Thursday, March 08, 2007
Posted by:
Kevin McCullough
at
7:13 AM
On the entirety of its network of Salem Communications is issuing its official daily commentary today. Michael Medved voices today's piece and speaking on behalf of the editorial board of Salem Communications this is what he will be heard saying:
Conservatives are right to condemn liberal fanatics who jokingly wish for Cheney's death, or compare Bush to Hitler, but we should also denounce right wing celebrities who violate standards of decency.
Ann Coulter is an important, consistently provocative commentator but she needs to apologize for applying an anti-homosexual slur to presidential candidate John Edwards. It's bad enough to invoke this explosive "f-word" in public address to a conservative audience, but it's totally unacceptable to direct it at Edwards--happily married for 29 years and the father of five children, one of whom died in a tragic accident.
Edwards deserves condemnation for his left wing politics, his naked opportunism, even for his career as an ambulance-chasing lawyer, but smearing him as secretly gay degrades public discourse.
I like and admire Ann Coulter, but if she insists on marginalizing herself, we shouldn't allow her to drag the conservative movement with her to the fringe.
Since Ann could probably easily attribute close to half of all her recent book sales to broadcast and print opportunities she has garnered with Salem nationwide, I hope she will listen to what her friends are saying back to her.
I also think that Medved is really on target when referring to the Edwards' marriage, and the tragedy of their lost child. Since Ann is fronting for a party in which only one of the three front runners has been married to only one woman - she has little cause to attack what appears to be a 29 year effort of success.
***Ann Coulter is an important, consistently provocative commentator but she needs to apologize for applying an anti-homosexual slur to presidential candidate John Edwards. It's bad enough to invoke this explosive "f-word" in public address to a conservative audience, but it's totally unacceptable to direct it at Edwards--happily married for 29 years and the father of five children, one of whom died in a tragic accident.***
That's a good start, but it should be unacceptable to say "f*gg*t" to anybody, and not just married fathers. Also, why does John Edwards deserve condemnation? That's something I would save for someone espousing Nazi views. How about "We strongly disagree with the views he holds, and we have a different vision of where America should go in the next decade" etc etc |
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word to you? You are a sissy. What happened to "sticks and stones..?” Edwards deserves condemnation for his hypocrisy. He lives in 29,000 ft. home and he talks about 2 Americas. He also claims to know what Jesus thinks. I believe that if he talked to Jesus, Edwards would not be happy. Read Mt. 19:16-22. If he wants to preach to me about our selfishness then he should lead by example and sell all he has so he can give it to the poor. All his riches are ill-gained anyway, friggin' ambulance chaser. |
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Ann Coulter has made millions by insulting liberals. She's not going to stop unless the dollars stop.
The answer is not an apology, especially a coerced one. If Salem, radio and TV hosts, or conservatives groups don't like Coulter's "shtick", then STOP inviting her to speak to groups or be on the shows.
If you believe that she provides a benefit to conservative or Republican politics, then don't act surprised if she offends. There are plenty on the left who offer offense every day (Randi Rhodes, Jack Cafferty) or on special occasions (Howard Dean, Al Franken, et. al.).
The apology will gain nothing, It won't and shouldn't quiet Ann Coulter, and it certainly won't convince anyone to vote Republican. |
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There's something we have not heard from John Edwards since Ann's clever comment at CPAC: a denial. Does Ann Coulter know something TH does not know?? 29 years of a seemingly successful marriage is strong evidence, but the rest of his life is problematic. I do not think TH should be rushing to judgement about her -- she is one of the few with the courage to talk about any elephant in the parlor. |
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Never thought I'd see it..... TH caves!!! Rome is burning. |
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One lives best by following an internal set of rules – not what others think. Ms Coulter has provided, and continues to provide, valuable, refreshing and amusing viewpoints and ideas. Rather than asking Ms Coulter to apologize for her remarks, conservatives AND liberals should be supporting her right to make them.
Ann Coulter is exercising one of the basic freedoms available to the citizens of the United States of America. The world’s mainstream media rallied to the cause of Salman Rushdie and newspapers who printed material critical of Islam tenets and historical models. We should expect – and do – no less for Ms Coulter. Waxing on over a phrase in her remarks is infantile and insulting to the millions who have sworn, served, and sacrificed to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.
If one desires to criticize Ms Coulter’s remarks – go ahead. If one desires to change Ms Coulter’s views, debate her on the substance of her remarks. If the criticisms are valid and sufficiently cogent Ms Coulter may adopt them. If not – who cares? Getting upset that someone else does not share one’s viewpoint is narcissistic.
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This is a piece I wrote for my column and certainly applies to Ann Coulter:
During the birth pangs of America in Colonial times, the idea of freedom of speech was the definitive rallying cry of the soon-to-be Americans. However, I would suggest for your thinking that the hypocritical conditions under which the idea of the so-called freedom of speech was heralded still exist today. American wannebees back then did not care nor understand freedom of speech. Neither do they today.
To the colonists, freedom of speech was a device. It was an ideological tool to achieve a goal. It was not an ideology to be embraced for its own sake. It was not something to be cherished, sought for, or to die for as is the goal for humans to be truly free human beings in the pursuit of happiness. They did not seek it as an end in and of itself.
During the fight for independence, colonists actively sought out and persecuted those with dissenting views. They destroyed the printing presses of those who supported the British government’s position. They prosecuted those who supported the British ideology. No one was allowed to entertain the idea that perhaps the colonists were wrong and the Crown was right. The colonists continued to punish those with a dissenting view even after independence was won.
It was through the Alien and Sedition Acts, officially recognized in 1798, by which a dissenter could be imprisoned for up to two years for offering a dissenting view.
“The Sedition Act says anyone opposing or resisting any law of the United States, or any act of the President of the United States could be imprisoned for up to two years. It was also illegal to write, print, utter, or publish anything critical of the president or Congress.”
Though not an official law until 1798, the revolutionists, crying all the while, “freedom of speech,” actively suppressed and punished anyone who held a dissenting view. Later, it actually became a law, thus preventing anyone from criticizing the President and or Congress.
Freedom of Speech? Oh, really?
Benjamin Franklin’s own brother, who was persecuted by the British government for printing dissenting views, pre-revolution, declared himself completely comfortable, post-revolution, with prosecuting those with a dissenting view or those who held different ideas.
Freedom of Speech, to the colonists, pre- and post-revolution, evidently only applied to those who agreed with their ideas. Anyone else, anyone with a different idea, or anyone who dissented from the majority could be, and was indeed, legally prosecuted.
Oh, you say, that was then and certainly it goes on no longer. Really?
Try this little experiment:
If you are a public school teacher, try making your dissenting view concerning the origins of homosexuality known. Try making your position that you believe homosexuality is a choice and not intrinsic public. Try telling others that gays are made, not born and see what happens.
At the very least you will be forced, in order to keep your job, into psychiatric therapy to be readjusted. Or, you will lose your employment.
A dissenting view would not be and is not tolerated.
If you have children in public schools, try complaining when the school district orders your child and her classmates be taught the Gay Party Line regarding the origins of homosexuality and see what happens.
Better yet, if you really want to see how fast the you-know-what would hit the fan, let a public school teacher make known that she is a Christian and see what happens.
I have recently been involved in a situation in which my freedom to write about certain issues, issues that seem to be unpleasant for a group of apparently influential Americans, has come into question. I’ve been forced, through a relationship with someone I care deeply about, to curtail my writing about these issues. These “Americans” saw how to reach me, through someone I care about, to squelch my writing.
Leonard W. Levy, in his book, Emergence of a Free Press, says this:
"The American people simply did not believe or understand that freedom of thought and expression means equal freedom for the other person, especially the one with hated ideas. And neither do they today."
The older I get the more I become convinced that both sides of the political spectrum, the democrats and the republicans, entertain a fascist approach.
“Fascists ideologically rebel against Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. One has the liberty to express a dissenting view. One has the equality not to be treated differently or harmed for your dissenting voice. Finally, one has fraternity to be loved by your neighbor, as Christ commanded, despite having different views. Whether fascism is running rampant in America today, I cannot say. It seems Americans have one foot in the door!”
The question is do you, Mr. and Ms. American, have the freedom to express a dissenting view and not be treated differently or harmed for your dissent? Try the experiments mentioned earlier in this article and see what happens.
Take careful heed to what Philosopher John Stuart Mill said regarding freedom speech:
“[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
But, as I’ve said in other articles, the power of a free exchange in a Market Place of Ideas in American discourse perhaps has never existed.
Are we really free?
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The joke wasn't even about Edwards but about how the use of certain words now requires rehab.
You have just proved Coulter's point!
I am changing my registration from Republican to Independent over this abuse of Coulter.
She was referring to a very popular TV program, something which you seem unable to grasp. At no time did she call Edwards a homosexual.
Your behavior is far, far worse than hers. But then is the idea to get enough newpapers to drop her columns and replace her with say, Michell Malkin whom you consider much more predictable.
If I hear this drivel actually aired, I will be further distancing myself from your causes and I am a life-long Republican of many years.
My college aged kids constantly refer to things as "gay" and "faggoty" much as I would like them not to. So who is going to bring the young voters into the party? Phyllis Schaffly? Or Michelle the hysterical mother?? I don't think so!
Go ahead and do this and lose yet another activist. You seem to have them to spare.
Where is the outrage against Bill Mahar and the demand that he apologize???
Oh, that's right! He's a male and so can say anything he pleases. Women bring dishonor when they speak.
What next? A public stoning of Coulter to restore you feeble Honor she has sullied by being a female beyond your control?
You make me sick! You are disgusting! I am NOT one of you any longer. |
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What Coulter has been doing these many years is making clear the divide between liberals and conservatives. Perhaps only those of us who have crossed from one side to the other know how deep a gorge this is. It is like a gestalt shift where what looked like a vase turns out to be two faces. The change in perspective changes everything.
But conservatives were going along thinking that calm and reasonable debate with the other would win the day. Calm and reasonable debate with people who are so conditioned by the ideological divide that they think that George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler are on the same ideological page!
Coulter could see that such a debate was as brainless as sending sheep to battle wolves. Instead she fights fire with fire. It is not nice, it may not be Christian, but it is part of the reason that Republicans have been in power since the abdication of King Bill.
For conservatives to disown her when she says something that they do not understand hands all the cards right back to the liberals. Oh no! We conservatives should adhere to a higher standard! That higher standard usually means surrendering the game to the atheists and deists who think that relativism has been sanctified by Einstein. |
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of the sticks and stones may break my bones school, as I learned it as a four year old. I see no need for Coulter to apologize. I remain her friend and supporter. |
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and inappropriate to call a thief a c crook. |
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all to refrain from saying homosexual acts are unnatural or perverted or sinful. Well I myself do not typically engage in using vulgar names to describe someone, I hardly see doing so to be as significant as so many are making it out to be. In most instances, I consider it juvenile. In this instance, from what I know, I think the critics need to put the use of the word in context before deciding to mount their soapboxes. Isn't faggot a slang term as much as gay is a slang term? |
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if you are of the sticks and stones school, then no doubt you would be blissfully serene if somebody called your wife a hooker? Rush Limbaugh was dead-on correct when he said "words have meaning". They do, and they can damage freputations and careers far more effectively then sticks and stones. |
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Click on my name and read my bio, and see for yourself how bizarre your "sissy" taunt is!! LMBO!
As for all the others in here who support name calling and schoolyard slurs in political speeches, well, it's sad what the party of Reagan has come to, and I'm ashamed of you. Not that you care, but you guys actually don't see how screwed up you look to the rest of the country, just like the wackos on HuffPo and Kos looked like hateful buffoons for hoping Cheney would die. You people are no better. |
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This is the time I need to admit that I have been, with my Husband, a fan of Ann Coulter for quite a long time. I remember, with a smile, days gone by, over 10 years to be precise, when she was a frequent guest on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect". I, also, remember my Husband and I holding hands, and jumping up and down on our living room couch, so many nights Ann would make comments we absolutely agreed with...
I feel for Ann Coulter today. On a much smaller scale, I understand her experience. As a Christian, and Conservative, I have had my fair share of being misunderstood, left out, and misjudged by just such people, including some folks who work over at Salem Communications, and Conservative bloggers, et. al. I remember the turned-up-nose feeling I got from them, as if I wasn't quite good enough.
It sort of felt like they thought I was crazy. Regardless, I was "out", I never quite fit in.. Although there was nothing flagrant, or truly bad, or rude about anything I did or said, and I made amends to whomever, with profuse apologies, I remained ever an outsider, to this group of, apparent, Conservative "kin".
I find solace in the fruit of that though, particularly on days like today...I am reminded of why I have personally steered clear of doing much in the blogging realms, or making voyages to participate in large scale Conservative ventures.
There is something worse amiss here with Salem Communications, and company, that goes beyond swallowing a camel and swatting a fly, as they pass through a needle.
There is a severe danger of CPAC, Salem Communications, and company, encouraging the very thing they have been trying to fight, by way of their media, radio shows, and ministries for many, many years.
This expression of theirs, wanting to gag Ms. Coulter, by asking her to apologize, does two things. It paints Salem as an entity which thinks it has the right to ask such things, and I only think of God and His Holy Spirit as such an entity. For Salem Communications to presume that Ann Coulter must apologize to "them" assumes that Salem Communications, and its related entities, The Kevin McCullough show, etc., are parties capable of only perfection. We all know for me to make such a statement makes me a liar. Which I’m not.
(After all, who can forget the numerous on air apologies Salem radio has had to make on behalf of Mr. McCullough here? "We apologize for what Kevin McCullough said yesterday" ..Pick any day..)
It also closes all discussion about Ann's true implication.
While I maintain that Ann's words were not the kindest or most respectful, she was making a very important, and salient, point. To deny her that. For Salem Communications, and company, to step on some imagined podium of self-righteousness over that, is an arrogant kind of thing.
In another personal aside, I must add there seems to be the suggestion implicit there that this company is beyond imperfection, and by association with them, so should everyone else be. (Probably no shock then, that many a time I felt ill-at-ease at some of their Christian chatrooms, as their Moderators did have kind of a Nazi air. Unlike Liberals, I am not suggesting that Salem Communications is run by Nazis, or any such thing. Just that there was an unhealthy degree of structure there, in my eyes, since, for no really good reason, I was banned from one of their chats anyway...)
Other than lifting themselves, and other Conservative bloggers by association, “up”, pridefully, Salem Communications does, in the same breath, ignore, or deny, the importance of what Ann was saying. I say to Ms Coulter, take heart.
It bears repeating that there are far more important issues than a social snafu here. Her point was about free speech, and programming, and how Political Correctness has made comfortable speech, almost, illegal. Here is a quote from another post on here that made mention of her:
"Ann Coulter may be called many things, a lightening rod, a lose cannon, for some. But she is nothing if she is not one thing, and that is truthful. Her allusion to the poisonous, and nefarious, agenda behind political correctness was spot on. Her reference was making a strong, and salient, point about real people who have had to stand before the media, and the public, because they were lambasted, threatened, worse (?) about not candy coating insults to gays.
These actors, sports stars, etc., were used as poster-children in a wicked game, which was meant to push homosexual "lifestyles" as "normal", and silence anyone who did not agree, or defend. The famous individuals were meant to serve as public examples of a twisted kind of scrutiny, towards an agenda, and an awful end.
Their penalty was to be forced to be publicly humiliated, ostracized, and subjected to requests for them to seek mental health helps, and "recovery" or "therapy". The actor this allusion referred to did indeed seek that kind of help, and the fact that he did was outrageous. Ironically, in a way, you are doing that to Ann Coulter too.
Yet Conservative bloggers playing petty factions throw out the baby with the bath by dumping Ann. Of course her words were coarse, but she was making a point using this term, and someone had to make it. Maybe not the best delivery, but I see none of you looking to clarify, or defend, her point, which was one that was sorely needed.
Perhaps Ms. Coulter has not, in your minds, achieved the status you all have to fit in well with each other, and play nice, or that she is not as you all think and feel she should be. In this case, however, I think you are weakening yourselves, and your cause, and hurting a person who was shedding light on a growing and awful problem, which few of you have had the guts, or decency, to address here, much less the hindsight, or foresight to see.
Maybe you all ought to rethink this, once you have put down your stones, and removed the planks from your eyes, to see this more clearly. In the meantime, let’s recall the difference between the word bloggers and floggers".
By the way, after all this, I think Ms. Coulter is going to be, wisely, rethinking who are her "Friends".. |
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That's a tin pan alley song from the early 20th Century. Should I apologize for using it? Somebody will probably think it demeaning? We used it in high school, but the load had a different meaning from the song.
We didn't apologize then, and I won't now. There was and is no need. Most people thought it a very funny comment just like her Edward's joke.
And Ann Coulter does not have to apologize for using the term faggot in her speech. She was obviously making a joke about the PC treatment of Isaiah Washington. Are all the pundits too dumb to figure this out?
Faggot is another one of those mis-used words in limbo. When I was a boyscout I was hit in the head by a flying faggot. That's what we called a wooden stick on it's way to the campfire. Yes, it's also used to identify a gay person. I can't help that.
And speaking of "gay", it used to have a joyful and carefree connotation---it's too bad we can't use it like that anymore. I liked it. The next thing you know, the word "pervert" will become semi-sacred, and people will be expected to apologize when they use it.
Since so many "conservative" writers and organizations are calling for Ann's head, one has to wonder what it's all about. Well, it's simply that they don't understand or have misinterpreted what she said, and they've jumped on the PC bandwagon and joined the liberals.
That's all very disturbing to a true conservative.
Ann is abrasive, and I like that. She speaks her mind no matter what the results. So instead of understanding her, the liberals insult her, call for apologies, and throw pies at her. By the way, liberal or democrat---pretty much the same.
Reading all the semi-literate and sometimes shrill comments all over Townhall tells me there are a lot of liberals in conservative clothing in this forum.
And Salem, shame on you. Wake up. You should have better sense.
Ann, keep the faith. We need you. |
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