Ann Coulter calls President Obama a "retard"

Ann Coulter calls President Obama a "retard"

Let's be honest here. Coulter is an entertainer and a comedienne, not an analyst. Because she makes her living as a provocateur, she deliberately states everything in terms so transgressive that they attract attention and ratings. That's her thing, and her livelihood. This comment is over the line, but don't forget how many liberal provocateurs said essentially the same thing about President Bush. Some of them (Chris Rock, Seth MacFarlane and Russell Brand come immediately to mind) even used the same word.

I agree that what is good for the goose is good for the gander, but I wish our public figures would give such abuse to neither the goose nor the gander. It's pretty obvious that the former editor of the Harvard Law Review is not a slow learner, and I've noted before that George Bush's measured IQ was quite a bit higher than that of the liberal icon, JFK! Kennedy was tested at 119 in his prep school. President Bush scored 1206 on the pre-1974 SAT, which converts to an IQ of about 129 on the Otis scale. There was a close correlation between SAT and IQ in those days. The correlation was dependable enough that MENSA accepted a 1250 score for membership at that time. (Over the years the tests have been revised, the correlation no longer exists, and MENSA no longer accepts SAT scores in its admission process.)

It has come to the point in our public discourse where we drag out the word "retard" to describe anybody we disagree with, unless we prefer to call them "racists." The worst part is this: given the non-stop blathering of the cable news networks and talk radio, not to mention the substantial financial value of winning high-level elections, I don't suppose we will ever see an end to this kind of childish public display. If anything, it will probably get worse.