Republican presidential candidates are running away from Ann Coulter, and John Edwards himself called her out in Berkeley Sunday for calling him a “faggot” in Washington Friday. Pushing back at her “hateful, selfish, childish behavior,” Edwards said: “What I’ve learned is that if you don’t have the courage to speak out against it — no matter who says it, and no matter who it’s leveled at — then it becomes tolerable.”
As for Coulter? In an e-mail to the New York Times Friday, she said: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.” And in a post on her own Web site, she declares: “I’m so ashamed, I can’t stop laughing.” She then mocks the notion that “John ‘28,000-square-foot house’ Edwards” would need money for a presidential campaign and says that Edwards’ campaign manager’s “principal pastime is fronting for Arab terrorists.”
