The politics of hate; scorched earth seems to be the daily special

Ann Coulter is a press whore - she will shamelessly do or say anything to get media attention. This includes calling a presidential candidate (Edwards) a f-gg-t or throwing another verbal Molotov. Let's face it. The politics of hate are never pretty, whether it's coming out of the mouth of Coulter or Kenneth Eng.

Well, you knew these photos of Guiliani in drag were bound to hit the big papers sometime. It's part of why i kept telling people he wasn't really viable in the long run - or maybe the Southern evangelical base of the GOP will surprise me. Conservatives who were grumbling about how none of their front runners are really conservative enough now can see for themselves. NYTimes puts em out there, and how.

So was his post-breakup move into the apartment of a gay couple on the Upper East Side. That inspired an article by The Times of London which recounted how the mayor left for City Hall every morning after giving his two hosts a goodbye peck on the cheek — “a little kiss, it’s cute,” Howard Koeppel, one of his hosts, told the newspaper — and how Mr. Giuliani affectionately called Mr. Koeppel “mother.”

(How much more New York can you get?)

As the beloved Wonkette writes:

This is kind of a tricky one. You see, “New Yorker” usually means “Jew.” But this time, it means “gay.”

Coulter says it outright, but Adam Nagourney just goes round and round saying but not saying the same thing. Ultimately, Nagourney's more subtle (not by much) brush will be an even bigger death knell than anything Coulter says, and it's because of the imprimatur of the Times. The guilt-by-association in the eyes of the GOP base vote will completely torpedo any chance of his claim to fame as "America's Mayor." Oh, and you can be sure that if the Firefighters union has anything to say about it, Guiliani will definitely never make it past the primaries.

Additionally, someone in the Democratic presidential candidate (or veepstakes) pool decided to remind everyone of how unpresidential NM Gov. Bill Richardson can be:

The lieutenant governor of New Mexico, Diane Denish, was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal saying she avoids standing or sitting near Richardson because of his physical manner, which she said was not improper but was "annoying." The governor, she said, "pinches my neck. He touches my hip, my thigh, sort of the side of my leg." . . . Denish said that she sometimes finds Richardson's physical style "irritating and annoying" but that he had never touched her in an improper way. Still, she said, his behavior was inappropriate in public because it could be misconstrued.

He claims that he was vetted by the Kerry campaign last time around and that they didn't find anything glaring, but that he pulled out of the veepstakes process last time: "These Democrats, who declined to be quoted by name discussing a sensitive personal matter, said that Richardson withdrew from consideration by Kerry before undergoing a final round of vetting. The final round would have required delivering financial documents and other information to Johnson and his team for an intensive examination of a candidate's fitness for high office." Interesting phrasing that casts a shadow on Richardson's finances. A deft way of ascribing suspicious behavior, as if Richardson maybe had something to hide.

I don't like Richardson very much due to his refusal to apologize to Wen Ho Lee after scrapegoating the man and ruining his life and career, but I do feel like he doesn't deserve these underhanded remarks. And I believe that any Democratic candidate would be better qualified and more able to put our country back on the correct course than any of the Republicans running. (Of course, more of this type of reporting doesn't help a claim that The Politico is overly partisan towards the right.)

Update: Smith says the Kerry camp advisors reject Richardson's claim.

All this spin and mudslinging and the scorched earth style politics of personal destruction is why no one trusts politicians. This is why Obama's refusal to segregate American from American, red state from blue state, and his "audacity of hope" are real and inspiring, even for a cynical observer like me. I like my righteous anger a la Dean, but sometimes I despair that we will ever get along. I might take a short break from blogging about electoral politics and write more on the movement and the personal journey unless something urgent catches my eye.