Another Sunday

And Jack Kelly can't help himself - spinning again.

While it's true that in this Sunday's column he spanks Ann Coulter pointing out her "vile mouth" and calling her a "foul-mouthed narcissist." He can't resist a few tried and (and yet untrue) jabs at the left.

Kelly first frames Coulter's recent outrages as par for the course for liberals:

Ms. Coulter is the conservative those on the far left love to hate. This is in part because, in her substitution of invective for argument, she is the conservative who most resembles themselves.

Really? Who on the left has as big a following as Ann Coulter and is as much a foul-mouthed narcissist? Kelly gives us a clue as to who he thinks it is:

Like Michael Moore, she learned long ago that hurling insults sells more books than reasoned arguments do.

That's right - Michael Moore. Who said...what again? Kelly doesn't say. He leaves it up to his audience to fill in the blank.

In his defense, Kelly spends most of the column criticising the various defenses other conservatives have used to defend Coulter. A laudable undertaking - especially by a fellow nutcase conservative. This is how he describes the defenses:

If they didn't reveal so much inner ugliness, the defenses offered for Ms. Coulter's remark would be hilarious in their hypocrisy.

But he still can't resist smearing Liberals while spanking conservatives:

The third is that the moonbats on the left say more vile things, more frequently. Also true. "Comedian" Bill Maher was only one of many who expressed regret that Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't assassinated. But your mama should have taught you in elementary school that bad behavior by your playmates does not justify bad behavior by you.

Like his colleague Ruth Ann Dailey, Jack Kelly's a few days behind the learning curve on this one. His column was published on the 11th of March. 6 days before on the 5th of March, Bill Maher posted this at the Huffington Post:

On Saturday, the website NewsBusters.org posted a story under the headline "Bill Maher Sorry the Assassination Attempt on Dick Cheney Failed."

There's just one problem: As a fair reading of the show's transcript makes clear, I never said those words. Still, over the weekend, dozens of websites, mostly right wing, picked up the story (with headline intact) thus proliferating the myth that comic Maher somehow advocates the whacking of our Veep.

Don't get me wrong: I've never joined the Dick Cheney Fan Club. But what I said Friday -- and what I believe -- is that the Vice President has presided over a bungled execution of a war in which thousands of our bravest continue to die. And I believe that were he not in power, our troops would likely come home sooner. But I don't wish him dead.

Ironically, I made my comments during a discussion about Free Speech, which is one of the chief reasons that I love my country.

Maybe Kelly thinks he's covered his ass by adding that "was only one of many" qualifier.

But if you're gonna quote a guy, shouldn't you at least, well, quote him?

Here's exactly what Maher said on his HBO show. The discussion was about his discomfort over the Huffingtonpost's decision to erase the comments there that expressed regret that the assasination attempt failed. Maher's point then was, why can't they say that? Joe Scarborough has an intelligent answer:

Okay, then – but, let’s put it this way then. If somebody came on here and said that they wished all abortion clinics had been blown up...and you didn’t step forward and say, “I disassociate myself with those remarks,” and it just floats out there in the transcripts, then you’re going to be connected with those words. Arianna Huffington has every right to say, “I don’t want to be associated with this hate language.”

Which actually makes sense. But here's what Maher is quoted as saying:

But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow.

And then a few seconds later the conversation continues with Joe Scarborough and Congressman Barny Frank:

SCARBOROUGH:...If somebody on this panel said they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say—

FRANK: I think he did. [laughter]

SCARBOROUGH: Okay, did you say--?

MAHER: No. No, I quoted that.

FRANK: You don’t? Oh, you don’t believe that?

MAHER: No, I’m just saying that if he did die—

SCARBOROUGH: [laughter] Okay, but if – oh, let’s just say—

MAHER: [overlapping]—other people – more people would live. That’s a fact.

See that? When asked if he believed it, he said (and this is a quote) "No." and that's a far cry from saying he expressed regret that the Vice-President wasn't assassinated.

But you know, for my buddy Jack Kelly, letting pesky things like details get in the way of a good story is not something he seems to be interested in.