Which is more offensive, the bigotry or the stupidity?

I didn't want to ring the echo chamber on this latest Ann Coulter dust-up calling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot," but I'm interested in what Shore readers have to say about it.



Let's be clear on one thing. Degrading terms like faggot are only about hate, bigotry and divisiveness, so save any "thin skin" defense of that word. But I'm sitting here shaking my head and wondering if the sheer stupidity of it isn't worse than the offensive word. I mean, whether you favor Edwards' political views, what's the point of gay-baiting a happily married man who has sired four children with his one-and-only wife, unlike notorious bed-hopping men among those she calls "her people," which includes former Rep. Mark Foley, the boy-page lover his fellow then-majority covered for?

It's not the first time she used gay references to those she calls her "opponents" (a little self-aggrandizing for an alleged pundit, no?). She apparently thinks her base has chips in their brains that dismiss as a nonperson anyone who is homosexual. In August, she said she was willing to bet Sen. Hilary Clinton comes "out of the closet" before the '08 election.

Do card-carrying Republicans really still listen to her? If so, why? What does nonfact-based hate contribute to the public discourse?

Meanwhile, Verizon is among several businesses that now have pulled their advertising from her Web site as a result. Daily Kos reports today. Thank you, Verizon.