i don't know who actually "watches" Hardball w/Chris Matthews, but...I do. almost EVERY night. the "template" is usually as follows...chris makes comments about Karl Rove/Scooter Libby/the Iraq War...and a stream of mainstream media sycophants usually chime in in total agreement. commentary from "real people" is NEVER a part of the show...ESPECIALLY phone calls from the audience. he doesn't even pull an O'Reilly or Jack Cafferty (CNN) and display email messages from the viewers...which makes this "stunt" seem extremely "suspect":
">o.k., this is "Hardball Plaza", as opposed to "Hardball (Proper)", but let's throw some context on this whole set-up.
Ann Coulter agrees to go on MSNBC. she knows she is philosophically diametrically opposed to the host, Chris Matthews. she's not going to get an easy ride...he's going to butcher her with EVERY question. but, she's trying to sell books ("Godless" has just been released in paperback).
on the other hand, John Edwards
was the FIRST to respond to liberal activists to BOYCOTT a scheduled Democratic Presidential Debate on FOX News. all of the other candidates quickly fell in line.
SURPRISE!!! a phone call from a viewer..
coulter replies to "the caller", elizabeth edwards, in the "Hardball" ambush that the edwards campaign is using her as a fund-raising tool...
could Ann be right?? there is definitely a video of her on his website...draw your own conclusions. he probably needs help:
Iowa - he's FIRST in the polls!!
New Hampshire - Down 21 or so to Hillary
South Carolina - Down 11 or so to Hillary...etc...etc...
the fact is, he needs to bump up his poll numbers. hillary is starting to suck up all the oxygen in the room, with obama gasping the leftovers.....
elizabeth asks coulter to tone down the "personal attacks". elisabeth points out that coulter had written an offensive comment to the effect of that john edwards had used the tragedy of his deceased son, charlie dean, on the campaign trail...in an opinion piece, she had joked that edwards had issued bumper stickers to the effect of "ask me about charlie dean". completely tasteless, admittedly (to me). coulter admits that she wrote it--years ago.
this "tasteless" comment fits into an argument which coulter continually makes...which she devotes a lot of column space and an entire chapter in "Godless" to: in her opinion, liberals tend to use "victims" as spokespeople in an effort to make them unassailable. i.e., she took on iraq war critic Sen. Max Cleland (he lost his legs in the Vietnam War...due to an off-duty accident). she took on "the jersey girls" (ever-present at the 9/11 commission hearings...they wanted to hold Pres. Bush accountable for their husband's deaths in the attacks). other examples not involving coulter: the michael j. fox "stem cell research" videos which rush limbaugh ridiculed (rush aped the spastic image of michael j. fox in an effort to illustrate how the "campaign" image was different than the "real life" image...the MSM sped up & looped the incriminating video)...al gore's speech to the '96 Democratic convention where he impassionately described his sister's death from lung cancer (i think it was his sister), (where in earlier campaigns he had bragged about his life-long contact/participation in the tobacco industry......).
coulter's point is that liberals often make arguments using proxies that can't be criticized...because of handicap, loss, etc... basically, the message that she's conveying is that liberals use victims to make political points which can't be contested because to contest them would amount to cruelty and/or an affront to "political correctness".
this point comes full circle when Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, calls in to criticize Coulter. Elizabeth
has an untreatable cancer, according to reports.
coulter also makes a point about edwards'
speeches about poverty in america, which he's gathering $50K plus for. ...and then her brilliant point referencing edwards' past legal shenanigans where he accrued his wealth largely on his legal skills of convincing juries that shady doctors were causing babies to be delivered
with cerebral palsy because they weren't doing ceasarian sections. a possible after-effect of edwards' legal efforts--a huge increase in the amount of c-sections being performed now, for one reason, according to
Childbirth Connection:providers' fear of lawsuits: given the way our legal system works, even when scientific evidence supports vaginal birth, providers may feel that performing a cesarean reduces their risk of being sued or losing a lawsuit
all in all, Chairman Ann handled herself quite well considering that she was totally set up. ...especially when she asked elizabeth why she was making the call instead of John...LOL!!
a video of ann's interview on Good Morning America
can be seen here. the anti-John Edwards part comes in the first minute and 1/2 or so. interestingly, in that same time period she calls W a "nincompoop"....stating more or less that a bridge between herself (and maybe conservatives as a whole?) and the left has been reached. all in all, an
extremely civil interview, for a change.......
according to a NY Post gossip column today:
