Excerpts from a Politico reporter who seems not to have been at the event he was allegedly reporting on, probably because he’s homophobic:
“The broad surge in the conservative grassroots made it as far as PayPal founder Peter Thiel’s grand apartment overlooking New York’s Union Square Tuesday night, where about 150 backers of the conservative gay group GOProud gathered to laugh at Ann Coulter’s red meat riffs on Democrats, blacks, and the Obamas at a fundraiser organizers touted as ‘Homocon.’”
The event was Saturday night — not “Tuesday” — there were no “riffs” on “blacks” — there were riffs on gays trying to be black – and it wasn’t “touted” as Homocon, it was “called” Homocon.
“GOProud is an explicitly gay group that isn’t particularly focused on gay rights, and Coulter’s speech – full of conservative red meat, and only the occasional Judy Garland joke – reflected its focus.”
More than half the speech — and the entire Q&A –was an argument against gay marriage. Was Ben Smith even there? How did he miss that?
“Coulter’s presence at the event was controversial, as other gay activists pointed out that she’d made a series of anti-gay remark — she called former presidential candidate John Edwards a ‘faggot’ — which she explained away at the top of her speech as humor.”
I said absolutely nothing about the (fantastic) Edwards joke all night, no one asked me about it all night, and Ben Smith is probably the only person in the country who didn’t get it at the time and doesn’t get it now.
“Marriage ‘is not a civil right – you’re not black,’ Coulter said to nervous laughter. She went on to note that gays are among the wealthiest demographic groups in the country.”
Nervous laughter? More like “huge belly laughs.” (I think someone is engaging in gay stereotyping.)
“’Right wingers have always liked gays. Look at all of Ronald Reagan’s gay friends,’” she said, proceeding to cite an unverified rumor dating back half a century: ‘Look at my personal hero Joe McCarthy and his’ – airquotes – ‘special assistant.’”
As even the non-English-speaking Ben Smith grasped, the point being illustrated was that Republicans have always liked gays — not that they always were gay.
Reagan had gay friends and associates. AND YET Reagan was not gay. Joe McCarthy assistant Roy Cohn was gay. AND YET McCarthy was not gay. Coincidentally, my monumental No 1 bestselling book “Treason,” attacked liberals for ludicrously accusing McCarthy of being gay on the basis of his having a gay assistant. The only “air quotes” are around the word “reporter” in regard to Ben Smith.
