When I read Ann’s heartfelt tribute to the passing of her father, I was of course not shocked at her characterization of him.

She certainly did not fall far from his tree. 

But I also knew, with certainty, that the liberals who despise her would soon make sport of it. something I equally certain she expected.

I was right:

Whether it’s Tony Snow’s cancer, the comparative good intentions of Hitler and Stalin, or the urgent need for a military coup, no one does “satire” like HuffPo. How bad is this one? So bad that even the blogosphere’s most notorious comment section is put off by it, although stick with the debate long enough and you’ll see it ends up where all progressive line-crossing eventually does, in a contest between the self-congratulatory “I’m tired of being morally superior to the wingnuts” and the equally self-congratulatory “we must remain morally superior to the wingnuts.” I didn’t read to the end but I’m pretty sure it ends in a draw.

So how bad is it really?  A few excerpts:

Ann Coulter Kills at Her Father’s Funeral

Ann Coulter’s father John died last week, and this week she honored his memory with a column containing not one, but two Ted Kennedy jokes. I know I’d be proud.

Note:  I am almost certain her dad would have been, from her description.  Moving on…

Such is a daughter’s grief. Think of her, then, as Ophelia with her violetless garlands, crossed with a real fucking hack.

But where’s the Hillary material? Come on. It’s right in front of you, Ann — dad’s dead… Hillary cries… you do the math.

Clearly, Ann’s not at the top of her game. So I’ve taken the liberty of going through the eulogy — cutting the Kennedy material — and punching up the rest.

The longest baby ever born at the Albany, N.Y., hospital, at least as of May 5, 1926, who grew up to be my strapping father, passed away last Friday morning.

And by “strapping” I mean, “he beat me with a strap.”

As Mother and I stood at Daddy’s casket Monday morning, Mother repeated his joke to him, which he said on every wedding anniversary until a few years ago when Lewy bodies dementia prevented him from saying much at all: “54 years, married to the wrong woman.” And we laughed.

Because he was dead.

…

He’d indicate his feelings about my skirt length by saying,

I can see your balls.

…

He never talked much about his FBI days.

Or dressing like a woman.

It’s the typical satire ((satire, ala Huffpo and Al Franken allows you to say anything hateful, offensive and untrue and shield your words with “hey I was just kidding!  Its just satire for crissakes…”-LSU))I have come to expect from the liberals who cluster under the umbrella of hate at Huffpo and Kos.

Actually, I have to amend that.  At Huffpo they often hide behind satire.  Kos is much more blatant:

Evil always has a root

Reading Ann’s article, I was feeling the way I often feel when I read about some particularly vile person, and how their formative years were spent in some heinous circumstance (the serial killer who you find spent years locked in a dirty closet by abusive parents).

Ann’s father, it seems, was a royal ass.  One who would joke to her mother on every anniversary that he had married the wrong woman.  Ann’s remembrances of his personal interactions with her, or her brother, were of demeaning putdowns.  His interactions with his community, his civil service?  Hunting Commies for the FBI, and union busting.  Her memories of her fathers hobbies?  Of course - that he liked to shoot squirrels in the back yard.

It’s almost as if someone wanted to write a bad characature of what kind of father would produce a diseased personality like Ann.  I did feel sorry for her - not in the “sorry for your loss” way, but in the “sorry you were so screwed up from the very beginning” kind of way.  The way as a liberal I often feel sorry for bad people, without excusing the fact that they’re a bad person - a complex way of thinking that conservatives like Ann (and apparently her father) are totally incapable of understanding.

Hell - even I can’t wish for anyone the fate that she imagines for her father for eternity:

“Now Daddy is with Joe McCarthy and Ronald Reagan.”

But as Hot Air noted at HuffPo, even at Kos, at least one person had some decency:

With all the (very good) reasons to attack Ms. Coulter, I don’t understand the spate of columns criticizing her for this.

She’s a partisan, Republican nutjob.  It’s possible her father was the same way (may he rest in peace).  Let her write the eulogy she wants for her father.  She knows what he would have liked better than we do, and who is anyone else to say her article is disrespectful to him?

Quite frankly, as much as my father hates Bush and is obsessed with poltics, I could see myself making some anti-Bush cracks if I were to do a eulogy for him.

Sure, I see the reason for the criticisms, but as the guy above said “it’s her dad, let her decide what he would like”.  And as I noted above, her dad likely would have loved the eulogy including the Kennedy jokes.  I wrote a blog eulogy to my uncle a few years ago.  I took a different tack on mine, and heck he was a former politician.

But I chose the words that reminded me of him.  So did she.

It is her dad and her memories.  She gets to determine how she frames her remembrance.

Regardless, it is a chance to shoot at an easy target, and one that many liberals cannot resist.  And, as I noted, one I am sure she was expecting.

Condolences to Ann on her loss.  And condolences to the liberal left on your loss of decency.

Trackposted to Mark My Words, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Adam’s Blog, Right Truth, Big Dog’s Weblog, Conservative Cat, Allie is Wired, third world county, DragonLady’s World, The World According to Carl, Blue Star Chronicles, Pirate’s Cove, Celebrity Smack, The Pink Flamingo, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.