A Complete Lack of Decency

Ann Coulter has displayed a complete lack of decency. She has taken it upon herself to be the personal critic of John Edwards. Whether you like John Edwards or not, or whether you would ever choose to vote for him or not is not at issue. She seemingly cannot resist taking deeply personal potshots at him. A few months back she referred to him as a faggot. It was a dreadful derogatory remark referring to the gay community that most people above the age of 12 years old recognize it as a dreadful and derogatory word and will not use it out of a sense of decency. Except Ann Coulter. She inferred that John Edwards was a faggot. It was an indecent comment on its own merit and truly bizarre. John Edwards doesn't happen to be gay so where this came from no one is really sure.

On "Good Morning America" the other morning she said, "“If I’m going to say anything about John Edwards in the future, I’ll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.” Oh, it was a joke. I missed the punchline. A person is running for President and you are suggesting that you wish he had been killed by terrorists?

John Edwards has utilized the personal attacks by Ms. Coulter to raise money for his campaign. His premise is that she might learn that these kind of personal attacks on people are an affront to the average citizen and people will pay money to a candidate to prove that point. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with his fund-raising on this but it has worked.

Last night Chris Matthews was interviewing Ann Coulter....they need to put a longer delay on her than most guests because her language tend to be on the salty side and she doesn't seem to have the ability or the desire to clean up her language on television. They do it for her.

In the middle of the interview Elizabeth Edwards called and took Ms. Coulter to task. Quoting, "The things she has said over the years, not just about John but about other candidates, lowers the political dialogue at precisely the time we need to raise it,” Elizabeth Edwards said in a phone call to MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews as Coulter, a guest on the program, listened.

“It debases political dialogue,” Elizabeth Edwards added. “It drives people away from the process. We can’t have a debate about issues if you’re using this kind of language.”

Ann Coulter tried a bogus approach as a response that Elizabeth Edwards wanted her to be totally quiet. Ms. Edwards was not and everyone watching knew it. It was the tone, and the kind of things that are said. I watched the clip on "You Tube" and it's fascinating to watch Ms. Coulter's body language. She fidgets and is incredibly uncomfortable. She is legimately being taken to task and knows it.

Political discourse needs to be about issues and people need to be able to seriously dialogue about issues. Shouting over a person or being cruel in one's statements about another does lower the political dialogue. Frankly the Ann Coulter's of the world will continue doing their thing and lowering the dialogue as long as people keep buying their books and inviting them to be on the air. The only way we will raise the dialogue is by disempowering those who choose to lower it.