I Apologize To Prof. Marcus

I promised that I would have nothing further to say on the controversy concerning the latest attack from Ann Coulter upon John Edwards, but this column from John Cloud in Time screams for a response, partly because I support Edwards (apparently, Cloud has a mixed history with this creature, and I’ll get to that later).

Are straight people allowed to say "faggot"? Are white people allowed to say "nigger"? Generally no. Our unwritten speech codes require that those words be used only by gays and blacks, respectively (black gays can say both).

“Unwritten speech codes”? I would say that simple standards of human decency require that we not hurl insults at each other. And yes, I know that African Americans throw that epithet at each other as a term of familiarity, and that’s their business as far as I’m concerned (and the same with gays). However, if I were to use that language as part of my everyday speech, I would lose my friends and quite probably my job also, to say nothing of maybe estranging family members. I might also get my ass kicked, which isn’t a good thing either.

Which is just as it should be: minorities can reappropriate slurs if it empowers them or even if it just humors them — I think it's funny when fellow gays sarcastically say "Hey faggot" to me. But it wouldn't be so funny if, say, my heterosexual boss said it. Sorry, straight people: you don't get to say "faggot." (I can still be fired for being gay in most U.S. states, so you still have the better end of the bargain.) Speech codes are one of the many social devices that keep us from all murdering each other with our bare hands in the grocery aisle.

So…you just wasted two paragraphs restating the obvious, then? And if someone is “empowered” or “humored” by a slur, than I would call that person a truly pathetic individual.

But speech codes deeply offend conservatives, which is the point Ann Coulter was making when she said this last week: "I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot.'"

Aha, so THAT’s why Cloud mentioned this “speech code” business! I see now. So, then, “speech codes” are just something that other people (re: liberals) are supposed to observe, but not conservatives?

Actually, that makes sense when you consider the death threats and otherwise hateful language employed by conservatives as they ridicule anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

Pretty much everyone in mainstream politics, right and left, then condemned her. Coulter is very good at sparking these controversies. She does it once or twice a year, to the great benefit of her fame and book sales (you can read my fuller take on the last Coulter explosion, regarding 9/11 widows here.

(Sorry, but if Cloud wants a link to his other columns, he'll have to go someplace else).

I wouldn’t look upon anyone that is “very good at sparking these controversies” with any thing other than derision or disgust, and I most certainly do in this case.

Coulter is heterosexual, so I suppose I should condemn her as well.

Her sexuality has nothing whatsoever to do with it (still, please allow me to quote myself here - "eeeaaawwwww!!!"). As I said, we’re talking about merely acting like an adult, which apparently is a concept Coulter is unwilling to grasp.

But note that she was using the word "faggot" with virtual quote marks around it. Surely all of us are allowed to do that — just the way I used the N word in quote marks above.

Coulter's remarks weren't "virtual". Her words were uttered in real time in front of a crowd.

She didn't say "John Edwards is a faggot." She would never say that — not because she respects the rights of gays to full equality before the law (she doesn't) — but because it wouldn't be funny.

There is nothing “funny” about any of this! And she wouldn’t say those words point blank because, in her typically sick, twisted fashion, she had already implied them.

Coulter wants to make people laugh more than anything; she is, as I have argued here, a right-wing ironist and comedienne as much as she is a political commentator.

“Right-wing ironist”? “Comedienne”?

At first I thought Coulter was the only twisted and delusional person here, but I think Cloud officially qualifies also with that observation.

This is obvious if you watch her speak with the sound off — she is smiling or even giggling most of the time; she theatrically rolls her eyes; you can see her pause and toss her hair into a jaunty cant before delivering a punchline.

I am not a psychologist or a life sciences professional, but I’m sure someone familiar with mental illness would observe similar behavior among people with that type of an affliction.

We don't read her body language the way we normally do because the words she is uttering are so peremptory and shocking. If we did, we would put her in the same league as Bill Maher or Jackie Mason, not the dry policy analysts who are sometimes pitted against her on cable-news shows.

That statement is so preposterous that I won’t even respond to it, except to note that I haven’t had an opportunity to watch the new season of “Real Time” yet – I promise to try and find a way to work that in.

I have interviewed both Coulter and Edwards in the past, and I'm pretty sure the attention her comments have drawn pleases both of them, at least a little. (Well, it pleases Ann a great deal; I wonder if she can now charge an extra $5,000 for her next speaking engagement...). Edwards got some free media, his first since the Obama-Clinton standoff began in earnest; he is also using the incident to raise money, something Coulter has noted with glee on her website.

Cloud can click this link to find out how much John Edwards is “pleased” by Coulter’s sick conduct. However, I grudgingly have to admit that Cloud is right about Edwards using this as an excuse to raise money, and to me, that begs the following question: why the hell not? If Coulter is going to be dumb enough to hand this kind of ammunition to Edwards, then I’d be disappointed if he didn’t try to find a way to shoot her with it, so to speak. And though I’m sure Edwards is happy to raise additional funds for the campaign, I’m quite sure he would have been even happier to do it under better circumstances.

I do have one complaint with Coulter's joke: It wasn't that funny. Edwards is many things — a little dull, wrong on Iraq, hopelessly reductive on the economy (there are many more than two Americas). But he doesn't seem the least bit gay to me.

Cloud is entitled to his opinion on the issues versus Edwards, though I realize a substantive debate is too much for him.

Coulter has at least one close gay friend, and when I was reporting my profile of her, she always remembered to ask about my partner at the time. She is always trying to get me to go with her to the Halloween parade in Manhattan's West Village, which is the second gayest event in New York City after the Pride parade. So I'm not sure why she thought it would be funny to target a gay joke at Edwards. But then again she doesn't need her semiannual cadenzas of outrage to be funny: she just needs us to condemn them, louder and louder every time.

I guess, then, that given the fact that Cloud thinks we should condemn Coulter “louder and louder each time,” then she really isn’t funny after all as far as he’s concerned? Or is our justifiable condemnation and outrage irrelevant to Cloud since Coulter is a “right-wing ironist” rebelling against “speech codes,” and all of this is supposed to be just part of her little game?

We know this, and I’m sorry to be taking up more bandwidth again, but it needs to be pointed out as long as we have to do it:

Ann Coulter is a delusional, argumentative psychotic, which places her perfectly amidst the other right-wing shouters all ensconced in The Public Opinion Abattoir Of Low Discourse. And at long last, she is starting to pay something of a price (as noted here, here, and here...Cloud should pay particular attention to this third link).

And previously, Cloud has defended Coulter (here), but apparently turned on her once the heat got to be too much for him (here).

Unfortunately, though, nonsensical columns like this by Cloud are part of Coulter’s “reassimilation” and “reintegration” for appearances’ sake into our corporate media (because, as we know, there is NOTHING these people can say that will truly get them tossed from the party). I heard that Coulter also appeared on “Good Morning, America” today with more mea culpas, no doubt for the same purpose.

Again, I’ll really try to avoid posting about this hateful harpy. For now, though, I’ll just leave you with the sage words of Henry Rollins, who cuts to the chase as usual (careful for the "F" bombs).



Update 3/7/07: Tee, hee, hee...