Ann Coulter has weighed in on the Don Imus firing and she sees nothing less than the Death Of All Comedy.
"The requirement to always "be nice" would be the end of Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, two of the funniest comedians in America," she said in her April 11, 2007 column. "Let me rephrase that: It would be the end of all humor."
It must be difficult for Miss Coulter to comment on humor. She has been suffering from a necrotic funny bone for some years now. Clinicians made the diagnosis on the basis of some of Miss Coulter's knee slappers including:
- A suggestion that the New York Times building would be a more appropriate target for a terrorist bomb that the Federal Building in Oklahoma City;
- An assertion that the "Jersey Girls" didn't really love their husbands and were mere publicity seekers;
- And who can forget Miss Coulter's labeling (or libeling) of Senator John Edwards as gay?
Miss Coulter's column claims that the action taken against Don Imus will result in a closing down of the political discourse. She insist that do-gooders will sanitize language to the point were nobody can say anything. She revives an anecdote involving Sir Winston Churchill to make her point:
"I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as 'The Boneless Wonder.' My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye, and I have waited 50 years to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench (Labor Party Member Ramsay MacDonald)."
But there is a difference between Churchill's comments and the Imus slur against the Rutgers women's basketball team. The Churchill comment is a metaphor directed at a public official who allegedly has demonstrated a lack of moral courage. The Imus slur managed to simultaneously demean the women of the basketball team over their race and their sexual virtue. Contrary to the person of the receiving end of Churchill's comment, these women had not done anything to put themselves in the public eye except play basketball.
It is the difference between asserting that all blonds are bubbleheads and arguing that one particular blond, like Ann Coulter, who is simply possesses Really Stupid Ideas.
Miss Coulter also lacks a certain amount of credibility when it comes to the idea of civil political discourse. After all, how can the author of How to talk to a Liberal (If You Must) make such discourse appealing when she so obviously doesn't believe in it? In fact, she makes civil political discourse sound as appealing as a tax audit or root canal would.
After her most recent controversy surrounding John Edwards, Miss Coulter demonstrated that she doesn't know the difference between a schoolyard taunt and actual humor.
And there's nothing very funny about not knowing the difference.