E&P: "Her Syndicate Runs Edited Version of Ann Coulter Column"

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000818305

Her Syndicate Runs Edited Version of Ann Coulter Column

By E&P Staff

Published: February 27, 2005 2:00 PM ET

NEW YORK Ann Coulter, no stanger to controversy, stirred the pot some more this past week, when she took up the subject of the still-simmering story of ex-White House reporter James Guckert, better known as Jeff Gannon, formerly of Talon News.

Writing in her February 23 column for Universal Press Syndicate, Coulter observed, among other things, that Guckert/Gannon was a better reporter than The New York Times' Maureen Dowd and his "only offense is that he may be gay." Nothing unexpected there, but Coulter also wrote: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."

But when the column got posted by by Universal on its Web site, that line was changed to: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."

The original column is still available at anncoulter.com and labeled "Universal Press Syndicate."

Helen Thomas continues to write a regular column for Hearst. Her parents are Lebanese. She has spent more than 60 years in journalism.

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[tx_dem41]

1. "Dyspeptic"...

well, that's hardly offensive at all. Topic closed. :eyes:

[Jack Rabbit]

7. Dyspeptic

1. Relating to or having dyspepsia. 2. Of or displaying a sullen disposition.

dyspepsia Indigestion.

-- Transcribed from Webster's II

[tx_dem41]

10. I agree Jack Rabbit, that its a less innocuous term...

its still offensive in a whole different sense, to me.

[joeybee12]

2. God, what a bigot! Yup, call someone an Arab, and the fuckwads who

agree with you know exactly what you're talking about.

Can someone expose this tranny on live tv sometime?

[tx_dem41]

3. Could you please not call her a "tranny" as if that was some insult...

there was a good thread on this topic the other day.

[Stealther]

5. That 'tranny' comment is indeed deeply offensive

Bigotry comes in all forms. Statements like that is one of them.

-Stealther

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SmokingJacket]

6. Too bad they don't make makeup

for the soul.

[benburch]

20. The Louisville Slugger company makes makeup for the soul!

It would do MY soul good.

[BuelahWitch]

21. I wanna make her a cat poop pie

when she comes to the University of KS next month...

[MrModerate]

9. Chill, boy -- let's keep it to pies . . .

And leave the baseball bats at home.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

17. damn!

I have a great 'pie throwing smilie face' but PhotoBucket is temporarily out of order.
:-(

[benburch]

19. She is the one advocating using baseball bats on US.

I'm prepared to return the favor.

[Rose Siding]

8. Here's a list of Universal Press Syndicate's clients

http://www.uexpress.com/

How can she still have a job?

[Gabi Hayes]

12. I talked to Nate Clay on WLS last night about this

most of the show was on race relations, and He wasn't aware of the Arab comment, and thought it was interesting that it didn't get much notice. I also mentioned her comment WRT CNN's Jordan that reporters SHOULD be getting shot by soldiers (anybody have that exact quote?), and he didn't really believe she said it, but wasn't surprised if she had.

Be finds her as offensive as one could possibly imagine, is also mystified when she can seemingly say anything she likes, and still get lots and lots of airtime, even on supposedly "respectable" MSM shows, not to mention her various columnar slots.

[Rose Siding]

22. I don't know who that is

but it's hard to believe that she really said LOTS of what she really said.

Alterman stuffed a number of her more outrageous lines in here

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020923&s=alterman

I didn't realize that the McClellan remark was what cost her the CNN gig.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. wow.....now THAT's a gamut: Ted Rall to Coulter?

and I thought Kilpatrick was LONG dead.

he is?

Oh.

not surprising

[nashville_brook]

11. newsflash! united press synd discovers the outer limit of offensiveness

[Jack Rabbit]

14. I posted this earlier today

The context was a statement that if Coulter's racism is exposed, then FoxNews would be able to have her as a regular guest "without tainting themselves".

FoxNews is just a racist as she and so are a lot of its regular viewers. Ann Coulter and her Arabophobic nonsense fit in very nicely there.

And what's this about FoxNews not tainting itself? Where have you been? FoxNews is a shameless propaganda outlet for the neoconservatives and the Christian right. It can't be more tainted than it is now.

I agree with Mike. The only thing Coulter is good for is to hold her up an one of the most extreme examples of what is wrong with American journalism nowadays. The question isn't: What's wrong with Ann Coulter? but: What's wrong with American journalism that they continue to present this kind of know-nothing ranting as if it had some kind of intellectual legitimacy?

As far as Coulter herself is concerned, there's little to discuss. She uses invective in place of argument and employs an atrocious writing style devoid of any reason. Even when we couldn't disagree with them more, real journalists like Charles Krauthammer at least give their readers something to sink their teeth into and argue about. Krauthammer at least makes his reader think and structures his facts in recognizable logic. I also find Krauthammer to be very clear and straightforward, whereas Coulter usually jumps from point to point without showing how one connects to the other. Krauthammer can be refuted, but it takes a least a little bit of work.

How can anybody refute Coulter? Is it really worth pointing out that Hillary Clinton's mother doesn't wear army boots? Coulter never actually said that she does, but that is the kind of thing writes.

Interestingly, Coulter may be improving in this respect. In the column cited in which she makes disparaging remarks about Ms. Thomas' ethnic heritage, she also states:

Gannon didn't write about gays. No "hypocrisy" is being exposed. Liberals' hateful, frothing-at-the-mouth campaign against Gannon consists solely of their claim that he is gay.

At least that can be demonstrated to be false. Gannon did write about gays. He said "John Kerry may become our first gay president," without stating flatly that Kerry is, in fact, gay, simply assuming his reader would agree with him that this would not be a good thing. Gannon, while hiding his own homosexuality, wrote about homosexuality as something intrinsically inferior. That's hypocrisy.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. you're kidding about Krauthammer, right? he's a HUGE liar

>>Does the Washington Post have an ounce of regard for its readers? Last Friday, Charles Krauthammer baldly deceived the Post’s misused readers with his remarks about Dean-on-Hardball (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 12/5/03). But as it turns out, that blatant dissembling just wasn’t enough. The dissembling Krauthammer deceived the Post’s readers about Barbara Streisand as well!

>>For the record, Streisand isn’t a Democratic official. Nor is she a politician. But so what! Half-wits like Krauthammer like to mock her, hoping to please those conservative rubes. And last Friday, the fake little man took an extra step—he simply lied about something she said! Here’s what Krauthammer told Post readers about the deeply troubling chanteuse:

KRAUTHAMMER: Until now, Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS) had generally struck people with previously compromised intellectual immune systems. Hence its prevalence in Hollywood. Barbra Streisand, for example, wrote her famous September 2002 memo to Dick Gephardt warning that the president was dragging us toward war to satisfy, among the usual corporate malefactors who “clearly have much to gain if we go to war against Iraq,” the logging industry—timber being a major industry in a country that is two-thirds desert.

>>What an idiot! the Post pundit seemed to say. Indeed, according to the clever fellow, Streisand had a “compromised intellectual immune system!” She had demonstrated this when she said, in “her famous memo,” that the timber industry “ha much to gain if we go to war against Iraq.” Yep—that thoroughly stupid lumber remark showed what a fool Streisand is.

>>But wouldn’t you know it—she said no such thing! Here’s the text of the “famous memo”—a memo which was actually written by Margarey Tabankin, a Streisand associate:

FAMOUS MEMO: While the Republicans are shouting about the Democrats' special interests, why are the Democrats not saying the same about the Republicans? How can we ignore the obvious influence on the Bush Administration of such special interests as the oil industry, the chemical companies, the logging industry, the defense contractors, the mining industry, and the automobile industry, just to name a few? Many of these industries, run by big Republican donors and insiders, clearly have much to gain if we go to war against Iraq.
We’ve highlighted the two key words in this text. Surely, no further comment is needed. No, Streisand didn’t write the famous memo—and no, the memo didn’t say that the lumber biz had an interest in Iraq.

read on
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh120803.shtml

he lies all the time, when he's not distorting the facts surrounding most points he tries to make

he's not as obviously deranged as so many other RW "columnists," but I can't get through a piece of his without wanting to toss the paper in the fireplace with some dry kindling

[Gabi Hayes]

16. more from spinsanity, which, not un typically, contradicts itself.....

.....as you'll see at the end of this post

There is undeniably some truth to Gore's comments about the success of the conservative media in disseminating spin points. While there's no way to know whether they begin at the RNC, several outrageous lies that Spinsanity has tracked working their way through the media in the past year were created and fueled by conservative outlets like the Washington Times. The myths that Bill Clinton blamed the Sept. 11 attacks on slavery and historical treatment of Native Americans and that the National Education Association called on educators not to blame the attacks on al Qaida both began with articles in the Washington Times. They were then linked on the highly popular Drudge Report, mentioned in outlets such as Fox News and the Rush Limbaugh show, discussed by conservative pundits on CNN and other networks, and eventually made their way into mainstream papers and syndicated columns.

Also, in the Daily Howler, Bob Somerby identified three separate lies that the RNC pushed successfully in the media: that Al Gore grew up in a fancy hotel; that he was the first candidate to mention Willie Horton in the 1988 presidential campaign; and that Gore lied when he said he did difficult chores on his family farm while growing up.

Instead of engaging Gore on substance, though, many pundits instead launched irresponsible attacks. Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer half-jokingly accused Gore of mental illness, saying, "I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help."

EDITED above to fix bad editing on spinsanity, and my own bad reading comp>>>>>>>back

On the Fox News Channel's "Special Report," Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes made a similar charge, trying to link Gore's statement with actual conspiracy theories: "This is nutty. This is along the lines with you know, President Bush killed Paul Wellstone, and the White House knew before 9/11 that the attacks were going to happen. This is -- I mean, this is conspiratorial stuff."

http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20021204.html


their last paragraph, which contradicts all the evidence (not even the tip of the iceberg, of course) of the CALCULATED, ORGanized Gore bashing that's gone on since 1999, at least:

In the end, Gore's use of the term "fifth column" is inflammatory and indefensible, and the pundits who dismissed the substance of his comments in favor of accusations of alleged conspiracies and mental illness have made matters worse. Once again, a real issue has been sidetracked and the discourse lowered by rhetorical cheap shots.

[grasswire]

18. Gabi......

..did you see the thread on Daily Howler's attack on liberal blogs?

What do you make of it? You are as interested in media integrity as I am. This one is a puzzler to me.

[Jack Rabbit]

23. As I said, Krauthammer can be refuted

Of course, I deliberately chose Mr. Krauthammer as an example because I have many issues with him. The difference is that I can discuss my problems with Krauthhammer in ways that I can't even begin to talk about anything Ann Coulter has to say.

You have demonstrated that he has his lapses. However, even these are venial sins compared to Coulter's.

This piece, originally run in the Washington Post as Mr. Bush made his first visit to Europe in 2001, is more in line with what I am talking about. I don't agree with any of it. Nevertheless, it is as lucid as it is wrongheaded. I don't mind something like this. One can take issue with it and discuss it rationally.

Compare that to Ms. Coulter's most infamous piece. This actually starts out as something that would be worth reading, even if it's more emotional than intellectual: a tribute to a friend killed in the September 11 attacks. But Ms. Coulter jumps from a promising beginning to a gratuitous personal attack on the Clintons. Ms. Coulter accuses Hillary of being "preposterous" for painting such a scene of breakfast in the White House, but how would Ms. Coulter know? Did she ever have breakfast with the Clintons?

It gets uglier from there. Ranting along, leaving the tribute to Ms. Olson far behind, Ms. Coulter concludes with the racist invective that has come to characterize her: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." It is clear that she does not believe this is simply a war on terrorists, but a war on Muslims.

Ms. Coulter, even at her best, leaves little to think about. One can be shocked at her hatred of those with whom she takes issue, but all one can do is recognize it for what it is. One may only agree or disagree with her, and even then only in the broadest, most general sense. All she has done is find more elaborate ways to say "Clinton sucks" and "all Arabs are terrorists."

We give Ann Coulter far too much attention here. She probably has not changed a single mind since she came on the scene. In order to be open to her at all, one must already agree with her. She's not an intellectual; she's a cheerleader. The most charitable thing one can say is that she's entitled to her opinion; beyond that, one is wasting his time listening it.

Krauthammer, by contrast, lays his argument down. One can refute it, point by point, or support it with further facts, if one is of that mind. That at least encourages much healthier discussion than Ms. Coulter's tripe.

[paineinthearse]

24. Wolcott picked up on this....

Here's the oldest DU thread I can find.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3180240