Hannity, Coulter falsely suggested Ariz. paper dropped Coulter's column to "keep[] conservatives out"
On the August 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Fox News host Sean Hannity and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter suggested that anti-conservative bias was the impetus behind the Arizona Daily Star's August 28 decision to drop Coulter's syndicated column. According to Coulter, the Star, like MSNBC, has "had excellent success in keeping conservatives out." In fact, the Star made clear that Coulter was dropped because her "shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited" commentary was unpalatable to even its self-identified conservative readers. And rather than "keeping conservatives out," the Star replaced Coulter's column with that of another conservative: Fox News host Tony Snow -- a fact Coulter and Hannity neglected to mention.
Hannity began his interview with Coulter by selectively quoting Star editor and publisher David Stoeffler's August 28 column, in which he announced that the newspaper would no longer feature Coulter. Hannity said: "The Arizona Daily Star dropped Ann Coulter because, quote, the publisher says, 'many readers find her shrill, bombastic, and mean-spirited.' " Hannity omitted Stoeffler's next sentence, however, which read: "And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives." Media Matters for America has documented numerous examples of shrill, bombastic, and mean-spirited commentary in Coulter's columns.
Responding to the quote from Stoeffler, Coulter joked that he is "taking interviews to start being the programming director at MSNBC," which, according to Coulter, "has also had excellent success in keeping conservatives out." But far from "keeping conservatives out," the Star is replacing Coulter's column with Snow's. As Stoeffler noted in his column: "Taking her place on Saturdays will be Tony Snow, host of 'The Tony Snow Show,' syndicated nationally on Fox News Radio, and 'Weekend Live with Tony Snow' on Fox News Channel. He has worked at a number of daily newspapers and is a former speechwriter for former President George H.W. Bush." Neither Hannity nor Coulter mentioned this fact.
From the August 30 broadcast of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:
HANNITY: Ann Coulter is with us on her newsmaker line. If you live in Tuscon, Arizona, as WorldNetDaily reported, you won't be reading Ann Coulter in your local daily paper anymore. The Arizona Daily Star dropped Ann Coulter because, quote, the publisher says, "many readers find her shrill, bombastic, and mean-spirited." The person that wrote that is, what's his name, David Stoeffler? Ms. Coulter? Yeah, well we invited him to come on with you.
COULTER: I don't know. Is that who it is?
HANNITY: We've invited him to come on the program with you, and we were told he wouldn't be available today, tomorrow, this week, next week, or the week after. We didn't ask beyond that.
COULTER: He's taking interviews to start being the program director at MSNBC.
HANNITY: Well, yeah.
COULTER: Which has also had excellent success in keeping conservatives out.
Additionally, in claiming that MSNBC, like the Star, has "had excellent success in keeping conservatives out," Coulter presumably forgot about MSNBC's Scarborough Country, hosted by former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough; and The Situation with Tucker Carlson. Coulter was likely referring to her own dismissal from the cable news channel -- where she had been employed as a legal analyst -- in 1997.
You'd be shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited too if your sex change was so apparently botched.
Ouch! Too funny.
Once again, Hannity conveniently omits to disclose relevant details which have completely altered the "spin" on this case. As I've said elsewhere on this site, it comes down to one of two alternatives and both of them reflect very poorly on him. Either he and/or his staff have failed to research the story sufficiently (which suggests that he and/or they aren't very competent) or he's done this deliberately (which means that he's deliberately misleading the viewers).
Considering that Coulter is the sort of person who condemns others for refusing to acknowledge the ways in which they contribute to their own difficulties, she sure doesn't seem to have any qualms about crying victimization when it suits her to do so -- but the editors made it clear that she only has herself to blame. After all, it's one thing when your opponents don't like you -- but when those who are supposed to be your allies start abandoning you, that's when it's time to wake up and smell the coffee! Unfortunately for Coulter, she really doesn't seem the type who has much time or patience for self-analysis.
Oh, this is rich. Ann Convoluted Coulter is upset.
To keep the conservatives out? Nah. The Arizona Daily Star just wanted someone with more journalistic integrity-it's a relative universe (coming from Fox News and all).
no. 1: her column is a joke. it's a parody of conservatism. no. 2: she was replaced with another right winger, so where's the big loss to the conservative cause? no. 3: she thinks conservatives are kept off msnbc? k.o. is the only "liberal" on at night. the rest are all right wing.
Well said. Case closed.
"He's taking interviews to start being the program director at MSNBC...[w]hich has also had excellent success in keeping conservatives out."
A perfect summation of the walking delusion that is Ann Coulter. When MSNBC had Phil Donahue, management disparaged his programs' liberal content, and interfered with it endlessly--by the time the show ended, they were mandating three conservative guests for every one liberal. Then, of course, they fired Donahue. The official reason was poor ratings, but an internal memo leaked only days later showed that Donahue had been fired because he was a liberal, which horrified management.
Concurrent with the firing, they announced they were hiring a new slate of conservatives, including Joe Scarborough and Michael Savage. The latter was an all-but-open fascist. He'd trashed Ashleigh Banfield, a loyal MSNBC correspondent, as a "sl*t" (btw, MMFA, a profanity now?). When Banfield took offense at this, she was soundly rebuked, in public, by MSNBC, and now seems to have disappeared altogether. (Of course, the Savage Weiner didn't last long--after telling a homosexual caller to his program to "get AIDS and die"--exactly the sort of comment he'd made daily on his radio show before being hired--he was quietly shuffled away).
MSNBC's "excellent success in keeping conservatives out" has been so "excellent" that liberals are virtually non-existent, and the line-up is now practically ALL conservative. Joe Scarborough (who retains his job, despite drawing half the ratings of Donahue), Chris Matthews, and, of course, the latest concoction, Tucker Carlson.
Yes, let's ignore the fact that MSNBC has more conservative commentators than liberal commentators. Let's ignore that they have more conservatives hosting their own shows than liberals.
Let's ignore the fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, a huge defense supplier which was just awarded billions of dollars in defense contracts, including the contract to build our next advanced fighter aircraft.
Let's ignore that Microsoft made electing George W. Bush a huge goal in 2000, donated heavily to his campaign, and then were rewarded when Bush's Justice Department made their huge anti-trust case go away with only a slight slap on the wrist (a small monetary fine, when they were expected to possibly be broken up into two companies).
Let's ignore that Bill Gates (Microsoft CEO) donated the maximum amount to Bush in the last election, and gave nothing to Kerry.
[link to www.fundrace.org]
Let's ignore that Robert C. Wright, CEO of NBC, donated the maximum amount to Bush in the last election, and gave nothing to Kerry.
[link to www.fundrace.org]
Despite all the evidence to the contrary, MSNBC is apparently liberal just because Hannity and Coulter say they are. The sad thing is, many of their listeners actually believe the BS they shovel on a daily basis.
"Despite all the evidence to the contrary, MSNBC is apparently liberal just because Hannity and Coulter say they are. The sad thing is, many of their listeners actually believe the BS they shovel on a daily basis."
Conservatives built a franchise on redefining truth, so why should they stop now? They've also elevated attack and victimization to an art form. Liberals are effete, impotent whiners ... until they strike back. Then they're bullies who use their "power" to shut out the voice of the "people." (I guess shrill, bombastic and intellectually lazy conservatives speak for America's majority?) So which is it, Ann?
Both, as long as she thinks she can get away with her schizophrenic argument.
What gets me about people of Coulter's (and Hannity's) ilk is how they manage to combine such an inflated sense of entitlement with an equally inflated sense of victimization.
They're a bunch of whining crybabies.
Why is it that almost everything she ever says is so obviously the opposite of reality. MSNBC keeping conservatives out? It is a well known fact that they do everything possible to make sure that they hang on to every conservative that they hire. Tucker Carlson's show, for example is one of the biggest ratings failures that they have and there is absolutely no indication that they might cancel it. Donahue had way better ratings and MSNBC just couldn't wait to get rid of him solely because of his political stance.
The liberal media this, the liberal media that. People like Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Coulter control the airwaves and press. Liberal media my rear. Where are the viable safe harbors? AirAmerica and The Nation? Mother Jones with a readership of about 1,000? Put that up against the powerbrokers at the networks, both the older and cable networks, and who is really holding most of the cards?
People of decency fire Ann Coulter. She is a venomous, profoundly sick woman who is without principles but entirely filled with ego and rage. I will flog this point until I'm blue in the face: she is the person who wished Tim McVeigh had taken that bag of nitrates into the New York Times building. Is there a clearer ground needed for committing her to a psychiatric facility?
I've been observing for some time now that there are quite a few on the right who aren't quite as opposed to terrorism as they want us to believe -- provided that it's the right sort of terrorism, of course. When someone like Coulter makes a crack like that, they laugh it off -- but if someone like Al Franken or a Muslim imam were to make such a remark on the record, they'd probably be in handcuffs within a split second. There's no doubt that Eric Rudolph is a terrorist, but he hasn't been officially designated or treated like one -- he was subjected to trial by jury in accordance with his civil rights, as he should have been. Of course, the majority of his targets were gay bars and abortion clinics -- and many on the far right disapprove of the people who patronize such places anyway. In the end, however, if Christian terrorism is somehow more acceptable than Muslim terrorism, then it's not too hard to see that it isn't the act of terrorism itself which they consider to be the real crime -- it's the ideology behind it.
Excellent synopsis. And my paper continues to carry her despite many protests over the years.
He He He.....gotta keep them righties off the air, he he he I think those red staters have their eyes open now, they are afraid that they too will have a New Orleans in their back yard. What terrorists?? We have Fema, Homeland Security, Bush,Hannity & Coulter. They sit in their 2nd home, pass judgement and LIE. Or maybe its their 3rd or 4th home?
Given that there have been on average 2 to 3 letters per day published in the paper itself, or on the website, wondering why on earth the paper continued to print her increasingly unhinged rants, and as far as I can recall none in her defense (both these numbers are estimates, but I have read the paper every day for several years), it's really not that surprising that she was chucked along with a couple of other unpopular features such as "The Best of the Blogs". Of course the letter writing on the part of her detractors was probably part of the reason for her being dropped, but lets face it, conservatives are damn good at getting those letters written too (and a lot of these letters do make it into the Daily Star). The conservatives around here apparently simply didn't think she was worth the effort.
Oh well, if anyone really wants to keep reading Ann, they can just write their own Ann Coulter column. It's easy. Just:
Refer to some minority, and mention they're a real "whiner"
Mention someone of Arabic ancestry, and imply they're a terrorist.
Cull some out of context statement by a prominent liberal or Democrat, and imply/state that they are a) a communist b)a homosexual or c) a terrorist "appeaser".
Finish it off by slandering Bill Clinton. You can call him a murderer, a rapist, a liar, or a thief. Just don't repeat the same libel more than once a week.
Then give a hearty chuckle at how much you've enraged "those liberals" who don't understand your sophisticated brand of satire.
And the millions will come pouring in!!!
I don't want to be like her ( him ???? )