Coulter defended CPAC comment about Edwards: "I wasn't saying it on TV"
During an interview on the June 27 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter defended a controversial remark she made about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards during the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by 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." In fact, Coulter's March 2 CPAC speech -- during which she said she couldn't "really talk about" Edwards because "you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot' " -- aired on C-SPAN, like many of the other speeches at the conference. Moreover, Coulter has previously used the epithet "on TV." Indeed, during the July 27, 2006, edition of MSNBC's Hardball, she referred to former Vice President Al Gore as a "total fag."
Additionally, in response to host Glenn Beck's question regarding whether or not she thinks the word "faggot" is a "slur," Coulter defended her use of the term by claiming that "liberals don't mind" that comedian Sarah Silverman has used it. She said, "I think it's a comedic word, a schoolyard word. Sarah Silverman uses the word, and, oh, liberals don't mind it when she uses it." Coulter went on to argue that "[t]he word means wimp, wuss, pathetic." In March, amid the controversy over her CPAC speech, Coulter similarly defended her use of the term, calling it a "schoolyard taunt" that "means wussy," as Media Matters for America noted.
Coulter also criticized Beck for bleeping the word "faggot" when he aired a video clip of her CPAC comments. She said, "I like that you're bleeping that now. Are you also bleeping 'illegal alien' and 'amnesty,' other words we're not supposed to use? ... 'Niggardly?'"
Indeed, although Beck referred to the word "faggot" as a "slur" and bleeped it on June 27, the weblog Think Progress noted that during the January 22 edition of his show, Beck discussed actor Isaiah Washington's use of the word and referred to it simply as a "naughty name." He asked: "[W]hat is the controversy? One of the guys called another guy a naughty name." Moreover, while Beck's program bleeped the word in the CPAC clip, on January 22 Beck criticized The New York Times for not putting the word into print. He stated: "Do you know that The New York Times wouldn't even print -- I mean, we could say the word. We're having an adult conversation here -- wouldn't even print the word 'faggot.' I find that amazing."
Coulter's reference to Gore as a "total fag" on Hardball came after host Chris Matthews asked her, "How do you know that [former President] Bill Clinton is gay?" -- referring to her comment the night before on the July 26, 2006, edition of CNBC's The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch that Clinton "show[s] some level of latent homosexuality." Coulter responded, "I don't know if he's gay. But Al Gore -- total fag." She went on to defend her theory about Clinton's sexuality by stating that "everyone has always known, widely promiscuous heterosexual men have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about them." Coulter claimed she was "just kidding" about Gore, but said of her theory about Clinton, "It's not only not a joke, it's not even surprising."
From the June 27 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck:
BECK: I have said things on the air that have been taken out of context, they have been twisted. I've said things that just -- foot in the mouth, just stupid, stupid things.
This question on ABC and -- and this is the one thing that I haven't understood, and I wanted to talk to you about it personally -- this question that you answered on Good Morning America, and I think answered well, was -- stemmed from a comment that you made about John Edwards at a speech. And I want to play the clip. Here's the clip.
COULTER [video clip]: I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word [bleep]. So --
BECK: So, you --
COULTER: -- I like that you're bleeping that now. Are you also bleeping "illegal alien" and "amnesty," other words we're not supposed to use?
BECK: Well, one is a --
COULTER: "Niggardly?"
BECK: One is a slur. One is a slur. Do you believe -- do you believe that word is a slur?
COULTER: No.
BECK: You don't?
COULTER: No. No, I think it's a comedic word, a schoolyard word. Sarah Silverman uses the word, and, oh, liberals don't mind it when she uses it.
BECK: OK.
COULTER: And by the way, 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.
BECK: OK, well -- but that doesn't necessarily -- I don't want to get into that. Here's -- here's what it --
COULTER: You don't think it makes a difference what the venue is? There's nothing you'd say in front of a group of college Republicans that you wouldn't say on TV? I doubt that.
BECK: No, there really isn't. I mean, I do comedy tours and I say, because you live in the -- you live in the world of YouTube now, where you know you're going to -- somebody's going to take it and spin it out of context, et cetera, et cetera. But I don't understand the joke. Can you -- was it --
COULTER: Well, you're going back six months. This was a week after Isaiah Washington, the actor --
BECK: I know, I understand that. But what is the connection --
COULTER: -- was sent to rehab for using the word.
BECK: I got that. But what's the connection to John Edwards?
COULTER: I had just done five minutes on Obama, five minutes on Hillary. I needed to end my speech, so I just threw in, "I can't say anything about him because I can't use this word." The word means wimp, wuss, pathetic --
BECK: OK.
COULTER: That's what it means.
BECK: Got it.
COULTER: And someone who does, you know, the Las Vegas routine before illiterate juries in order to bankrupt doctors with junk science -- admitted by The New York Times to be junk science --
BECK: Yes.
COULTER: -- is precisely what that word means, which is why 7,000 college Republicans laughed.
BECK: Ann Coulter, author of Godless: The Church of Liberalism.
How crazy is that?
Glenn Beck comes off as the rational one.
I need a drink.
Worrier, don't we all need one? The great thing about her TV quote is one can only imagine what she says without the cameras.
We CAN see what Coulter says when the cameras are turned off.
All we have to do is read her collumns.
Ann Coulter is a foul-mouthed trailer trash, pandering to the lowest of the low.
Well, I am up coulter creek without a paddle. I don't drink. Guess I could call the ZIGZAG man. It won't be but a few days and the MMFA will be the official ann hitler-coulter website. Can someone start a ann coulter euthenasia fund raising site?
Beck does comedy tours??? aieeee...
COULTER: "Niggardly?"
And yet again, she gets to be racist until someone calls her on it, and then it majically becomes a joke.
Niggardly is not a racial epithet.
It means stingy.
God help us all.
I agree. That is true.
You're right about the meaning, and I knew that. But she wasn't calling beck miserly now was she?
Ya know, I'm getting tired of having to come back and re-explain my jokes every time some dim witted conservative like Maxi is too stupid to peel back the layers of what I said and just see the underlying message for what it is. And I'm tired of having to re-explain over and over again that it's just a joke. He's clearly too stupid to get it. No wonder reichwingedness is a mental disorder.
Perhaps someone should come along and shoot all the republican presidential candidates and the country would be better off. If you don't agree with me, then obvoiusly you don't understand that I was joking. It is so tiresome to have to explain that. Coulter is a clown. I am glad that she finally found her way to Beck's show, which is a circus.
Max, she could have used the word miser but she didn't. Why, because it would not have the same effect as niggard.
Part of me says don't give any more exposure to this obviously bitter and twisted human and part of me says give her the stage in the hope that more and more people will hear her and reject what she and so many others laugh off as political pundritry.
Ann thinks just because she didn't say her vicious remarks on tv it must mean she has a sunny sweet disposition. Only her nutball fans would buy into that logic.
Funny... this is the same defense used by members of this board. "We don't have a national tv show..." or "we aren't on national radio shows." We can say evil things about people we hate because we are a small group of likeminded individuals.
I disagree with her opinions, but she is right about this. She was speaking at a group event, not on a national show. What if the press decided to show some of the posts from this group? You might be singing a different tune.
No she is not right she was being filmed by C-Span which IS a national TV program. She also says such things on TV and in her syndicated column all the time. It was almost a point except she lied. AGAIN.
Here's a deal, Cannonballz...get the GOP to set me up as a "pundit" and subsidize my income with bulk book sales, provide me with talking points and get me on cable shows...and I'll stop saying nasty things about troglodytes.
I will also challenge you like this: Find the most hateful, in your opinion, liberal pundit/commentator/editorial writer and find me one instance of a Democratic political candidate introducing this columnist/pundit, etc., at an event sponsored by a Liberal organization.
Cannon, so she's kind of like the KKK and Klan rally. What she said is all good cause she's speaking to "her" people, right?
This is getting just plain stupid and pathetic.
What the heck triggered this whole new publicity tour for Skeletor? Not only are we getting nothing insightful or informative about today's issues, it's also been nothing but a rehash of Skeletor's most insulting moments. It's almost like some kind of surreal "Worst Moments in Media History" montage dating back to a year ago, when the P.O.S. book that they're plugging came out.
I can make no sense out of this.
COULTER: And someone who does, you know, the Las Vegas routine before illiterate juries in order to bankrupt doctors with junk science -- admitted by The New York Times to be junk science.
A series of words throw together? Or is there some refference to reality I'm missing.
On the other hand, my first try at pasting seems to have worked.
I don't think Ann Coulter has ever gotten a fact straight in her life
Niggardly just means cheap.
I think she was referring to some teacher that got fired for using the word. That was pretty fu**ed up and over the top.
OK, seriously -- why is Coulter worthy of airtime?
Why is Paris Hilton?
Blame it on cable's 24/7 news cycle.
Sometimes I long for the days of 3 major networks and 1 PBS station, which if I remember correctly all used to sign off at midnight. Back then only real news and newsworthy individuals were covered.
That it was. Though if she's trying to compare herself to that guy she's nuts.
She said, "I think it's a comedic word, a schoolyard word. Sarah Silverman uses the word, and, oh, liberals don't mind it when she uses it."
Silverman oughta call Coulter out on that. Silverman is a comedian -- an ACTUAL, REAL comedian, not the convenient-excuse comedian that regressives pretend to be when busted for, well, being themselves.
Silverman's use of that word, and other parts of her act, are making fun of racists and homophobes. Silverman has said herself (in an interview in Esquire, I think it was) that she purposely plays the moronic racist/homophobe on her show so she can make fun of that character.
But, as usual, that's lost on someone like Coulter. It's complicated. Far too complicated for simple minds. I wish I could find the exact quote from that interview, but I think it went something like this:
Q. How do people know when you're joking and not actually being racist?
A. Uh, by not being retarded?
That's the thing that slays me about people like Coulter. They want to call out someone who is actually a comedian about using words such as she uses, but she seems to forget that she is supposed to be a real life political pundit (notice I said, supposed to be), and one who actually offers insight and a tearing down of political points of view, and or looking at policies and agreeing and disagreeing with them, except she uses foul language and strawmen, and actually she has no political point of view. She just attacks people. I don't think I've ever seen her make a political point without attacking someone in the process. You know, a harsh personal attack, but when people call her out on it, it's just the "liberal media" being unfair to poor little old Ann. Jeesh, give me a freakin' break.
Here's the other thing Ann. Silverman, unlike you, is actually FUNNY.
Thanks for making that point. Our resident trolls use the same excuse for their heroes, but it just doesn't wash. Yes, Bill Maher says offensive things, but he's not a "pundit". Ann has been selling herself as a political pundit and columnist ever since she crawled out from under her rock to help set up the Clinton perjury trap. Maybe it's just me, but I think "political pundits" should be held to a slightly higher standard than "comics".
Silverman, unlike [Coulter] is actually FUNNY.
Right. And it's because Sliverman makes herself the punchline of many of her jokes. She acts as the idiot racist, anti-semitic homophobe to draw attention to how stupid such people are. She doesn't just call someone a f*gg*t and then turn to her adoring fascist fanatics to accept her applause.
I hate Chris Matthews almost as much as I despise Ann Coulter
wow and all this time i was led to belive its real meaning was a bundle of sticks DAMN YOU WEBSTER FOR LYING TO ME