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On his own turf over at Slate, Mickey Kaus does a fair job of laying his jacket out for Ann Coulter as she steps through all the mud she loves to sling. Hopefully you read on Tuesday how he turned the tables on her critics by suggesting that Daily Kos helmsman Markos Moulitsas wrote far more offensive comments about dead soldiers than anything that Ms. Coulter is currently being lionized for, namely denouncing 9/11 widows by saying they're enjoying their husband's deaths.
As we all know, writing in the friendly confines of your own blog is one thing, but try bringing that mess anywhere else and whattya got? Conflict. WTF? Kaus and his left-leaning buddy Robert Wright have a casual, funky, very sweet video blog segment called Blogging Heads, which the LAist has been watching on an off for what seems to be a year now. They have new segments several times a week and what they lack in production quality they make up for in believablity.
For example we believe that Mickey Kaus really thinks that Ann Coulter isn't more outrageous than Kos and he's just not trying to get laid in some weird stun'em-and-drag-'em-back-to-your-condo move, which clearly worked for the President.
Wright, however, can't believe it, and gives Kaus no quarter for supporting the tall blonde conservative, and Patterico duly transcribes the smackdown after the jump. (Hattip the venerable LA Observed.)
Kaus: She says what she thinks. She thinks they're harpies, she says they're harpies. There is something -- there is something . . .
Wright: Well, let's get back to them enjoying the deaths of their husbands. Do you think she's right about that?
Kaus: Well, it's weird. I thought that was a very offensive thing to say, in that, in that, uh, you know, she was implying that they, overall, they were happy their husbands were dead. And she doesn't really say that. She just, uh -
Wright: So, "enjoying their husbands' deaths" . . .
Kaus: She doesn't say that. She says she's never seen grieving widows enjoy the deaths of their husband more. It doesn't mean that overall, they're not, like, wildly unhappy. It just means that, uh -
Wright: That they're literally enjoying the deaths of their husbands? So, I mean, let's take an example. I mean, this happens across the political spectrum, OK, that people acquire a platform by virtue of tragedy, like this right-wing writer David Gelertner. . . . [I]f he hadn't opened a bomb sent by the Unabomber, we probably never would have become familiar with his political writings, because they wouldn't have existed. . . . I would never say, as much as I dislike his writing, I would never say: "I've never seen someone so enjoy being maimed." That would be a stupid thing to say. If I said it in a fit of rage, it would mean I had lost control of my senses briefly. If I said it in a book, it would mean that it was calculated to antagonize people; it was calculatedly outrageous -- and I'm sure you'll agree at least this much, Mickey, this was a classic calculatedly outrageous Ann Coulter sentence. I mean, it's even hard for me to get outraged about it, the calculation is so obvious. You'll agree to that, surely -- right?
. . . .
Kaus: . . . [I]f you read the remarks in context, they do not seem that bad. In fact, there are things -
Wright: They don't seem that bad? Wouldn't you call me stupid if I said about Gelertner, that I've never seen somebody so enjoy being maimed? Wouldn't that be stupid?
Kaus: It would be very stupid -- but I think that's worse -
Wright: Oh, but that's not analogous to this?
Kaus: I actually think that's worse than this.
Wright: That's worse?
Kaus: Yeah, because you're playing on someone's physical deformity.
Wright: Oh, as opposed to somebody's mere death.
