I didn’t let Ann Coulter get away with it when she referred to John Edwards as “faggot” earlier at this year’s C-PAC conference. How to talk like a bigot if you really have to.
So this week on Hardball, host Chrissie Matthews (rumored to be in consideration to replace Rosie on The View) threw a curveball at right wing lightning rod Ann Coulter. Just before airtime, Matthews let coulter know that Mrs. Edwards might be calling.
Mrs. Edwards made an impassioned plea for Ann to stop the hate and rhetoric. And, of course Ann was cut off by Chrissie when she asked “can’t your husband call for himself?”
What prompted the call (other than the campaign’s PR director) was Ann’s appearance earlier this week on Good Morning America.
Mrs. Edwards wanted Ann to stop the hateful remarks. The edited story you’re getting of course is that Ann said she wanted John Edwards to be killed in a terrorist attack.
She didn’t say that.
This is what Ann actually said on Good Morning America:
“But about the same time, you know, 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 going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.”
Coulter’s point of course was that Maher got away with saying he wished Cheney had died, NOT that she was wishing the same for Edwards. For those with better than a third grade education, she was pointing out the hypocrisy.
Read more at Newsbusters.org
And just in case that’s not enough to convince you, Breitbart.com has the video.
Seems like Elizabeth Edwards didn’t cause such a stir when she criticized her neighbor as a “rabid, rabid Republican” who refuses to clean up his “slummy” property just to spite her family, whose lavish 28,000-square-foot estate is nearby on 102 wooded acres. Fox News, April 9, 2007
Ann of course pointed out that she’s been a huge fundraiser for Edwards and said, rightly so, that she’s a little tired of the Edwards campaign using her image and words to raise money.
How did Elizabeth Edwards respond to that? With an email to supporters that said “Last night I had an important talk with Ann Coulter and I want to tell you what happened…Please give what you can right now to help raise the dialogue and show that Ann Coulter-style politics will never carry the day.”
In addition to lying about what Ann really said on GMA, Mrs. Edwards accused Ann of making fun of their son’s death. No, Mrs. Edwards, Ann was making fun of your exploitation of your son’s death. And before you say “we didn’t do that” let’s review:
Now, as Edwards’ profile rises with the prospect of a 2004 presidential bid, he and his family - like political figures before - find themselves confronting their tragedy in public.
Edwards’ public success spotlights son’s death
The Charlotte Observer
August 31, 2001
But we were not about to let go of our son, and it was that determination that brought us out from the paralysis of grief. Elizabeth and I formed the nonprofit Wade Edwards Foundation.
Lost teenage son in a traffic accident
Source: Four Trials, by John Edwards, p.172-3 Dec 1, 2003 (a campaign piece)
Almost everything John and Elizabeth Edwards have done since the death of their 16-year-old son has been in memory of Wade or influenced by his tragic loss - even the meteoric political career John Edwards [related, bio] began shortly afterward.
Running for his son: Teen’s death changed Edwards’ life
The Boston Herald, July 7, 2004
But now his wife, Elizabeth, has sent an e-mail to supporters voicing a connection she shares with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. As Sheehan was camped near President Bush’s Texas ranch, protesting the war, Edwards called on her own family’s backers to support Sheehan.
And, in a departure from a campaign-trail silence that the Edwardses kept about the death of their 16-year-old son, Wade, Elizabeth Edwards noted that Sheehan’s son, Casey, 24, died in Iraq eight years to the day after her own son.
Edwards Using Son’s Death As Political Tool
Say Anything Blog, August 22, 2005 quoting a Chicago Tribune Article
Recounting the death of a loved one is painful, but Elizabeth Edwards said writing about her son, Wade, who died in a car crash in 1996, was a way of “parenting his memory.”
Book saves memory of son, Edwards tells Oprah
The News & Observer
(AP) WASHINGTON As he tries to explain how he’ll cope with the return of his wife’s cancer, presidential hopeful John Edwards is opening up about another family struggle — the death of his teenage son Wade 11 years ago.
Edwards Opens Up About Son He Lost
WCCO.com
Direct from the Edwards’ Campaign Blog
A Tribute to Wade Edwards
The story I am…
Getting Young people to vote
Nobody’s saying that the Edwards shoudn’t talk about their son. It’s only natural. But the fact is, they’ve done it so much it even made John Kerry queasy.
And, in case you didn’t know, HE was in Vietnam…sometime around Christmas or so.
“From now on, I’m attacking only serious presidential candidates, like Dennis Kucinich.â€
~ Ann Coulter
What the Virginia blogs are saying…
Dogwood Pundit:Â Big Media Launches Cheap Hack Job Against Ann Coulter
Skeptical Observer:Â More Far Left Idiocy
TwoConservatives: Elizabeth Edwards — Venus Flytrap?
As usual, it’s okay when the conservatives are the targets of the jokes.
ABC’s “World News Now,” a news program that airs at 3:30 am Eastern, when most people in the U.S. are fast asleep, replayed Jake Tapper’s earlier “World News” report on the war of words between Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards, and Ann Coulter during its broadcast on Thursday.
At the conclusion of the report, hosts Taina Hernandez and Ryan Owens (pictured at right) had a brief exchange, in which Owens proposed an “Ann Coulter blackout,” similar to a “Paris Hilton blackout” that the program apparently has, and Hernandez, as a counterproposal, joked, “Or we can pit them together in some kind of skinny death match.” At the end of Owens and Hernandez’s exchange, and as the weather report began, someone in the control room at ABC queued-up Elton John’s “The B**ch is Back.”
Newsbusters.org
The Media Research Center asks:Â Why isn’t the press challenging Elizabeth Edwards to condemn the Edwards Presidential Campaign for hiring and defending hateful bloggers?
ALEXANDRIA, VA — Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, has called on Americans to stop conservative Ann Coulter’s “hate words.†But when that campaign hired two hateful, anti-Christian bigots as “official†bloggers, Mrs. Edwards did not object and the campaign decided to give them a “fair shake,†as John Edwards said. The bloggers resigned in February only after their bigoted writings were exposed by other bloggers and conservative talk radio, causing a huge embarrassment.
Read more.
What’s Ann got to say about it?
That Was No Lady — That Was My Husband
Ann Coulter in Human Events
I doubled the ratings of the lowest-rated cable news show on Tuesday by agreeing to go on for a full hour to promote my new paperback version of “Godless” — a mistake I won’t make again. As I was walking to the set, minutes before airtime, it was casually mentioned to me that Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, might call in.
Manifestly, I was not making fun of their son’s death; I was making fun of John Edwards’ incredibly creepy habit of invoking his son’s tragic death to advance his political career — a practice so repellant, it even made John Kerry queasy.
Read more.
The bottom line is, Ann may be controversial. But the John and Elizabeth Edwards are hypocrites.
1972 : Nixon announces draftees will not go to Vietnam