A Closer Look at the Deconstruction of John Edwards

One of my favorite observers of the media has done it again, exposing how the cross hairs of the image-making-machine targets its casualties.
Take exhibit A:

Given the power of impressions, however, the media has effectively “taken Edwards apart” in two pictures. (This should not be surprising, though, as any candidate that trends left and threatens to play outside the establishment rules is probably doomed to the same fate.)

On first go around, Edwards was feminized and sissified. On a slow simmer for years, that stage really got hot in early March after Ann Coulter publicly called Edwards a “faggot.” It culminated in late April, however, when Adam Nagourney, Maureen Dowd (viewable via johnedwards.com) and Howard Kurtz, within the same week, not only jumped all over JE’s pricey Beverly Hills haircut, but seemed to relished the opportunity to revive what Nagourney termed the “Breck Girl sobriquet” with all three journalists plugging (read: blessing) the infamous, Edwards-slandering “I Feel Pretty” You Tube video.

[...]

Phase two crystallized this past weekend with the publication of the NYT Magazine, above.

In the cover story, Matt Bai spends an impressive 7,827 words intimating that John Edwards is a filthy-rich hypocrite who is playing the poverty issue for political advantage. “Writes Bai: “Whenever you wrap yourself in the mantle of morality and conviction … even the smallest hypocrisy can leave an indelible stain.”

The entire post is worth a read, see the rest at HuffingtonPost.com.

Coulter: Stevens Should be Poisoned

Nice to see that our homegrown Taliban, the same group that now exerts so much influence over the one party that rules our country, is still hard at work trying to liberate patriotic Americans from the vise of those evil doers in the Supreme Court. According to some reports, Supreme Court Justices Ginsburg and O’Connor were threatened with assassination after some Republican officials subtly (and sometimes not subtly) suggested that violence against judges was understandable, and perhaps excusable. Of course, these Republican officials made those statements at around the time of the 2004 Presidential elections, and they knew that such red meat comments would go over well with the Republican right wing base.

Here’s what the AP writes:

WASHINGTON (March 16) - Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she and former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor have been the targets of death threats from the "irrational fringe" of society, people apparently spurred by Republican criticism of the high court.

Ginsburg revealed in a speech in South Africa last month that she and O’Connor were threatened a year ago by someone who called on the Internet for the immediate "patriotic" killing of the justices.

[...]

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter joked earlier this year that Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. Over the past few months O’Connor has complained that criticism, mainly by Republicans, has threatened judicial independence to deal with difficult issues like gay marriage.

You gotta love how the so-called Liberal Media excuses their conservative darlings whenever they "joke" about killing a federal official. I mean, let’s say that Michael Moore joked about poisoning a Supreme Court Justice, do you think that the mainstream media would cuddle him like they still cuddle Coulter?

Hard to believe that the same woman that called for the killing of a Supreme Court Justice graced the cover of Time Magazine around this time last year — she’s certainly Ms. Right, and a great representative of everything that’s wrong with that other party and its supporters.

Update: AMERICAblog has a nice round up:

Delay threatens judges

And, let me repost something I wrote in March of last year:

Examples of religious right anti-judge hate speech:

Today, I received this email from the religious right propaganda organ AgapePress:

Judie Brown of the American Life League says the court-ordered starvation of the brain-injured Terri Schiavo is the latest evidence that liberal judges are trying to take on the role of God. "The problem with the court system is that they are moving closer and closer to condemning severely disabled Americans, as a group, to death," she says, "and that ought to frighten everyone."

Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., chief sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment:

"Our nation has a set of activist judges in Massachusetts and a rogue mayor in San Francisco. It is evident that they will openly aid and abet the homosexual lobby. These events over the past week clearly show that gay activists will skirt the law to create a new privilege that has never existed in this country."

Republican National Committee:

In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the party had sent the mailings. "When the Massachusetts Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage and people in other states realized they could be compelled to recognize those laws, same-sex marriage became an issue,” Ms. Iverson said. "These same activist judges also want to remove the words ‘under God’ from the Pledge of Allegiance.

Girl Fight!!!

The following diary was originally posted at DailyKos.com and at MyLeftWing.com — I’m sure the author won’t mind, as she wants as much circulation of her challenge as possible. Also, the diary is too damn funny to not share with as wide an audience as possible.

Wherein I Challenge Ann Coulter to Debate Me

Let’s Do It For the Troops!

Any and all funds raised by our debate will immediately be donated to DISABLED VETERANS! Whaddya say, Annie baby?

That’s right, Ms. Coulter. I hereby issue you a challenge: Meet me in St. Louis, or wherever you please � and let’s have ourselves an honest-to-goodness debate.

Now, I realise that the concepts of both �honesty� and �goodness� are foreign to you, but you can do the research, right? — you’re a big girl.

(Metaphorically and chronologically, of course — god forbid you take that phrase literally and make the panicky teenaged decision to eschew even the meagre sustenance you’ve allowed yourself thus far. By the by, Ann � may I call you Ann? � where on earth did you get the idea that heroin chic was still fashionable? My god, woman, that is SO 1993).

Where was I? Oh, yes � a debate. �Twixt you and me, Annie baby. We can find ourselves a suitably impartial moderator � say, anyone who hasn’t ever seen you or read you. I wouldn’t want the inevitable revulsion of any sentient being to your previous work to create a bias in my favour.

Now, you may be saying to yourself (no doubt with your trademark sneer pasted on your Botoxed visage � how DO you do that, by the way? Do you get the injections WHILE sneering, in order to preserve that look?), �Why the heck should I debate this nonentity? What do I have to gain?�

Weight, for one thing � but never mind that now.

If I were you, Annie darling, I’d be asking the same question. Let’s start with the purely superficial advantages to your accepting this challenge:

• I’m a good 40 pounds heavier than you � you get to look even THINNER!
  (Be still my heart! � I’d wish you the same, but I’m pretty sure yours has been still for at least a decade.)
• It’s one more chance for you to demonstrate your superior debating skills while looking as fabulous as you can. Perhaps it might even be televised, thus assuring you another chunk of film for your archives.
• If you DO manage to talk someone into televising it, you can get your roots touched up and call it tax deductible.
• Free publicity � now what media whore (and I use the term with every ounce of disrespect I can muster) could resist that?

I have absolutely no doubt you will reject this challenge, should it cross your unprincipled path. Cowardice and self-interest demand you never set foot near a podium facing anyone who has even the slightest chance of upstaging your shallow, venal vernacular. Your rabid right wing talking points wouldn’t do you a bit of good, Annie dearest, in the face of actual facts delivered by someone who actually outmatches you in obnoxiousness AND wit (granted, the latter is an unfair comparison, since you seem to have plagiarised most of what you try to pass off as wit, anyway).

And trust me � I have it on excellent authority that I not only outweigh you physically, but intellectually, as well. (That authority being, oh, everyone I’ve ever met.)

Nevertheless, I am compelled to issue this challenge to you, Annie, sweetheart; too often lately, I have accidentally been exposed to your risible claims as to the inferiority � nay, TREASON � of the average liberal, and it will not stand.

Accustomed as you are to the cushion of your Fox News berth; to the faux-gallantry of your fellow traveler in fascism, Sean Hannity; to the woefully inadequate foils offered in sacrifice to you like so much rotting meat to a vulture� it is high time someone who is your intellectual, moral and physical superior threw down the gauntlet and dared you to pick it up.

I dare you, Annie, dollface, sweetums, puddin’ � I double dog dare you. Debate me. All I need is a couple days’ notice to raise sufficient funds for travel and accommodations wherever you decide to meet me.

(Okay, it will take less than an hour to raise the funds — but I need the rest of the time to arrange babysitting and get MY roots touched up.)

Let’s see if my hunch about you is right; let’s see if you really are the craven coward your curriculum vitae evinces you to be…