The Dish

How did Mickey Kaus get a hold of Ann Coulter’s email to Adam Nagourney? Mickey is usually adamant about holding other journalists’ feet to the fire, especially about potential conflicts of interest. So why won’t he say? It’s time Kaus lived up to the same exacting standards he applies to everyone else, don’t you think? How did you get the email, Mickey?

The usual class-act.

That’s what he kept calling himself, after his ground-breaking speech to the Democrats in 1992 as a gay man with AIDS. He now is officially a Has-Bob. Bob Hattoy died yesterday in Sacramento. He was a fantastically funny, pathologically indiscreet, wildly irresponsible, AIDSy queen with great hair. And he had more integrity in his little finger than all the other gays in the Clinton administration put together. He looked into the face of death and laughed so hard God left him with us for a while, just so we could remember what so many of the dead once were, how loud and brash they once had been, how defiant and screwed up and loving so many of the best were, the dead ones, the ones we left behind. His sudden death brought all those faces back to me. I saw him only a few weeks back in Washington for the Pelosi-palooza. He was loving it. We were ideologically miles apart, but Bob was so real, petty issues like politics never got in the way. He refused to play the Clinton game of fleecing gays for money in return for power for Democrats, and was thus quickly deemed a "ticking time bomb" among the Clintonistas. He refused to sell "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," refused to lie and spin, and so got shunted off to an Interior Department job and muzzled. "They thought I’d be dead in a few months, that’s why they gave me the White House job," he once said to me, bursting into laughter.

I wish he’d written his book about life as a gay man in the Clinton administration. One working title – among many – was "It’s The Economy, Faggot," which was roughly the attitude of most senior Clintonites to the gays who worked for them. But Bob and muzzles were not a natural fit. His stories were often at his own expense (and often completely made up), his credit was always dodgy, and his life was dedicated in many degrees to others and to causes much larger than himself. If you knew and loved him for his faults as well as his constantly "flarin’ AIDS", come by the Duplex Diner tonight in Adams Morgan to drink and laugh and remember. Or just drink.

Irwin Stelzer dishes a little:

In addition to [Andrew] Roberts and myself the group included the historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, neocon Norman Podhoretz and theologian Michael Novak.

The president divulged with convincing calm that when it comes to pressure, "I just don’t feel any". Why? His constituency, he feels, is the divine presence, to whom he must answer. Don’t misunderstand: God didn’t tell him to put troops in harm’s way in Iraq; his belief only goes so far as to inform him that there is good and evil. It is the president who must figure out how to promote the former and destroy the latter. And he is confident that his policies are doing just that.

Has Bush ever had lunch with intellectuals who might actually disagree with him?

… while you were being a normal person, the Dish was somewhat lively. If you’re interested, here’s my take on Romney’s impressive speech to CPAC, Clinton’s unimpressive speech to HRC, Mickey Kaus’s odd  defense of everything Coulterish, and the Weekly Standard’s disclosure problem. Enjoy.

Men? Sure. It’s my job. And now Putin has made the guy president of Chechnya.

Another Rumsfeld legacy: shameful, awful treatment of many badly injured vets across the whole country. I have to say I’m impressed by Bob Gates’ quick response.

Dean Barnett got an earful in his email in-tray for taking on Coulter. Here’s what he calls a "typically thoughtful" email from the base:

Ann Coulter hit the nail on the head. John Edwards is a pussified a**hole and faggot. That’s right, I wrote it and will say it in public. I don’t mean it in the classic sense either. Edwards is an effeminate, back-stabbing, hide-behind-the-law, ambulance chaser who couldn’t handle himself in a one-on-one fist fight. So, get your perfume out and go join him. Evidently, you aren’t man enough to tell the truth either. You’re just another neo-con hack who isn’t worth his weight in dogs**t! Stop blogging because you’re just making it worse.

Perfume. Effeminate. Fist-fight. Everything Hannity has trained them to say. You can ride the tiger for only so long, can’t you?

Jonah Goldberg has Dinesh D’Souza’s back. Meanwhile, one conservative blogger writes an open letter to CPAC:

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

No co-signers yet, so far as I can see. Could someone ask D’Souza what he thought of Coulter’s remark? Doesn’t he believe it will help us in the war on Islamist terror?

A Democratic reader responds to her Selma speech:

First  a little about me. I am a lifelong 56 year old Democrat (count me as a Scoop Jackson type). I voted for a Republican once, when I was living in Ft. Worth and Phil Gramm was still a Democratic congressman. I have held my nose very hard to vote for Gore and Kerry. However, I am completely appalled at the hypocrisy, and incompetence of the Bush people. And to think I thought hard about voting for Bush last time. Their embrace of torture, catering to the hard right (intelligent design indeed), politicizing of US Attorneys, appointment of godawful idiots to the federal bench (I am a retired lawyer after 31 years of federal court trial work around the country), the mindless rhetoric (it is critical that we win in Iraq, but refusing to do the job right), etc. etc. is the stuff of nightmares. The takeover of the Republicans by unthinking single issue and frankly unhinged fanatics is awful – viz the decline of National Review into anti-abortion fanaticism. 

Yet, I will never vote for Hillary. Ever. She and her husband’s amoral crew initiated the idea of the "permanent campaign" and brought us years of  scorched earth politics in the service of only themselves – there was no moral or philosophical foundation – just talk and power and narcissism. She bared her teeth recently in the Obama kerfuffle and showed her inner self. 

All that is an introduction to my thoughts about her Selma speech (thank you CSPAN). Unbelievable. She lapsed occasionally into this phony southern accent. I’m from the midwest (with southern relatives) and the jarring transition from Chicago accent to southern mush mouth was unbelievably phony. She doesn’t know who she is. In fact, she isn’t anybody, just a robot. Empty phrases. Fake emotion. Fiction. She claimed to have gone to a MLK speech in Chicago in 1963 and been transformed (hey – what about being a Goldwater volunteer?). 

You can see the body and mouth taking instructions from the operating system  –  and we thought Al Gore as a candidate was phony and robot like. Her scripted and practiced hand gestures were gag-inducing. Particularly the throwing out of the arms embrace style. I can envision her practicing for her coaches. She is like a humorless, adult, Little Miss Sunshine – I wonder who her Alan Arkin is.

Not Bill.

(Photo: Scott Olson/Getty.)