SPECIAL FOR BOB SOMERBY. Via Mickey Kaus, Ann Coulter asks why G.O.P. presidential candidates are distancing themselves from her now:
Did any of these guys say anything after I made the same remark about Al Gore last summer?Why not? What were they trying to say about Al Gore with their silence?
The answer, of course, was no. No one on the right came to Gore’s aid or denounced Coulter when she called him “a fag.” MediaMatters was on the case at the time, as were some bloggers, but the response on the G.O.P. side was silent enough to act as encouragement for Coulter. She said:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you about your private life. How do you know that Bill Clinton’s gay?
COULTER: He may not be gay, but Al Gore, total fag. No, I’m just kidding. As someone, no —
MATTHEWS: That’s based on your private life?
COULTER: No, that’s a joke.
MATTHEWS: OK.
COULTER: That’s what we call in the writing business, a joke. No, I mean, I state a manifestly obvious fact. Someone pointed out on Free Republic, I think a little disgruntled yesterday, Ann’s amazing capacity is to state the obvious and make it news. I mean, everyone has always known, widely promiscuous heterosexual men have, as I say, a whiff of the bathhouse about them.
What changed the media reaction between July and now? Dr. Burke.
–Garance Franke-Ruta
