Broken gaydar

Ann Coulter needs to go into rehab.

She says so herself. Friday, in a speech at the right wing's big annual bash, the conference for the American Conservative Union's PAC, she called John Edwards a faggot.

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, " Coulter said, "but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so …" she paused as the audience's collective gasp turned into laughter and applause, then she continued: "so I'm kind of at an impasse."

Ann has anger issues as well as sexual identity issues.

I won't psychoanalyze her weird fixation on sexuality. Her fellow conservatives, many of whom are obsessed with the sexuality of others, might be a better choice for explaining Coulter's homophobia and her malfunctioning gaydar. (John Edwards? I mean, I can see someone calling out Lindsey Graham. But Edwards?)

As far as Ann's anger, we liberal bloggers bear some responsibility for it. Who among us has not called her Mann Coulter? Which of us has not noted that she has a horse face? Raise your hand if you have not commented, online or in person, upon Coulter's own dubious sexuality? Called her Coultergeist? Remarked upon her prominent Adam's apple?

We've been mean to her, folks, and so she struck at the best-looking presidential candidate she could find. Maybe she has a man-crush on Edwards. Hard to tell what's going on in Ann's mind. She makes her patented outrageous statements with so little conviction that it makes you wonder who the joke is on -- her supposed targets, or her conservative audience.

By the way, she endorsed Mitt Romney.

I find it odd that this hasn't gotten much coverage by the mainstream press. Atrios notes that "there's nothing a conservative can say which would cause the 'liberal media' to decide that she wasn't an appropriate person to promote." Over at Tapped, Ben Adler notes: "Charming. When the right lets out its hate-mongering id, it's a really pretty sight."

I met Ann Coulter last summer in a greenroom, when I was waiting to do a brief interview on Fox News out of a dingy studio in West Palm Beach. She walked in, doffed her chiffon cape and threw it on a couch, and made a beeline for the makeup chair. She told the makeup artist, Christine, that she had awakened with a red eye. Christine had Visine. I was relieved that Ann apparently didn't notice me, because I felt like the manly, Queequegish thing to do would be to say something nasty to her. But since I didn't exist in her world, I didn't have to discharge my responsibility.

I thought, what the heck, I'm not going to be an asshole unless she's an asshole to me.

After my interview, I walked out of the studio and into the greenroom. Ann was sitting on the couch, waiting for her time before the camera. She was wearing blue jeans (it was 90 degrees outside and humid) with a big hole ripped in the right knee. I smiled wimpily and mumbled hello as I lifted her chiffon cape to see if I had left anything on the couch.

Her car was parked next to mine. Empty. Engine running, air conditioning turned on full blast.

I asked myself if I had done the moral thing by not saying something belittling to her. My friends, I admit that I was afraid of confrontation. I sense that she's muy smart and she could have eviscerated me with a nasty comeback.

But perhaps the best she could have done would have been to call me a faggot.

Ratfucking in the 21st century

I got an email from the John Edwards campaign. Join One Corps (an organization that, as of yet, is not well-defined; I'm not sure what relationship it has to the campaign) and do something to push for universal health care. I typed in my ZIP code and got a list of five One Corps chapters in my area.

Good enough so far. I click on the chapter closest to me: One Corps for Palm Beach County Students. In the description of the chapter, it begins: "My name is Jeff and I'm a sophomore at a local high school."

And there's one more member listed besides the founder, Jeff. The other one is a guy who calls himself tedfun21. There's a photo of him, grinning, standing in a room, his arms crossed. Big arms. The guy works out. He's proud of those big ol' guns.

Let's look at the next-closest chapter, presumably a chapter started by a voting-age person in Palm Beach County. Thirteen members. And the second member listed is tedfun21. The next-closest chapter, just north of here. Two members, one of them tedfun21. The nine-member chapter in West Palm Beach includes tedfun21. And the seven-member chapter 22 miles south ranks tedfun21 as a member.

Let's check tedfun21 out by looking at his One Corps profile. Turns out he lives on South Beach, more than 100 miles south of the kid who started One Corps for Palm Beach County Students. He belongs to One Corps chapters from Florida's Panhandle to Miami Beach. Presumably, as part-owner of PR business, he's not going to have time to drive to all the meetings.

I mention the case of tedfun21 because he illustrates a hazard of online organizing. There's a real risk of getting ratfucked. (To put it another way, if a Republican candidate starts up something like One Corps, there's an opportunity to ratfuck his campaign.)

My first objection is the choice of the peurile handle "tedfun21." That sounds like the handle of someone who's cruising for anonymous sex partners, not like someone who is a serious, dependable political volunteer. Tedfun21's profile says he was Edwards's state volunteer coordinator in 2004. Well, OK. It still looks kind of weird when a grown man calling himself "tedfun21" gloms onto a high school sophomore online.

My second objection is the apparently unfettered ability for anyone to sign up for any One Corps chapter.

Neither one of these objections sounds like a big deal unless you consider the ratfucking possibilities. For the sake of argument, let's assume that John McCain starts something like One Corps, a vaguely defined online organizing thingie. Call it MegaCorpses, for his support for more killing in Iraq. Someone could adopt the handle GookKillr and join every chapter in the nation.

Someone calling herself Pu55yLiquor could join every chapter of Mitt Romney's online organization. If the object were to tweak the Mormon, the name Pu55yLiquor would provide a two-fer: lesbianism and alcohol.

Giuliani's online organization could be plagued by a guy calling himself Diallosnitestik.

Or maybe a guy calling himself Tedfun22 could join all the Republican online campaign organizations, post a nude picture of himself in his profile, and troll constantly for sex partners. That would take valuable time away from the people running the sites.

Naturally, we shouldn't expect the Republicans to come up with the same idea.

Update: Kos knows a potential ratfucking when he sees one.