Ann Coulter—Reexamined

An Open Letter to Jon Friedman of MarketWatch.com

Jon –

There is little to argue with factually in your recent article on Ann Coulter in response to her instantly infamous John Edwards comment (Ann Coulter’s the Paris Hilton of political coverage, March 7, 2007). Excepting that your effort is steeped in irony—and not just the “she wins because I am writing about her” variety of which you are aware.

Ann (the beautiful of face and intelligent—yet loud of mouth—right-wing pundit) enjoys a love/cringe relationship with much of the right. But her most common rants are against one-sided journalism. You are certainly free to rail against her harshness of temperament and voice, but where have you been? Where was your critical pen when Al Franken called President Bush a Nazi or when he challenged Richard Lowry to a fight (actual fisticuffs)—amongst other outrages? Where is your objective eye when the gals on The View ambush Dr. Laura Schlesinger (it was ugly)? Or when Karen Bates of the New York Times commented that the sound of Trent Lott’s voice called to mind the image of nooses hanging from trees? Or when Julianne Malveaux (left-wing syndicated columnist) openly wished in print that Clarence Thomas would die of a heart attack. Or when Nina Totenberg (PBS) hoped on-air that Jesse Helms would die of AIDS? Or when Harry Belafonte called our President the “biggest terrorist in the world” in a series of interviews with the foreign press? Could I not go on?

I regularly follow your MarketWatch columns—did I miss something or are you practicing selectivity in your disdain? Perhaps Ann Coulter believes she needs the outrage to be heard at all. Rail against Ann Coulter if you will—she may deserve it on occasion. But she is your creation and that of your journalistic brethren (themselves no strangers to outrageous statements).

Is Ms. Coulter in danger of becoming "obsolete" as you claim? Ask not for whom the bell of obsolescence tolls; for it may toll for thee.

Be well,
Huckleberry