Cliff LyonAnn Coulter & Sean Hannity Justify Faggot Slur, Embarrass America
These people are an embarrassment to this country. They epitomize the worse kind of slime America has to offer.
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American Bully
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Listening to Coulter defend herself with Hannity’s help, I was struck by the notion that Faux News has managed to single-handedly establish a new metric – a new school yard playing field if you will – for judging the fairness of political mudslinging.
As long as it’s meant as a joke and no less common than a schoolyard vindictive, it’s fair. That can only imply that Ann Coulter is no more accountable than the schoolyard bully. But hey, if Bush is not the quintessential manifestation of a bully…
But here’s the sick part. The term faggot is a really, really mean word. It is not like other words that kids throw around at each other. I know of one particular instance when that word was ringing in the ears of a 12-year-old boy who went home and killed himself.
No one is too old or isolated to know that the word faggot stands out as the choice of the very meanest of schoolyard bullies. Its use closer to an act of physical violence than any I can think of. Some teenagers will tell you they would rather be punched in the face than called a faggot in front of their peers and it is certainly an invitation to violence in today’s American school culture.
Ann Coulter’s pre-meditated use of that word and her subsequent flippant dismissal of anyone who is offended by her use of it taken together with the fact of her position in American culture today should be of great concern to all of us.
Hannity justified it by equating it with Dick Durban characterization of Guantanimo as reminiscent of Nazi Germany. He of course confused that comment with calling the US soldiers Nazis. For those of you who are satisfied with that defense, there is no hope for you.
To the Republican candidates who criticized Coulter for that comment, thank God, thank you, and don’t stop. Her response to you, “They’re just stupid†should also not go unanswered.
March 7th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Probably the most telling statement she made in the interview was “this is the 17th supposed career-ending statement that I’ve made”. That, I infer, means that she’s mostly concerned with how much money she can make. It is completely uncivil for her to make such an ad hominem attack. If she doesn’t lose her fan base, she’ll try to do more.
We need a lot more civility in America than Ms. Coulter can or wants to bring to the debate. She should have been boo-ed at her CPAC speech. People should have walked out.
However, to restate Ken Bingham’s comments more to my liking (and he may have meant that in the first place): If we speak out against things that Coulter says, we should also speak out against things that people like Bill Maher say. Incivility from any corner does us harm. They are free to say it, but we are free to say that we think it’s hideous.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Since my days in boot camp I always took ‘faggot’ as a motivational term. The drill sgts called us ‘ladies’ and ‘faggots’ to toughen us, to make us more than the children that we were, to make us ‘All That We Could Be’.
Then there’s Jeff Gannons’ White House sleep-overs! Talk about faggotry, what’s up with that?
March 7th, 2007 at 9:21 am
Someone on TPM pointed out that in right-wing circles, it’s not using the word “faggot” that gets you sent to rehab, it’s turning out to be one (witness Mark Foley and Ted Haggard).