened to a showbiz performer.

As a result, foul-mouthed Bill Maher invited Milo onto his HBO talk show Friday night. And the left was not pleased.

David Colon of Gothamist :

In a television event that was described by some people (okay, me) as "less of a draw than watching my own televised execution," human smirk Bill Maher hosted Digimon enthusiast and trans/Muslim basher Milo Yiannopoulos on Real Time last night. Maher, who decided to invite Yiannopoulos on the show after protests of Yiannopoulos's attempted Berkley speech offended Maher's free speech principles, proved how committed he was to free speech by letting Yiannopoulos ramble on basically unchallenged.

Steve Zeitchik of the Los Angeles Times was more measured, but clearly displeased.

In the end, it was a non-event. Which to some people made it a really big event. 

Bill Maher’s decision to host controversial blogger Milo Yiannopoulos on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO Friday led to very few on-air fireworks. Maher talked to his guest mostly about free speech, agreeing with him nearly as much as disagreeing with him and generally affecting a convivial tone.

In my opinion, Maher looked a little frightened of debating Milo one-on-one, and concluded the segment too early, in order to avoid such a fate, but come to your own conclusions.

In the panel discussion that followed, the best purported comedian Larry Willmore could come up with was “F**k you.” Yeah, that’ll convince the undecided:

Milo is human Kryptonite to the leftists that consider themselves supermen, wiser and more virtuous than the rest of us.