Text 29183, 289 rader
Skriven 2007-06-30 14:23:00 av ROSS SAUER
Ärende: Ignore Coulter? No way.
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Some say, "Just ignore her."
We can't.
She still has FAR too many suckers...I mean fans, who believe the sludge 
she puts out, and will vote based that sludge as well. 

Why pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free? 

In 1996, MSNBC hired Ann Coulter as a contributor. The Washington Post 
later quoted an MSNBC official describing Coulter's performance: "What 
she said was so outrageous she was immediately put on probation, and the 
next one was even worse." Coulter has acknowledged: "They kept firing 
me, but then they'd rehire me." Coulter barely lasted a year before 
MSNBC fired her for good for on-air comments she made to Vietnam 
Veterans of America founder Bobby Muller. 

In 2003, less than five months after it began broadcasting his show, 
MSNBC fired Michael Savage for telling a caller he should "get AIDS and 
die." An MSNBC spokesperson explained: "Savage made an extremely 
inappropriate comment and the decision to cancel the program was not 
difficult." Just a few months earlier, then-NBC chairman Bob Wright had 
declared: "We strongly defend his new show as a legitimate attempt to 
expand the marketplace of ideas." 

Earlier this year, MSNBC fired Don Imus after he made racist and sexist 
comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. 

It may be tempting to conclude that, despite the ridiculous decisions to 
hire the likes of Coulter and Savage in the first place, the firings 
indicate that MSNBC understands that their violent and hateful rhetoric 
adds nothing of value to the public discourse. 

But maybe MSNBC has simply decided that it doesn't make much sense to 
pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free. 

On Tuesday, for example, MSNBC's Hardball featured Ann Coulter as the 
sole guest for the entire hour. MSNBC continues to provide a platform 
for Coulter's hate; the network's just stopped paying her. 

During Coulter's last appearance on Hardball, in July 2006, host Chris 
Matthews told her, "You write beautifully," and, "You have a brilliant 
brain." He described her as "the picture of heaven." Then Coulter called 
former Vice President Al Gore a "total fag," and Matthews ended the 
interview by saying of Coulter, "We'd love to have her back." 

Earlier this year, Coulter called Democratic presidential candidate John 
Edwards a "faggot" during a speech to the Conservative Political Action 
Conference (CPAC). During an appearance on CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck 
this week, Coulter defended that comment, claiming, "I wasn't saying it 
on TV. I was saying it at a right-wing political convention with 7,000 
college Republicans. I didn't put it on TV." Like much of what Coulter 
says, this wasn't true, and wouldn't be particularly meaningful even if 
it was. Coulter's speech was broadcast on C-SPAN, which extensively 
covers CPAC speeches. (Host Glenn Beck didn't point out Coulter's lie; 
nor did he point out that she used the same epithet to describe Gore "on 
TV.") 

During her Monday appearance on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter 
responded to a question about her CPAC description of Edwards as a 
"faggot" by saying, "Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick 
Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. 
If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just 
wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot." 

Those comments prompted the Edwards campaign to denounce Coulter, and 
Elizabeth Edwards called into Hardball the next day to confront Coulter. 

Coulter and her defenders have criticized the Edwards campaign for 
omitting the Maher portion of her comments about wishing Edwards was 
killed by terrorists, claiming that her comments were taken out of 
context. But the context she claims is missing is itself false. 

Coulter misrepresented Maher's comments about Cheney. In fact, Maher 
didn't say he wished Cheney had been killed; he said "if Dick Cheney was 
not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow. ... I'm just 
saying that if he did die -- other people -- more people would live. 
That's a fact." 

During the March 5 broadcast of his show, MSNBC host and former 
Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (FL) debunked his fellow 
conservatives' attacks on Maher: "Conservatives accuse Bill Maher of 
calling for Dick Cheney's assassination, but he didn't, and I should 
know. I was there." But Scarborough didn't correct Coulter when she 
appeared on Morning Joe, even though he and Coulter did discuss her 
reference to Maher. 

During that same appearance on Morning Joe, Coulter falsely accused 
Elizabeth Edwards of lying about Coulter's November 19, 2003, column: 

SCARBOROUGH: Now, I will tell you the part of that Elizabeth Edwards 
interview that jarred the most people -- jarred me, jarred just about 
everybody I spoke with -- was the part where she brought up the fact -- 
she said that you had written some column where you had made light of 
John Edwards' dead son. What's the story behind that? 

COULTER: Needless to say, that is not true. And coming from people who 
have done what we have just seen them do in the earlier segment, I don't 
think they deserve a lot of credibility on this. You can look it up. 
It's all over the Web. It's a fabulous column, titled "The Party of 
Ideas," written in 2003. I had to go back and get the full gist of the 
column. It was about all of the Democratic primary opponents. 

In the column in question, Coulter wrote of John Edwards: "If you want 
points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to 
take down all those 'Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car 
accident' bumper stickers?" 

Again, Scarborough did not challenge Coulter or confront her with what 
she had actually written; he simply accepted her assertion that 
Elizabeth Edwards had lied about the column. 

On Thursday, MSNBC Live host Chris Jansing asked Elizabeth Edwards, 
"There are people who support your opinion, I'm sure you know, who say, 
'Why even dignify it with a response? Why give Ann Coulter more 
publicity?' " 

That same day, Jansing's network gave Ann Coulter publicity by hosting 
her on Morning Joe. Two days earlier, Jansing's network had given Ann 
Coulter publicity by hosting her -- alone, for a full hour -- on 
Hardball. 

This week alone, Coulter appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, MSNBC's 
Hardball, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, and Fox 
News' Hannity & Colmes. (On Fox, she took a swipe at Democratic 
presidential candidate Barack Obama: "I do think anyone named B. Hussein 
Obama should avoid using 'hijack' and 'religion' in the same sentence.") 

The notion that the targets of Ann Coulter's hateful speech should 
ignore her and she'll go away is absurd. Coulter was booked on Good 
Morning America and Hardball long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted 
her. Time magazine put Coulter on its cover long before Elizabeth 
Edwards confronted her. NBC's Today hosted her -- repeatedly -- long 
before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her. 

It isn't Elizabeth Edwards who gives Ann Coulter publicity. It is the 
nation's leading news organizations. They may claim to find her 
distasteful, but they keep promoting her. 

And they not only provide a forum for her hate speech and let her lie 
and dissemble without consequence, they repeat her false attacks on 
progressives as though they are true. 

On Today, for example, David Gregory pretended that Ann Coulter has a 
point:

GREGORY: You said rather pointedly that you think Ann Coulter is guilty 
of hate speech against your husband and others as well. If you strip 
away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other 
Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator 
Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's 
disingenuous, especially on the signature issue of poverty, whether it's 
a $400 haircut or taking big money to speak in front of a poverty group. 
If you, again, strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, is that a real 
point of vulnerability that you have to deal with in this campaign? 

This is complete and total bunk. 

There's simply no reason to pretend that Ann Coulter calling John 
Edwards a "faggot" and musing about him being killed by terrorists is 
about anything other than Ann Coulter being a contemptible human being 
and a national disgrace. There's no deep point there; she's just a sad 
and pathetic little person. 

But that isn't all: Gregory made the nonsensical suggestion that John 
Edwards is "disingenuous" about poverty because he paid a lot of money 
for a haircut. It doesn't matter how often pundits keep saying that, 
it's still dumb. Gregory's statement that Edwards took "big money to 
speak in front of a poverty group" repeated Coulter's own false claim 
that he "charge[d] a poverty group $50,000 for a speech." This falsehood 
is apparently a reference to a paid speech Edwards made at the 
University of California-Davis, not "in front of a poverty group." So, 
obviously, he didn't "charge a poverty group" (in fact, his speaking fee 
was offset by ticket sales.) 

Ann Coulter is not only a remarkably unpleasant person, she's a serial 
liar. And yet NBC's David Gregory -- among other journalists -- pretends 
that she has a meaningful point and makes false assertions about 
progressives based on her lies. 

That's why it would be folly for progressives to ignore Coulter in hopes 
that she goes away: because the media don't ignore her. They promote 
her. They parrot her false claims. It's also why progressives should not 
only denounce Coulter, but MSNBC and ABC and CNN and Time and every 
other news organization that gives her a platform and doesn't challenge 
her lies and repeats them as though they are true. 

During the Wednesday edition of Scarborough Country, MSNBC viewers got a 
hit of another reason why it would be folly to let Ann Coulter's hate 
and lies go unchallenged. An MSNBC contributor said of Coulter: "I don't 
think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC certainly doesn't ... 
because if they did, they would never put her on the air for an hour, 
would we, Dan?"

The MSNBC contributor? Pat Buchanan. 

The same Pat Buchanan who called Martin Luther King Jr. "one of the most 
divisive men in contemporary history." 

The same Pat Buchanan who called Adolf Hitler "an individual of great 
courage" and wrote a column questioning whether World War II was "worth 
it" and wondered, "[W]hy destroy Hitler?" 

There was Pat Buchanan, paid contributor to MSNBC, repeatedly vouching 
for Ann Coulter: 

JOAN WALSH (Salon.com editor in chief): Ann Coulter had a whole hour to 
herself on Hardball, and she was going to sell her books and peddle her 
hate on Hardball pretty much unchallenged.

[...] 

BUCHANAN: Joan, let me tell you where you're wrong here. 

WALSH: Yes, Pat, sure. 

BUCHANAN: I don't think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC 
certainly doesn't -- 

WALSH: "Faggot"? "Faggot"? 

BUCHANAN: -- because if they did, they would never put her on the air 
for an hour, would we, Dan? 

WALSH: Well, she wasn't on for quite a while after she called --

DAN ABRAMS (MSNBC general manager): Oh, come on, Pat. Come on.

BUCHANAN: Well, come on! I mean --

WALSH: -- after she called Al Gore a "total fag."

ABRAMS: Pat is misusing his MSNBC analyst moniker there. 

WALSH: Thank you, Dan. 

ABRAMS: Go ahead, Pat. 

BUCHANAN: Look, she is very, very -- look, she's a very good debater, 
and she's very good on TV and good on her feet, and she's a 
conservative, and she's an excellent writer. [New York Times columnist] 
Maureen Dowd's an excellent friend on the other side.

WALSH: No. No, Pat. You're -- Pat, you know what? You're a good debater.

[crosstalk]

BUCHANAN: She's good --

WALSH: You're a good debater. 

ABRAMS: [Congressional Quarterly columnist] Craig Crawford -- wait. 
Wait.

WALSH: She peddles hate.

ABRAMS: Let's at least admit something, Craig Crawford. 

BUCHANAN: Oh, cut it out. 

WALSH: No, seriously. 

[...] 

ABRAMS: But that glosses over -- hang on. Hang on a second. That glosses 
over -- Pat. Pat, what you're doing is you're cherry-picking the pure 
politics stuff out of what she says and ignoring the sort of unnecessary 
hateful words that she uses, as well. 

BUCHANAN: What hateful word did she use? 

ABRAMS: You know, she described him as a gay person, but using a 
different term. 

BUCHANAN: A what? Oh, you mean, that thing? 

Pat Buchanan hasn't suffered from his own history of inflammatory 
comments: He has repeatedly been hired to host television shows on CNN 
and MSNBC; he currently works as a contributor to MSNBC, where he 
defends Coulter from charges that she peddles hate.

If people look the other way when Ann Coulter lies and smears and 
insults, it will only be a matter of time before Coulter will have her 
own cable television perch from which she can defend the next generation 
of right-wing hate merchants. 

© 2007 Media Matters for America

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