1 Ann's routine was televised. It was hilarious. Even my wife got the jokes, and that's saying something. There is something wrong with Sean's sense of humor. -Bob

2 Oh, I think he "got" the jokes. The argument is simply that they weren't that funny. Ann's schtick relies on (1) acting outrageous, and (2) preaching to the choir.

3 Ann's schtick is a comedy routine. The only comedian that comes to mind that kept #1 and #2 to a minimum was Bill Cosby. And he's been excoritated for advocating responsible parenthood. Is anyone on the left calling for Dean and Pelosi to repudiate Maher's latest rant wherein he advocated the death of Cheney? Certainly that is more serious than name-calling. And yet Dean is calling for all Republicans to denounce Coulter. I remind you that my wife's parents escaped a country where you would be summarily shot for speaking as Maher did. We take freedom of speech very seriously. -Bob

4 Uh, why did Ann Coulter say "you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot’”? How about because that's the actual slur used by "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington“ immediately before he was forced to go to "rehab"--counseling--in order to keep his job. Here' s what he said--"No, I did not call (co-star) T.R. Knight) a faggot,” Washington told reporters at the Golden Globes, “Never happened, never happened.” If Ann substituted an Edward's-appropriate slur, pundits would question her accuracy, insisting that nobody was ever required to go to rehab for using those words. Bloggers on the Right love to eat their own in order to show the Left how fair and balanced they are. The problem is that the Left does not care. They'll go ahead and say that the Right does not criticize their own, no matter what you say. It's the old "rope-a-dope" strategy. They get you bogged down defending your professionalism while they go ahead and "speak truth to power" by saying things 20 time more outrageous than Coulter on a daily basis. In the end, the NYT, Newsweek, and Time will give kudos to Leftie blogs for exposing the "hate" on the Right, while criticizing right-wing blogs for giving one of their own a pass. You'll write your little letter to each and every one of those, and no one will care. You want to know a little secret? The Left hates you with every fiber of their being--they always will. And when you're dealing with vegan diets, that's saying a lot. You'll never get their love or respect. You'll never get that job with the MSM unless you stick to their template and join the dark side. Ann knows this. Ann lives this. As for being a self-serving media and publicity whore, Ann could quadruple her income in a hearbeat if she joined the other side. But her views and principles are real--she's proved that throughout her lifetime. Did you reveal that McCarthy had access to VENONA and chose to go down in flames rather than reveal the existence of a top-secret intelligence program? Were you part of the legal team that exposed and documented Clinton's dishonesty for the record? So go ahead and tell everyone that you couldn't bother to actually attend her speech. Give us the obligatory line that you never found her funny or persuasive. The rest of us will read her 52 columns per year and find that they agree with our own positions. We'll find that many of them are the definitive word on the subject, filled with facts and points of law that no one else has bothered to research. And we know that they will offend the Left unapologetically. That's war. Emily Post' Rules of Etiquette makes for lousy body armor after all.

5 No. She clearly was calling Edwards a faggot. Which just isn't funny. (And, yeah: I got the allusion to the Grey's Anatomy flap.) And I did see her whole speech/routine. There wasn't a lot of there there. I don't argue with Ann's research: I argue with the particular way she chooses to camp it up, and the unlikelihood that she will ever change anyone's mind. The titles of her books are testimony to her unseriousness: Godless. Treason. Other Big Nouns. Unserious.