Storm Clouds
Eric Alterman is righteously pissed off at John Cloud, the author of the fawning piece on Ann Coulter, saying that Alterman and Coulter are the same kind of people:
What?s more, Coulter has twice either wished for, or joked about the mass murder of American journalists. She has called for, or joked about, the assassination of a sitting American president. She has called for, or joked about, the mass murder of entire populations of Moslem nations. She has referred to the president of the United States and his wife as ?pond scum,? among many other things. She has called Christie Todd Whitman a “birdbrain” and a “dimwit”; Jim Jeffords a “half-wit”; and Gloria Steinem a “deeply ridiculous figure” who “had to sleep” with a rich liberal to fund Ms. magazine–all of which makes her “a termagant.” I have never called publicly for the death of any one, nor joked about anyone?s murder, nor called any president or any senator any names like those listed above, though I admit, not all of them?including the current president–are among my favorite people.
He then goes on to explain to the clueless Cloud, who also said he’s not a factchecker, why Cloud’s article was so repulsive:
This is the heart of the scandal of its publication in Time and the reason his name will now be forever synonymous with a kind of craven, dishonest journalism that seeks to apologize for those who hold the values for which Time professes to stand in contempt. It is not about liberals attacking conservatives nor vice-versa. For all of Cloud?s attacks on my political orientation, it had nothing to do with my criticisms of his piece. Those dealt exclusively with Cloud?s journalism. For some reason he does not seem to get this, so let me spell it out:
Nobody really cares about Mr. Cloud personally, or the fact that he found Ms. Coulter so charming and ?ironic? sipping her white Bordeaux and throwing her blonde locks back as she downed her Nicorette. The issue that engages those of us who are invested in protecting and defending the honesty and integrity of American journalism is that Mr. Cloud has used the powerful and influential pages of Time magazine to declare Ms. Coulter?s work mostly accurate (“didn’t find many outright Coulter errors”*) while admitting that neither he, nor Time?s minions, did the necessary work to defend that pronouncement.
We can debate the meaning of the word ?lie? and whether it can apply to a false description. As the author of a doctoral dissertation and a 450 or so page book containing over 1400 footnotes spread over 91 pages on the topic of presidential lies, and a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, I like to think my vote should carry some weight when I say ?yes.? But I admit the point is arguable. What is not arguable is that Ann Coulter?s work cannot be fairly described as without “many outright […] errors”* by anyone with a modicum of respect for rules of evidence or the simple meaning of words. Again, I refer you to the countless examples listed above, not merely in What Liberal Media, but in Tapped, Media Matters, Spinsanity, Salon and many, many others.