Posted on 03/08/2005 2:01:10 PM PST by rightalien
Ann Coulter called liberal columnist Helen Thomas an "old Arab" and suggested she may be a security threat to President Bush in a recent column, and Twenty-six members of the U.S. Congress are steamin' mad.
The Detroit Free Press reports that in a letter to Universal Press, which syndicates Coulter’s column, the lawmakers criticize Universal's response to the potential controversy as inadequate.
Exactly what did, and didn't, happen?
Coulter, while arguing that liberal attacks on ex-White House reporter Jeff Gannon, formerly of Talon News, were a response to the "public disgrace and ruin of New York Times editor Howell Raines, CBS anchor Dan Rather and CNN news director Eason Jordan,” also took a shot at longtime Washington correspondent Thomas (who, by the way, called Condi Rice a "monster" and a "goddamn liar").
Coulter wrote: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president.”
Although Universal removed the "Arab" reference before sending the column to Coulter's 110 newspaper clients, the politicians are upset because Coulter kept "Arab" in the version of the column that appeared on her website, AnnCoulter.com. The politicos point out that she also kept the Universal copyright under the column and didn't include a disclaimer explaining that the column was worded differently from the one syndicated by Universal.
They wrote: "Just as we would expect that similar slights against African-Americans, Jews, or Hispanics would not be tolerated, equal disapproval should be shown toward these repeated slanders directed at Arab-Americans," adding, "Loyal Arab-Americans have made heroic contributions to our military, intelligence, and Homeland Security efforts."
As a result of the stir, Coulter and Universal have reached an agreement on removing Universal's copyright from columns on AnnCoulter.com that differ from columns sent to newspapers.
Until now, the line under Coulter's columns said "copyright Universal Press Syndicate." Under the agreement, all columns on AnnCoulter.com will say "distributed by Universal Press Syndicate (c) Ann Coulter" if the print and Web versions of the column are the same.
If the versions are not the same, the line will say "(c) Ann Coulter" only. "This applies to columns that may be of different lengths, with different headlines, and with different copy from the edited version," Kerr said.
Using a Coulter copyright "corrects a longstanding error," said Kathie Kerr, director of Communications for Universal. "Universal does not hold the copyright on Ann's columns."
However, as this story was being posted, Coulter had yet to drop the Universal copyright from the Feb. 23 column on her site. "We fully expect it will be removed," Kerr told E&P.
Kerr added that she knew of no newspapers canceling Coulter’s popular column because of her "old Arab" remark.
Nor should they. It is an "opinion" column, after all, is it not? And this is still America, is it not?
Just wait 'til Ann takes aim at these 26!
So 26 elected politicians are fuming because of the comments of a political columnist?
Where are the cries of mythical "McCarthyism" and "freedom speech."? Both of which have nothing to do with this, but would be the issue if Republicans took on a Hitler comparing journalist. "Trying to silence criticism." Yep. Yep.
I find it hilarious that being called an arab can now be a racial slur.
Excellent point...references to Bush as "Hitler" or "Nazi" is free speech and the socialibs jump to defenf those that spew that rhetoric....but Ann's free-speech is attacked??
Go get'em Ann!!
And PLEASE no more pictures of that ole Ara*....I just ate lunch for crying out loud!!
This neo-McCarthyism will have a chilling effect on free speech.....blah blah blah....
Actually, there is no such picture as far as I know. If there were, I am sure it would have been posted long ago.
Two faced scum!
"Loyal Arab-Americans have made heroic contributions to our military, intelligence, and Homeland Security efforts."
I'll absolutely concede that. I've even known some of them.
But Helen Thomas is not on that list, and will never be anywhere close to it.
She's a dedicated, anti-American fifth columnist of the old school. Always was, always will be.
Plus, she's just scary ugly.
Her face prolly also made many more than a 1000 drunken sailors either turn gay or sign up for AA.
I'll bet her daddy beat the hell outta her momma for having such an ugly kid.
So leftists can say whatever they want without repercussions but conservatives can't? I think those are the rules. Just so long as we know.
Tough sh!% hypocrites. Go live in Cuba since you RATS like communism so much.
Helen is a shriveled-up old biddy who should have been left out on the ice flow two decades ago except for those in the White House press corp who want to keep her because she makes them look good by comparison.
True, so true...
Ann Coulter is the leanest meanest RINO exposer ever born..
She speaks and RINOs suck their teeth and/or post responses in threads..
They can't help it.. She exposes their confusion and stealth.
Woo hoo!! Way to go Ann!!
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