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Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards

by Steven D
Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 11:43:10 AM EST

Last night Elizabeth Edwards confronted Ann Coulter about her ad hominem attacks and hate speech on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Politely, but firmly she asked Coulter to stop the attacks on her family, and, in general to elevate the level of political discourse in this country by foregoing hate speech. Coulter responded with further ad hominem attacks against John and Elizabeth Edwards and made the false claim that the Edwards campaign was trying to suppress her free speech (I guess even asking Coulter nicely not to insult your family gratuitously now ranks as liberal censorship).

Coulter has a long history of attacking John Edwards. Two days ago on Good Morning America Coulter said in the future she will only wish for his assassination by terrorists. At a convention of conservative activists a few months back she called John Edwards a "faggot." And a few years ago, when discussing the tragic death of the Edwards' young son in a car accident Coulter claimed Edwards had a bumper sticker on his car that said "ask me about my dead son." As Elizabeth Edwards rightly pointed out, this is not a topic for legitimate political debate, and such personal attacks and hate speech (for which Coulter is well known) debases our political discourse. Here's how the commentators over at Free Republic, a conservative website and forum, are responding to this story, unabridged and unedited: (cont.)

LOL, for something lighter.
Coulter should direct her [Elizabeth Edward] to the closest breakfast sponsored by radical homosexual activists.
1 posted on 06/26/2007 4:58:10 PM PDT by Baladas
o: Baladas
So, dead f@ggot it is?
2 posted on 06/26/2007 5:00:28 PM PDT by Build_The_Fence (Mr. Bush....tear up that Bill)
To: Baladas
Annie rocks!
6 posted on 06/26/2007 5:02:38 PM PDT by don-o (“I don`t expect politicians to solve anyone's problems.The world owes us nothing” Bob Dylan)
To: Baladas
Nancy-boy needs his ailing wife to stick up for him.
Is this how his presidency would go? Bin Laden insults him, and Elizabeth starts pleading pathetically....
8 posted on 06/26/2007 5:03:44 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
To: Zechariah11; All
Chrissy Matthews, the fat blond DNC cheerleader, that one?
Question for anyone who can answer: biggest coward - Elizabeth Edwards or Christine?
Ann Coulter could kick both of their asses, intellectually, too IMO.
11 posted on 06/26/2007 5:05:52 PM PDT by Baladas
To: Baladas
Why can’t John stand up for himself?
15 posted on 06/26/2007 5:22:14 PM PDT by panzer_grey
To: Baladas; RonDog; All
This is pretty mess up that Pretty little pony need his cancer stricken wife to defend him
17 posted on 06/26/2007 5:25:08 PM PDT by SevenofNine ("We are Freepers, all your media belong to us, resistence is futile")
To: Baladas
Coulter: “Johnnie is a sissie, neener neener neener.”
19 posted on 06/26/2007 5:26:12 PM PDT by Enterprise (I can't talk about liberals anymore because some of the words will get me sent to rehab.)
To: Baladas
“Please, Ann, leave Johnny alone. He had it so rough in kindergarten and he’s never gotten over it”.
24 posted on 06/26/2007 5:39:42 PM PDT by taxesareforever (Never forget Matt Maupin)
To: Baladas
Elizabeth Edwards asks commentator Ann Coulter to stop attacks
Deal. I can see that happening when Mrs. Breck Girl's little Johnny shuts his stupid yapper. Then Ann can turn her siege guns on some other oddball Democrat.
26 posted on 06/26/2007 5:45:58 PM PDT by steelyourfaith
To: Baladas
John Edwards hides behind a skirt.
29 posted on 06/26/2007 5:49:59 PM PDT by weegee (If the Fairness Doctrine is imposed on USA who will ABC news get to read the conservative rebuttal)
To: SGCOS
I wish he would get the democrat party nomination, Elizabeth would make Turyeza Kerry look sane in comparison.
Lizzie used to post at the DUmp, wonder what Chrissy’s nic there is? They both ambushed Ann, or tried to, and Coulter still “won”, off-guard at that.
39 posted on 06/26/2007 6:15:34 PM PDT by Baladas
To: TheLion
Ann keep speaking the truth.the Demwits can’t handle it.
42 posted on 06/26/2007 6:42:12 PM PDT by jocko12
To: Baladas
Ann was the one who held back and behaved politely. The Edwards bitch sunk to a new low by trying to blame the death of her son on anyone but the Breck girl. The Edwards family is disgusting in their ploys at victimhood - boo hoo hoo. Ann Coulter is my hero for wiping the floor with that wench.
47 posted on 06/26/2007 7:30:45 PM PDT by elitemicro This garbage sort of proves Elizabeth Edward's point about Coulter debasing our political discourse, doesn't it? Especially that last one. Only in the bizarro world of the Right Wing denizens of Freeperville could Coulter be declared the overwhelming "victor" in her confrontation with Mrs. Edwards.

Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards | 23 comments (23 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Those quotes (4.00 / 4)

Wow. My eyes feel dirty.

I admire Elizabeth. She spoke in a firm but polite way to that piece of crap Coulter.

by dataguy on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 11:54:30 AM EST

Re: Those quotes (4.00 / 4)

I though Elizabeth was great. She didn't respond to Coulter's crazy-making, and stuck to her point. Making Coulter, of course, look like the nasty piece of work that she is.

by CabinGirl on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:05:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I heard a tape of it later... (4.00 / 2)

Elizabeth Edwards has just shown the American public the difference between civil discourse and bullying and namecalling.

"Stop with the hate." How direct can you get?

I saw the stick figure that is Coulter waving her hair around. I notice this about certain white women. They fluff or fling their hair about when they are uncomfortable.

Keep up the pressure, Elizabeth.

An untypical Negro

by blksista (gab1954@gmail.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 03:15:53 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (4.00 / 2)

The freepers are some sick people but I guess that is why they worship the coulturegista nd her brand of evilness

Coulturegist A Living Nightmare

Elizabeth Edwards Rocks!!!

Doing My Part For The Left,Left Of The Rainbow

by refinish69 (refinish69 at gmail dot com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:21:42 PM EST

Realistically (4.00 / 3)

Is this how his presidency would go? Bin Laden insults him, and Elizabeth starts pleading pathetically....

This is the meme that John Edwards is going to have to address and address quickly. Because it spins an insignificant incident into the framing of what Edwards's policies and responses are going to be.

It is Edwards himself who is going to have to stand up to the bullies, not surrogates. Otherwise, he will go the way of John Kerry after the Swiftboat attacks.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

by TarheelDem (editor@thepartielion.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:38:59 PM EST

Wht he should say (4.00 / 3)

Elizabeth doesn't speak for me, and doesn't need my permission to speak.

And I agree with what she said 100%.

Obama is a Patriot

by Steven D on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:47:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Nothing right now (4.00 / 2)

But he himself is going to have to take on the hate merchants with a great deal of reason, a great deal of passion, and a great deal of purpose. To do this, he has to pick his fights carefully but it must be done to deal with the "soft on defense" meme. The "if he can't defend himself, how will he defend us" line that is implicit in the Freepers' comments. He has to make it a demonstration of how he would treat the foreign leaders that Americans love to hate.

If Edwards doesn't have this in him (and I think that he will rise to the occasion), he will have lost no matter what policies he puts forward.

Actions speak louder.

Undercutting Elizabeth is exactly the wrong thing to do.

It doesn't matter what Steven D thinks of the situation. You're an easy sell. It matters what at least 62 million voters think about it.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

by TarheelDem (editor@thepartielion.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 01:18:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wht he should say (none / 1)

If politicians had channels for submitting tactical suggestions to them, I'd suggest that you forward this.

If politicians had channels for submitting strategic suggestions, I'd suggest that they set up channels for tactical suggestions. An implementation:

Ask staff to screen and evaluate tactical suggestions, drawing attention to them as appropriate.
Establish an email address or web form for the purpose (and ignore whether someone is a constituent!).
Issue an invitation via the blogosphere.

This would draw forth enormous creativity, and (returning to the example at hand) would often produce results quickly enough to use in crafting a fast response to an attack.
----------

If this were already being done, then, almost by definition, we'd know about it. Does anyone here like this idea and have access to conventional channels for making a suggestion to their favorite politician?

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.

by technopolitical on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 05:00:26 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Wht he should say (none / 1)

I assume that many have staffers scan blogs, and that they sometimes see and pay attention to good ideas, but this informal, unacknowledged channel can surely be improved.

A first project: How to respond to criticism of opening a channel for taking advice from the public -- or better, how best to spin this as part of a general, democratic openness to the ideas and wishes of the public.

Words and ideas I offer here may be used freely and without attribution.

by technopolitical on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 05:08:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Nonsense (4.00 / 4)

The king does not address morons. He gets surrogates at the correct level to address assholes like Coulter.

It would be a terrible mistake to elevate Coulter to Edwards' level by actually speaking to her.

It's a protocol thing.

by dataguy on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 01:27:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

The King (4.00 / 3)

Edwards need not speak directly to Coulter to call out the bullies. He needs to lay into her funders. He needs to question the educational value of having her and other shock politicos speak at universities. He needs to expose who exactly is pushing her and the conservative bullies on cable. (Roger Ailes is one name that should be mentioned). He needs to speak about how media ownership has corrupted American politics.

And the Edwards campaign needs to figure out a way to campaign without buying ads from Republican corporations.

And he should get Mudcat Saunders to take Coulter to the woodshed over and over. That is, if Mudcat can forget about those dirty hippies.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

by TarheelDem (editor@thepartielion.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 03:02:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Realistically (4.00 / 2)

I agree - a good strategy would be to let Elizabeth be polite the way she was, and for JE to come out verbally swinging and really pound back hard.

Now it would just be defending his wife and he can really
be harsh in his criticism.

by Birdie on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 02:15:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Realistically (none / 0)

Agreed.

And he needs to come out hammering NOT just Coulter but ALL the Republicans, be they talk radio hosts or columnists or bloggers or anyone else. This should be hit HARD by everyone on the D side until the message gets very clear that those who do not explicitly and specifically (and publicly) repudiate Coulter and the entire culture of hate which the GOP relies on are in fact supporters and enablers of it. These people are political terrorists, and they have to be called on it again and again and again until the entire electorate recognizes it. .

Everyone's talking about Coulter as though she were some sort of extremist aberration. She's NOT. She gets better coverage than the others because she's the closest thing they've got to an attractive female, but she is dead center philosophical mainstream for today's GOP, and it's way the hell past time the D's nailed their asses to the wall on it.

We are all captives of the pictures in our heads -- our belief that the world which we have experienced is the world that really exists. -- Walter Lippman

by stormkite on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 12:51:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (4.00 / 2)

This is exactly why Coulter won't ever stop. In addition to their unending admiration, her fans provide her with a good income. Why derail the money train and actually provide something of use to the political debate?

Fear will keep the local systems in line. -Grand Moff Tarkin Survivor Left Blogistan

by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 12:42:18 PM EST

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (4.00 / 2)

What liberals don't get is this: Fans of Coulter and the other GOP propaganda shocktroops are not bright enough to know what "debasing our political discourse" even means, much less care about it. And that includes Matthews and all the rest of the fake journalists that enable them. It is Matthews and his ilk that need to be held to account for giving these freaks a platform. Now that the loonybins are closed there are plenty of being like Coulter running around screaming their "wisdom". That the likes of Matthews choose them for their "discussions" reflects primarily on them, their audience, and their advertisers.

Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense." --Former Nixon counsel John Dean

by DaveW on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 01:12:32 PM EST

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (none / 1)

Not expecting fans of Coulter to get it. Wanting the media owners to get it. Continue the looniness; lose lots of money.

Exactly right.

50 states, 210 media market, 435 Congressional Districts, 3080 counties, 192,480 precincts

by TarheelDem (editor@thepartielion.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 03:04:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (4.00 / 6)

Actually, I think it's great that Coulter and her Freeper groupies are out in the open with this shit. This is what the Republican Party has always been composed of under the thin intellectual veneer of people like William F. Buckley. Now that the old guard is out of the way, the sewage is spilling out into the street where everyone can see and smell it.

The GOP is the party of racists, thugs, misogynists, neo-nazis, sociopaths, fanatics, and uneducated rabble. It is a cesspool of human detritus. Let them be known for what they are.

If you want to raise the level of discourse, don't legitimize them by attempting to debate them.

---Cthulhu for President: Why vote for the lesser evil?

by eodell (eodell at naqada dot org) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 01:23:09 PM EST

Now you know whom to vote for (4.00 / 4)

My guess is that the power brokers think they have plenty to use on Obama and Clinton, but are REALLY afraid of Edwards. There are other signs--not just Coulter.

By the way, the comments were about her dead son. Elisabeth had every right.

Michaela

by michaelmt (MrMichael_t@yahoo.com) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 03:41:06 PM EST

Re: Now you know whom to vote for (4.00 / 3)

I think you're right on. Before all this election stuff heated up a couple of months ago I heard several Republicans say that they fear an Edwards candidacy the most. They know Hillary charges up their base and looses the Democratic base - she's the one they are praying for. And I think they know that Obama is still untested and aren't quite sure where he'll go. But they know Edwards poses a real threat in a general election.

Doesn't information itself have a liberal bias? Steven Colbert

by NLinStPaul on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 04:00:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (none / 1)

This incident has really put me on edge, as it is drawing out some of my more radical thoughts. My mind has been spinning around the class diary that NLStPaul wrote the other day and mixing it with A.G.'s constant call for a (wait for it)

NEWSSTRIKE!

We have to take ourselves as much out of the system as we possibly can - do not consume the junk that is produced to placate the masses and to divert out attention from the people attempting to control our lives.

Pick a company that sponsors this hate and wipe its products out of your life. Maybe we as a blog can pick just one and take them on.

Is it 2009 yet?

by Teacher Toni (tacoralatyahoodotcom) on Wed Jun 27th, 2007 at 09:06:42 PM EST

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (none / 0)

Edwards should not fall into the right-wing trap of answering Coulter's smears directly, no matter how hard they push. Those charges should be answered, but they should be answered by surrogates. That's the tactic the right-wing uses. Notice, they never directly respond to charges about their incompetence, corruption and general fecklessness. Always they use the indirect approach, because they know that their direct response could be used against them when they lie. Make just the slightest misstatement, about the minute that you offered a reply for example, and the right-wing noise machine will be all over it trying to denigrate the truthfulness of the candidate. They've turned it into an art form and it's time the Democrats used the same approach to deny the thugs any possible ammunition.

by VizierVic (VizierVic@hotmail.com) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 07:22:14 AM EST

Surrogates (none / 0)

should always be used. You NEVER send the King to take out the trash. In many ways, Elizabeth is over-ranked to be confronting that whore Coulter, but what's done is done.

by dataguy on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 09:04:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards (none / 0)

Maybe "Ann" has a sexual thing for prom king John?

by bob h (robert.hall10@att.net) on Thu Jun 28th, 2007 at 04:37:58 PM EST

Freepers and Elizabeth Edwards | 23 comments (23 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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