Me too, and several times a day! 
Posted on 09/03/2002 2:28:07 PM PDT by SheLion
Editor's File | A letter to Coulter
Dear Ann Coulter:
You're fired.
It's not that extreme viewpoints are unwelcome on the opinion pages of the Centre Daily Times. All political viewpoints, from Cal Thomas on the right to Molly Ivins on the left, are welcome here.
But, we don't welcome haters, Ann, and that's what you are.
Well, you are either a hater or a hypocrite who calls names and spews enmity because you believe it will get your pretty face on television more or sell more copies of your best-selling books.
In either case, we won't be publishing your Friday column anymore . We decided not to publish a piece of yours a few weeks back because it was nothing more than a sexual history of some of your enemies -- i.e., private citizens who dared to give money to the Democrats.
I wrote a column about why we held the piece and told readers then that if you continued to cross the line, we'd can you.
Your Friday column, in which you declared that liberals are "no good," then trashed the entire Kennedy clan as a collection of "heroin addicts, convicted killers, cheaters, bottleggers and dissolute drunks," crossed that line. I'm not going to defend the Kennedy family or liberals; either group can argue with you if they'd like.
But, Ann, you're mean -- vicious, really -- which is why we do not believe that you in any way serve the public good.
On a late summer morning almost a year ago, all of us -- Republicans, Democrats and everyone else -- witnessed what hate is capable of.
Since that day, Americans have tried to remember that they are on the same side, regardless of differences in skin color, nation of origin, religion or political viewpoint. It has not always been easy because, more than ever, those who are different can seem more threatening. But we're trying because what we have in America is worth keeping.
And, Ann, you're not helping. You do nothing to elevate our spirits, to celebrate the great bond that holds us this unruly people together and makes us a nation.
Hate is easy; love is hard.
Our great nation gives you the freedom to hate all you want and even to make a buck off it if you can. But, even better, it gives us the right not to have to listen.
So, Ann, you're fired. I expect some of our readers are going to be mad at us over this, but we hope they'll understand that while we joyfully publish a wide spectrum of political and social viewpoints, we condemn hate where we find it.
You won't miss us much, Ann. Heck, you're rolling in money. And your fans can find your column on the Internet anyway.
We'll start looking for someone to replace you. It won't be easy because you sure are flashy and a lot of folks like flashy. But political conservatism has produced other columnists of merit whose ideas will provide subjects fit for public consumption and debate -- writers who do not believe those who disagree with them are traitors, or worse.
Sincerely,
Bob Unger, executive editor
Bob Unger can be reached by
e-mail at runger@centredaily.com or by phone at 231-4640.
A fatwah on you all!
What???!!
It took 53 posts before anyone posted a picture of Ann. You have to post a picture of Ann on any post that refers to her. Even I know that.;-)
Really? What did Maureen Dowd write that day?
Answer #2: Falling in a trap of my own making.
Just seeing if you were paying attention to what you said
Good on ya
You left out theifs, and tax cheats, but I won't quibble.
You really have to understand the mindset of the Kennedys and by extention the Clintons. They believe confession absolves them of any and all sin. Maybe so, but I guess nobody told them about the smell.
I didn't write this article. I just reported it.
True...but...it's OK for blacks to use the 'N' word so it makes perfect sense that Michael Moore would talk about 'Stupid White Men' and Al Franken should get a pass when ranking 'Fat Idiots'. Michael Moore is highly qualified to speak on both, really.
To be fair, the left does indeed have its own attack dog columnists, such as the putrescent Molly Ivins, and the likes of Al Franken and his Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Yet Coulter's rolling in the mud with them doesn't advance serious debate, or even general exposure to non-modern-liberal thinking. And it's a mistake to pretend that it does, even indirectly.
The acid acerbity about the Kennedys in Coulter's latest column, though, ended up confirming for me how she plays fast and loose with the truth. I read George magazine for many years (at the library, it was overpriced), and JFK Jr. pulled in some stellar writers about politics, by no means all liberals or the like. Coulter used to write for George, and I knew that this latest bit of hers was tweaking something in my memory.
Sure enough, with Google, I found it. From a 19 July 1999 "Washington Post" article:
When conservative Republican Ann Coulter turned in her first George magazine column, about health care, John Kennedy Jr. wanted more specifics. Fine, said Coulter. "So I sent in a paragraph denouncing Teddy Kennedy's proposal--and it ran!" Kennedy, she said yesterday, "was totally fair and even-handed. He wanted people to be reading ideas, and it didn't matter that he didn't agree with them."
And now she spits in his watery grave. I detest their abuses of power and morality as much as anyone else here, but this current "family of heroin addicts," etc., comment is too far over the edge on Coulter's part.
The Kennedys -- as to strictly personal tragedy -- have been a historical lightning rod only from being examined so closely. And, yes, that comes largely from political cult-making. To turn that into invective against an entire family, though, is a shade of barbarism in public discourse that I don't like seeing. From the left, right, or anywhere on the political map.
Coulter has her amusing and truthful moments. Just not enough of them, though, since she forgets another principle: You can use a machine gun to kill flies, but it wastes a lot of ammunition.
Me too, and several times a day!
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