Trouble In Reporting

From Editor & Publisher via Cliff Schecter

NEW YORK The great John Edwards-Ann Coulter feud took another turn on Friday, with the former senator calling the columnist/author a "she-devil" on a visit to Iowa.

Coulter had hurled a gay slur at Edwards earlier this year, and after more back and forth, his wife called her during a national TV appearance to ask some hard questions.

Edwards had reminded the crowd today in Burlington, Iowa, that his wife had challenged Coulter to stop "personal attacks." He continued: "We know these people. We know their game plan. They're going to attack us personally," Edwards said, according to an ABC report. "They attacked Elizabeth personally, because she stood up to that she-devil Ann Coulter."

Catching himself, he added: "I should not have name-called. But the truth is -- forget the names -- people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."

Clearly E&P has misunderstood the issue. Coulter didn't use a "gay slur". Being called gay is one of those insults that's like a drink: it affects one only if accepted. And the word "gay" itself is not a slur. Had Coulter said "John Edwards is gay" she would have been demonstrably, provably wrong, and she would have had to retract that remark, not because it was insulting, but because it was inaccurate.

But the words were chosen carefully, lest the harpy should have to eat them. What the shriek-speak Fantasy of the Fascists said was that she "was going to say a few words about John Edwards, but if you say the word 'faggot' you have to apologize" (I'm not sure of the wording, but I refuse to enter that dribbling loon's name into Google, lest it become more contaminated than it already is).

The issue was the word "faggot." In the mouth of the Coultergeist and her far-right-field friends it's supposed to be insulting, degrading, implying a lack of manliness. It also reveals their take on the minority they have been working so hard to alienate, disenfranchise, and assault.

Clearly they haven't been watching the performances of the Republican Party lately. Isn't Jeff Gannon manly? How about Mark Foley? Glenn Murphy? Or the endless other closet-case Repugnicans?

Of course, Coulter herself is very manly indeed, right down to the adam's apple and need to prove her machismo by using a word that is rapidly coming to sound like saying "negro" with two g's; well, in private, many of her supporters are quite fond of that word too, I'm sure.

So the issue here is about whether or not Edwards accurately described the beloved icon of hate as a "she-devil". I feel the terminology is wrong, and Edwards should reract it. The correct term is simply "devil". At least until some poor unfortunate soul sacrifices themself for the sake of biology by getting close enough to obtain a DNA sample to see whether she does in fact possess a second X chromosome.

However, Editor & Publisher owes the world an apology too, for calling Coulter an "author" and "columnist" without irony. I've tried to read bits of her books, and the hate-screed she writes could at best be described as the ravings of a deranged hag afflicted with the madness that accompanies late-stage syphillis. I'm considering a guide called "How to Read Coulter--If you absolutely must".

From Chapter One:

The best way to handle her books is to hang them on a nail in the outhouse.