Elizabeth Edwards, to many, embodied grace under fire

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/1207/Elizabeth-Edwards-to-many-embodied-grace-under-fire

Elizabeth Edwards, to many, embodied grace under fire
Elizabeth Edwards was indispensable to the political career of her husband, two-time presidential aspirant John Edwards. Faced with personal and political hardship, Elizabeth Edwards sought to persevere through 'faith in the power of resilience and hope.'
Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer
December 7, 2010

Elizabeth Edwards, who helped bolster the political career of her husband, John Edwards, faced tragedy and heartache with a belief in, as she said in her final note, "the power of resilience and hope."

"She was an inspiration to all who knew her, and to those who felt they knew her," said Vice President Joe Biden in a statement.

Ms. Edwards' public battle with cancer – a diagnosis revealed the day Mr. Edwards lost his vice presidential bid as part of the 2006 Democratic ticket with John Kerry – earned the lawyer and mother of four a unique measure of respect, sympathy, and visibility for a politician's wife. She was widely seen as a loyal partner and trusted adviser determined to fight through personal hardships, as the couple had with the death of their 16-year-old son, Wade.

But her husband's 2006 affair with a campaign videographer, which resulted in the birth of a child, revealed her inner struggles publicly. She eventually admitted that she knew about the affair even as she continued to support Edwards through his failed 2008 bid for the presidency. The couple separated in 2009, though Mr. Edwards was at her bedside on Tuesday morning.

Asked in 2009 whether she still loved John, Edwards answered, "You know, that's a complicated question."

Edwards faced allegations in the book, "Game Change," that there was a wide disparity between her public and private personas.

"Mrs. Edwards .... reviewed [her husband's] television advertisements and major speeches, helped pick his lieutenants, joined internal debates over tactics and strategy, and sometimes dressed down, or even forced out, campaign aides she thought had failed her husband," writes the New York Times' Robert McFadden.

A more difficult political reality, as explained by campaign insiders, is that her popularity – especially after announcing her diagnosis – threatened to upstage her campaigning husband on the stump.

But to many women, especially, Edwards' ability to cope with tragedy and betrayal while facing illness – and her willingness to talk about her experience on shows like "Oprah" – came to symbolize a bold brand of grace under fire that deepened, for many, the tragedy of her passing.

"She was not a Pollyanna, she looked [her husband's affair] in the face, talked about it with people, and didn't seem to be bitter in public," says Pat Hawkins, a regional director for the Democratic Women of North Carolina. "She was trying to present a good example for her daughter and for all the other women who find themselves in these terrible situations."

As North Carolinians recalled Edwards' life today, one fact stuck with Ms. Hawkins. Despite Edwards' anger with her husband, she met his child on Christmas last year, explaining that she didn't want the girl to grow up believing she was not part of a broader family.

Edwards posted a note on Facebook on Monday. “I have been sustained throughout my life by three saving graces – my family, my friends, and a faith in the power of resilience and hope.”

Edwards hit by new love-child allegations

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/edwards-hit-by-new-lovechild-allegations-1726204.html

Edwards hit by new love-child allegations
By David Usborne
Wednesday, 1 July 2009

A former aide to John Edwards, the one-time senator whose presidential campaign last year came spectacularly to grief on the rocks of an illicit affair, is set to claim in a tell-all book that his erstwhile boss assured him he would be "taken care of for life" if he pretended to be the father of a child the woman bore.

The remarkable assertion is one of the highlights of a proposal for his book reportedly presented to the St Martin's Press publishing house. In it, the aide, Andrew Young, also claims that Mr Edwards made a sex videotape with his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, which he subsequently discovered.

Asking Mr Young to pose as the father, Mr Edwards purportedly told him, "You know how much I love you. You know I'd walk off a cliff for you, and I know you'd walk off a cliff for me." The candidate, who was once the Democratic Party's golden boy and was John Kerry's running mate in 2004, went on: "I will never forget this. And I will always be there for you."

The book will apparently assert that the father of the child is indeed Mr Edwards. The one-time rival of Mr Obama in the 2008 primaries has so far not submitted to a DNA test to determine the truth of this. However, he is still at the heart of a federal investigation into whether campaign money was used in connection with the affair or to help with the efforts to cover it up. Mr Young says that the FBI has already interviewed him in this regard.

The startling new details contained in the proposal – and the prospect of the book coming out – make the chances of a political rehabilitation for Mr Edwards seem more remote than ever. "In a culture in which it is almost impossible to sin yourself into permanent banishment... Edwards may have pulled the feat off," Jay Bookman, a commentator for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted yesterday. "It is impossible to feel sympathy for the man."

Not that Mr Young himself is likely to solicit very much sympathy. As part of his alleged deal with Mr Edwards, he invited the pregnant Ms Hunter to move in with him, his wife and their three children. This most peculiar co-habitation ended only after Ms Hunter gave birth.

The saga is thus also about the suffering of the wives involved. In her own recent book, Resilience, Elizabeth Edwards admits that there is one "pathetic" former aide to her husband she cannot bring herself even to name. "I will call him Jim," she writes, calling him an "obsessed fan", who showed an "unbridled loyalty" to her husband and a "willingness to do anything". Few have any doubts that she is referring to the aide who has now turned author, Mr Young.

Edwards Admits Sexual Affair

Robalini's Note: When I first heard of the recent Enquirer story, my instincts were that it was true, that the only reason Edwards was at the hotel was because he did father Hunter's baby. While he still denies that part of the story, most of the Enquirer allegation has been proven correct. The unstated question: did information on the affair and/or lovechild push Edwards out of the Democratic Presidential race early? At the time, Edwards, while unlikely to win, could have used his kingmaker status with his delegates to push for a choice pick as VP again. It is interesting to note that at the time, I was one of many who observed that Edwards and Obama were splitting the anti-Clinton vote, and Edwards' departure help paved the rise of Obama from a likely distant runner-up to the top vote-getter. It is also important to remember the Enquirer's role in the rise of Arnold in California, where American Media, owners of the tabloid, paid at least one women $20K for her exclusive story on an alleged affair, a story which they then squashed. Given this history of covering up for a GOP politician, is it possible they were part of a secret move to force Edwards to exit the campaign? I heard from multiple GOP sources in February they felt the only chance McCain had of winning this year is if the Democratic Party tore itself in half during the primary, and Edwards bowing helped push the bitter Obama-Clinton feud forward.

Enquiring minds want to know...

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5441195

Edwards Admits Sexual Affair; Lied as Presidential Candidate
In an ABC NEWS NIGHTLINE Interview, Edwards Reveals He Cheated, But Didn't Father Child
By RHONDA SCHWARTZ, BRIAN ROSS, and CHRIS FRANCESCANI
August 8, 2008 —

John Edwards admitted to ABC News in an interview with Bob Woodruff Friday that he repeatedly lied about an extramarital affair with a 42-year old campaign employee, but strenuously denied being involved in paying the woman hush money or fathering her newborn child. The former Democratic U.S. senator from North Carolina said he would be willing to take a paternity test and divulge the results publicly.

"Two years ago I made a very serious mistake, a mistake that I am responsible for and no one else. In 2006, I told Elizabeth about the mistake, asked her for her forgiveness, asked God for his forgiveness. And we have kept this within our family since that time."

Edwards, 55, said he told his entire family about the affair after it ended in 2006, and that his wife Elizabeth, who has incurable breast cancer, was "furious" but that their marriage would survive. The couple have three children, Cate, 25, Emma, 9, and Jack, 7. When he confessed his affair to his wife, "she was mad," Edwards said.

"She was angry," he said. "I think 'furious' would be a good way to describe it. She didn't understand. We both went through a process of trying to figure out how it happened, why it happened." Late Friday evening, Elizabeth Edwards posted a message on her blog, saying that she and her children will stand by Edwards.

"Our family has been through a lot. Some caused by nature, some caused by human weakness, and some  most recently  caused by the desire for sensationalism and profit without any regard for the human consequences," she wrote on http://elizabethedwards.dailykos.com/. "None of these has been easy. But we have stood with one another through them all. Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him."

She too, denied in the blog post that Hunter's child was fathered by her husband.

Edwards told ABC News that he met secretly with former lover Rielle Hunter as recently as last month in a California hotel room at her request because "she was having some trouble, she just wanted to talk."

"I wanted her not to tell the public what had happened," he said at another point. "Very simple. That's the reason I went."

Edwards contacted ABC News and requested that he be interviewed about the allegations. He agreed before the interview to place no limitations on the questions he would be asked, but limited the amount of time he would be questioned. He declined to clarify exactly when the relationship began or ended but said it was over before he announced his campaign for the presidency on Dec. 28, 2006.

"I think my family is entitled to every detail," Edwards said. "They've been told every detail&I think beyond the basics&I think that's where it stops in terms of the public because I think everything else is within my family and those privacy boundaries out to be respected."

A series of dramatic allegations revolving around the affair have been reported by the supermarket tabloid National Enquirer. The most serious of those allegations is that Hunter has been receiving hush money through the Edwards campaign in order to keep her quiet.

In the interview, Edwards denied knowing anything about any support being provided to Hunter or to Andrew Young, the former Edwards campaign aide who has said that he, not Edwards, is the child's father.

If any such support was being provided, Edwards insisted, "I had nothing to do with any money being paid, and no knowledge of any money being paid, and if something was paid, it wasn't being paid on my behalf."

Edwards' 2008 national finance chairman Fred Baron said late Friday that he had provided "assistance" to Hunter and others without Edwards' knowledge.

In a statement emailed to ABC News, Baron said that he "decided independently to help two friends and former colleagues rebuild their lives when harassment by supermarket tabloids made it impossible for them to move forward on their own." "I did this of my own volition without the instruction or suggestion of anyone, and made a conscious decision not to tell anyone, including John Edwards, that assistance was provided. The assistance was offered and accepted without condition. This is now and shall always remain a private matter between these individuals and me."

Edwards said he knows he could not be the father based on the timing of the baby's birth on February 27, 2008.

A grainy photo that appears to show Edwards holding a child was published recently in the National Enquirer, which claimed that the baby was Rielle Hunter's child Frances Quinn. Edwards said he couldn't make "sense" of the photo.

"I don't know if that picture is me," Edwards said. "It could well be. It looks like me. I don't know who that baby is. I have no idea what that picture is."

Pressed to clarify whether the child in the picture was Hunter's child, Edwards suggested that the tabloid may have digitally altered the picture, but also noted the frequency with which politicians hold babies. "Do you know how many pictures have been taken of me holding children in the last three years? I mean it happens all the time."

Edwards was asked again about the meeting.

"Are you saying you don't remember holding that child of Miss Hunter?"

"I'm saying you asked me about that photograph. I don't know anything about that photograph, I don't know who that baby is. I don't know if the picture has been altered, manufactured, if it's a picture of me taken some other time, holding another baby&I have no idea. I was not at this meeting holding a child for my photograph to be taken I can tell you that."

Edwards finally told Woodruff that he did not remember a baby being present at the meeting last month in California.

Edwards blamed the affair on the adulation surrounding his remarkable rise into presidential politics.

"I went from being a senator, a young senator to being considered for vice president, running for president, being a vice presidential candidate and becoming a national public figure. All of which fed a self-focus, an egotism, a narcissism that leads you to believe that you can do whatever you want. You're invincible. And there will be no consequences."

According to friends of Hunter, Edwards met her at a New York city bar in 2006. His political action committee later paid her $114,000 to produce campaign website documentaries despite her lack of experience. Edwards said the affair began during the campaign after she was hired. Hunter traveled with Edwards around the country and to Africa.

When the National Enquirer first reported the alleged Edwards-Hunter affair last October 11, Edwards, his campaign staff and Hunter vociferously denounced the report.

"The story is false, it's completely untrue, it's ridiculous," Edwards told reporters then.

He repeated his denials just two weeks ago.

Edwards today admitted the National Enquirer was correct when it reported he had visited Hunter at the Beverly Hills Hilton last month.

Edwards made a point of telling Woodruff that his wife's cancer was in remission when he began the affair with Hunter. Elizabeth Edwards has since been diagnosed with an incurable form of the disease.

Edwards was asked whether he loved Hunter.

"I'm in love with one woman," he responded. "I've been in love with one woman for 31 years. She is the finest human being I have ever known."

The former senator was asked why his wife was not by his side as he made the admissions about his affair to ABC News.

"I have seen these public figures who bring their wives along when they say they've done something wrong; confessing some wrong and the wife - they bring their wives to stand beside them I guess, to show support - Elizabeth didn't do anything wrong. I didn't ask for her to be here. I asked for her not to be here. Uh, this is my responsibility; my alone. I have to be the man and take responsibility."

Earlier in the interview, Edwards described his experiences in personal, visceral terms.

"I am imperfect," he said. "And anybody, anybody watching this broadcast or who hears about this who wants to beat me up for this, they should have at it. The truth is you can't possibly beat me up more than I have already beaten myself up."

Why pay the bigot?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200706300002?f=h_top

Media Matters; by Jamison Foser
Friday June 29, 2007

Summary:

Why pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free?

In 1996, MSNBC hired Ann Coulter as a contributor. The Washington Post later quoted an MSNBC official describing Coulter's performance: "What she said was so outrageous she was immediately put on probation, and the next one was even worse." Coulter has acknowledged: "They kept firing me, but then they'd rehire me." Coulter barely lasted a year before MSNBC fired her for good for on-air comments she made to Vietnam Veterans of America founder Bobby Muller.

In 2003, less than five months after it began broadcasting his show, MSNBC fired Michael Savage for telling a caller he should "get AIDS and die." An MSNBC spokesperson explained: "Savage made an extremely inappropriate comment and the decision to cancel the program was not difficult." Just a few months earlier, then-NBC chairman Bob Wright had declared: "We strongly defend his new show as a legitimate attempt to expand the marketplace of ideas."

Earlier this year, MSNBC fired Don Imus after he made racist and sexist comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

It may be tempting to conclude that, despite the ridiculous decisions to hire the likes of Coulter and Savage in the first place, the firings indicate that MSNBC understands that their violent and hateful rhetoric adds nothing of value to the public discourse.

But maybe MSNBC has simply decided that it doesn't make much sense to pay the bigot when you can get the bile for free.

On Tuesday, for example, MSNBC's Hardball featured Ann Coulter as the sole guest for the entire hour. MSNBC continues to provide a platform for Coulter's hate; the network's just stopped paying her.

During Coulter's last appearance on Hardball, in July 2006, host Chris Matthews told her, "You write beautifully," and, "You have a brilliant brain." He described her as "the picture of heaven." Then Coulter called former Vice President Al Gore a "total fag," and Matthews ended the interview by saying of Coulter, "We'd love to have her back."

Earlier this year, Coulter called Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). During an appearance on CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck this week, Coulter defended that comment, claiming, "I wasn't saying it on TV. I was saying it at a right-wing political convention with 7,000 college Republicans. I didn't put it on TV." Like much of what Coulter says, this wasn't true, and wouldn't be particularly meaningful even if it was. Coulter's speech was broadcast on C-SPAN, which extensively covers CPAC speeches. (Host Glenn Beck didn't point out Coulter's lie; nor did he point out that she used the same epithet to describe Gore "on TV.")

During her Monday appearance on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter responded to a question about her CPAC description of Edwards as a "faggot" by saying, "Bill Maher was not joking and saying he wished Dick Cheney had been killed in a terrorist attack. So I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

Those comments prompted the Edwards campaign to denounce Coulter, and Elizabeth Edwards called into Hardball the next day to confront Coulter.

Coulter and her defenders have criticized the Edwards campaign for omitting the Maher portion of her comments about wishing Edwards was killed by terrorists, claiming that her comments were taken out of context. But the context she claims is missing is itself false.

Coulter misrepresented Maher's comments about Cheney. In fact, Maher didn't say he wished Cheney had been killed; he said "if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow. ... I'm just saying that if he did die -- other people -- more people would live. That's a fact."

During the March 5 broadcast of his show, MSNBC host and former Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough (FL) debunked his fellow conservatives' attacks on Maher: "Conservatives accuse Bill Maher of calling for Dick Cheney's assassination, but he didn't, and I should know. I was there." But Scarborough didn't correct Coulter when she appeared on Morning Joe, even though he and Coulter did discuss her reference to Maher.

During that same appearance on Morning Joe, Coulter falsely accused Elizabeth Edwards of lying about Coulter's November 19, 2003, column:

SCARBOROUGH: Now, I will tell you the part of that Elizabeth Edwards interview that jarred the most people -- jarred me, jarred just about everybody I spoke with -- was the part where she brought up the fact -- she said that you had written some column where you had made light of John Edwards' dead son. What's the story behind that?

COULTER: Needless to say, that is not true. And coming from people who have done what we have just seen them do in the earlier segment, I don't think they deserve a lot of credibility on this. You can look it up. It's all over the Web. It's a fabulous column, titled "The Party of Ideas," written in 2003. I had to go back and get the full gist of the column. It was about all of the Democratic primary opponents.

In the column in question, Coulter wrote of John Edwards: "If you want points for not using your son's death politically, don't you have to take down all those 'Ask me about my son's death in a horrific car accident' bumper stickers?"

Again, Scarborough did not challenge Coulter or confront her with what she had actually written; he simply accepted her assertion that Elizabeth Edwards had lied about the column.

On Thursday, MSNBC Live host Chris Jansing asked Elizabeth Edwards, "There are people who support your opinion, I'm sure you know, who say, 'Why even dignify it with a response? Why give Ann Coulter more publicity?' "

That same day, Jansing's network gave Ann Coulter publicity by hosting her on Morning Joe. Two days earlier, Jansing's network had given Ann Coulter publicity by hosting her -- alone, for a full hour -- on Hardball.

This week alone, Coulter appeared on ABC's Good Morning America, MSNBC's Hardball, MSNBC's Morning Joe, CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, and Fox News' Hannity & Colmes. (On Fox, she took a swipe at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama: "I do think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using 'hijack' and 'religion' in the same sentence.")

The notion that the targets of Ann Coulter's hateful speech should ignore her and she'll go away is absurd. Coulter was booked on Good Morning America and Hardball long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her. Time magazine put Coulter on its cover long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her. NBC's Today hosted her -- repeatedly -- long before Elizabeth Edwards confronted her.

It isn't Elizabeth Edwards who gives Ann Coulter publicity. It is the nation's leading news organizations. They may claim to find her distasteful, but they keep promoting her.

And they not only provide a forum for her hate speech and let her lie and dissemble without consequence, they repeat her false attacks on progressives as though they are true.

On Today, for example, David Gregory pretended that Ann Coulter has a point:

GREGORY: You said rather pointedly that you think Ann Coulter is guilty of hate speech against your husband and others as well. If you strip away some of the inflammatory rhetoric against your husband and other Democrats, the point she's trying to make about your husband, Senator Edwards, running for the White House is in effect that he's disingenuous, especially on the signature issue of poverty, whether it's a $400 haircut or taking big money to speak in front of a poverty group. If you, again, strip away the inflammatory rhetoric, is that a real point of vulnerability that you have to deal with in this campaign?

This is complete and total bunk.

There's simply no reason to pretend that Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot" and musing about him being killed by terrorists is about anything other than Ann Coulter being a contemptible human being and a national disgrace. There's no deep point there; she's just a sad and pathetic little person.

But that isn't all: Gregory made the nonsensical suggestion that John Edwards is "disingenuous" about poverty because he paid a lot of money for a haircut. It doesn't matter how often pundits keep saying that, it's still dumb. Gregory's statement that Edwards took "big money to speak in front of a poverty group" repeated Coulter's own false claim that he "charge[d] a poverty group $50,000 for a speech." This falsehood is apparently a reference to a paid speech Edwards made at the University of California-Davis, not "in front of a poverty group." So, obviously, he didn't "charge a poverty group" (in fact, his speaking fee was offset by ticket sales.)

Ann Coulter is not only a remarkably unpleasant person, she's a serial liar. And yet NBC's David Gregory -- among other journalists -- pretends that she has a meaningful point and makes false assertions about progressives based on her lies.

That's why it would be folly for progressives to ignore Coulter in hopes that she goes away: because the media don't ignore her. They promote her. They parrot her false claims. It's also why progressives should not only denounce Coulter, but MSNBC and ABC and CNN and Time and every other news organization that gives her a platform and doesn't challenge her lies and repeats them as though they are true.

During the Wednesday edition of Scarborough Country, MSNBC viewers got a hit of another reason why it would be folly to let Ann Coulter's hate and lies go unchallenged. An MSNBC contributor said of Coulter: "I don't think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC certainly doesn't ... because if they did, they would never put her on the air for an hour, would we, Dan?"

The MSNBC contributor? Pat Buchanan.

The same Pat Buchanan who called Martin Luther King Jr. "one of the most divisive men in contemporary history."

The same Pat Buchanan who called Adolf Hitler "an individual of great courage" and wrote a column questioning whether World War II was "worth it" and wondered, "[W]hy destroy Hitler?"

There was Pat Buchanan, paid contributor to MSNBC, repeatedly vouching for Ann Coulter:

JOAN WALSH (Salon.com editor in chief): Ann Coulter had a whole hour to herself on Hardball, and she was going to sell her books and peddle her hate on Hardball pretty much unchallenged.

[...]

BUCHANAN: Joan, let me tell you where you're wrong here.

WALSH: Yes, Pat, sure.

BUCHANAN: I don't think she's peddling hate. And if she -- and MSNBC certainly doesn't --

WALSH: "Faggot"? "Faggot"?

BUCHANAN: -- because if they did, they would never put her on the air for an hour, would we, Dan?

WALSH: Well, she wasn't on for quite a while after she called --

DAN ABRAMS (MSNBC general manager): Oh, come on, Pat. Come on.

BUCHANAN: Well, come on! I mean --

WALSH: -- after she called Al Gore a "total fag."

ABRAMS: Pat is misusing his MSNBC analyst moniker there.

WALSH: Thank you, Dan.

ABRAMS: Go ahead, Pat.

BUCHANAN: Look, she is very, very -- look, she's a very good debater, and she's very good on TV and good on her feet, and she's a conservative, and she's an excellent writer. [New York Times columnist] Maureen Dowd's an excellent friend on the other side.

WALSH: No. No, Pat. You're -- Pat, you know what? You're a good debater.

[crosstalk]

BUCHANAN: She's good --

WALSH: You're a good debater.

ABRAMS: [Congressional Quarterly columnist] Craig Crawford -- wait. Wait.

WALSH: She peddles hate.

ABRAMS: Let's at least admit something, Craig Crawford.

BUCHANAN: Oh, cut it out.

WALSH: No, seriously.

[...]

ABRAMS: But that glosses over -- hang on. Hang on a second. That glosses over -- Pat. Pat, what you're doing is you're cherry-picking the pure politics stuff out of what she says and ignoring the sort of unnecessary hateful words that she uses, as well.

BUCHANAN: What hateful word did she use?

ABRAMS: You know, she described him as a gay person, but using a different term.

BUCHANAN: A what? Oh, you mean, that thing?

Pat Buchanan hasn't suffered from his own history of inflammatory comments: He has repeatedly been hired to host television shows on CNN and MSNBC; he currently works as a contributor to MSNBC, where he defends Coulter from charges that she peddles hate.

If people look the other way when Ann Coulter lies and smears and insults, it will only be a matter of time before Coulter will have her own cable television perch from which she can defend the next generation of right-wing hate merchants.

Time for an Ann Coulter Ban

http://www.film.com/tv/story/timeforananncoulterban/13982602/15287733

Time for an Ann Coulter Ban
Ethan Morris, Jun 28, 2007

Okay, enough is enough. Will someone please get Ann Coulter off my TV set?

Seriously. The FCC needs to implement an Ann Ban as soon as humanly possible.

Aside from the fact that many believe her to be a raving lunatic, now she's all but threatened the life of a presidential candidate.

In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America, Coulter said she wished Democratic candidate John Edwards "had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

The ultra-super-duper-uber-over-the-top conservative columnist and frequent talk show guest says she was merely making a point, after notoriously liberal talk show host Bill Maher made a similar comment about Vice President Dick Cheney.

In fact, what Maher said was that if Dick Cheney had been killed in a real (but failed) attempted assassination in Afghanistan, fewer people would be dying in Iraq right now. "If he did die," Maher said at the time, "other people, more people would live." But he didn't actually "wish" Cheney dead.

Technically, Coulter didn't either. Here's her exact quote: "If I'm going to say anything about John Edwards, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot." By couching her words with conditionals like "if" and "I'll" and by using the past tense, Coulter will no doubt avoid any trouble from the law. (Presidential candidates get protection from the Secret Service and threatening their lives is a serious no no.)

But she couldn't stave off a response from Edwards' wife, who called Coulter when she later appeared on MSNBC's Hardball. Elizabeth Edwards asked Coulter to stop attacking her husband with such hate language. Coulter smirkingly refused, and it quickly degenerated into a shouting match.

Now listen: I'm not some liberal who hates Ann Coulter for her politics. I hate Ann Coulter because I, and a lot of others, think she's a venomous nut case.

This is the woman who wishes Timothy McVeigh had blown up the New York Times building.

This is the woman who wants to invade other countries, kill their leaders, and convert the entire world to Christianity. (Does that include Israel, Ann?)

This is the woman who quotes God as saying man should "rape" the earth so we don't end up "living like the Indians."

Now she's implying a death wish against a presidential candidate.

I'm sorry, but this goes way beyond political debate. It's nothing more than venal pandering for profit. Coulter's outrageous statements are obviously designed for the sole purpose of selling her books and getting people to read her columns. (And getting sucker-bloggers like me to waste time writing my opinion about her!)

And her hateful spewing crosses the line. As a writer and journalist, I'm as big a supporter of free speech there is. But Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes helped us draw an important line when he pointed out that free speech doesn't mean you can yell "fire" in a crowded theater.

You can bet Don Imus must be wondering why he doesn't have a job right now.

Seriously, it's time for Ann to go. Shame on network executives and talk show hosts who agree to have Ann as a guest ever again. Shame on viewers for watching her, or for reading her columns. Shame on me if I ever write another word about her.

C'mon FCC. You can spare us all if you'll just implement an Ann Ban, punishable by a fine of one beeeeeelion dollars.