On Tuesday’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews announced that Elizabeth Edwards was on the phone wanting to respond live to Coulter having said the day before on “Good Morning America” that if Coulter is going to “say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot.” Coulter was responding to why she called John Edwards a “f*g” back in March during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Edwards told Coulter that “… in the south when we -- when someone does something that displeases us, we wanna ask them politely to stop doing it. Uh - I'd like to ask Ann Coulter -- if she wants to debate on issues, on positions -- we certainly disagree with nearly everything she said on your show today -- um but uh it's quite another matter for these personal attacks that the things she has said over the years not just about John but about other candidates -- it lowers our political dialogue precisely at the time that we need to raise it. So I want to use the opportunity … to ask her politely stop the personal attacks.”
Instead of responding to that request Coulter threw out a red herring that she had “made a joke” (about John Edwards being gay) and that “they've been raising money off of it for six months since then.”
Then Elizabeth Edwards said “Ann, you know that's not true. And once more its been going on for sometime.”
But Coulter didn’t stop flinging those red herrings and going on the attack. Her response was “I don't mind you trying to raise money. I mean it's better this than giving $50,000 speeches to the poor.” Coulter also accused Edwards of bankrupting doctors so that they couldn't deliver babies. Attack and squirm, Ann, anything to avoid the issue at hand.
But Ann goes on to use other tricks of deception. When Edwards sticks to Coulter’s lack of civility, Coulter resorts to the classic strawman. In other words, Coulter simply grossly distorted what Edwards was saying and then attacked the caricature Coulter had fabricated. Specifically, Coulter said in response to being asked to stop personal attacks, “OK, great the wife of a presidential candidate is calling in asking me to stop speaking.” Coulter also implies that John Edwards wasn’t man enough to call himself.
Watch this four minute video clip. Watch Ann Coulter squirm, lie and indulge in ad hominem attacks. Hopefully it will be the last time Coulter is allowed to slither across the screen without being exposed for the snake she is.