We're Sorry you're Offended.

I was trying to stay away from the "Ann Coulter-John Edwards-Faggot" brouhaha. But I can't help jumping in with my two cents worth, if it's even worth two cents. The whole thing makes me tired, so tired.

I was tired of hearing about the "F-word" the first time I heard someone reporting on Coulter's use of it in a supposed joke about the current craze of running to rehab after getting caught doing anything wrong, embarrassing or politically incorrect. I assumed the "F-word" she used was of the four letter variety. How wrong I was.

She was referring to the NEW "F-word", the one that sent "Grey's Anatomy" actor Isaiah Washington to the Apology Podium for using that slur to refer to fellow cast member. In case you've been living in a cave for the past month or so, the word is "faggot." Shhhhhhhh.

After that unfortunate occurence, ABC and other bigwigs bent over backwards to decry the use of the word faggot, which is very interesting if the following is indeed the case. Brent Bozell writes:

In fact, the networks are in federal court at this very moment, suing for the "right" to drop F-bombs on children whenever they'd like. That F-bomb is OK for national television, but it's not OK for the new F-bomb to be uttered anywhere, even on the privacy of the set, even when it's between adults.

Once again, Hollywood looks hypocritical, so high and mighty about their vaunted right to shock and offend, to push every envelope and melt every taboo, and it doesn't matter how many they offend. But in their neighborhood there are rules, they have their own list of Seven Dirty Words you can't say, their own system of censorship and their own secular sacraments of penance.

We saw this in November, when comedian Michael Richards screamed the N-word at a comedy club, recorded on a cell phone. No one would rebroadcast the offending word, even as Richards was denounced in every venue. We can applaud that and ask: So why not the same standard for the other obscenities?

It seems that Hollywood bows before the god of Diversity, and the greatest blasphemous offenses anyone can commit all lie in the minefields of racial and sexual identity politics.

So now the democrats have a new pariah, not that they've ever been fond of Ann Coulter and her the biting humor. She often cuts too close to the mark for anyone to be comfortable. They are insisting that all republican candidates run to the Apology Podium to repudiate and apologize for her remarks. But I find this just another example of their hypocrisy. They can stand idly by while their minions declare George W. Bush to be the new Hitler, the world's real terrorist, an idiot, etc., while Julia Roberts finds the word "republican" in the dictionary between "reptile" and "repulsive", Alec Baldwin wishes Henry Hyde and his family dead, and Bill Maher rues the fact that Dick Cheney wasn't blown to smithereens by an assassin's bomb. But let one republican call someone a "faggot", even indirectly, and buddy, there's hell to pay.

Jon Sanders agrees that an apology is necessary and furnishes a great one right here. He "apologizes" to Howard Dean by listing ways Coulter could have jabbed at Edward, all right-on, by the way, and ends by saying:

"In short, Coulter's remark was ugly, gratuitous, and worthless. She could have leveled far more substantial -- and entertaining -- hits on John Edwards than what she said. For that we offer our sincere apologies and hopes for greater political discourse."

As for me, I'll just say, "I'm sorry you're offended. Now bugger off. I'm tired of it."