Ann Coulter and the "Faggot" Joke

OF COURSE this is SUCH a big deal...

Why can't we say that the joke was just bad and move on?

Did she mean any ill-will towards gays? No.
Did she botch the joke? (as John Kerry claims he did) No. Here she is on Hannity and Colmes with an explanation:

"...Liberals like Kerry get caught calling our troops dumb and then go back and say, oh, I botched a joke. No, I didn't botch a joke, and I didn't use an insulting word. I used a schoolyard word about a married man with children, 28th billionth time, and the audience knew that. I mean, the joke wouldn't have worked if I had inserted the name of a gay Democrat. Any other Democrat, the name could have been inserted. It could have been Howard Dean or Hillary Clinton, because it's a schoolyard taunt meaning wuss..."

And...

"...Kerry actually said, if you don't do your homework, if you don't go to school, you end up in Iraq. You can quote me exactly, and I don't have to change any words..."

Many conservatives are not happy with Coulter.

Malkin unleashes here.
Mary Katharine Ham is done defending her.
Dean Barnett is sick of it.

Michael Medved's response, though, is the one that stood out for me. Why?

...because he sounded like a liberal.

First of all, he calls the term "an anti-homosexual slur"...which was not her intended use. Then, he goes on to paint John Edwards as someone who should not be criticized because of his tough life:

"...it’s totally unacceptable to direct (the word) at Edwards – who’s been happily married for thirty years to a breast-cancer survivor and fathered five children, one of whom died in a tragic accident."

And...

"...laughingly smearing him as a closeted homosexual constitutes an inexcusable degradation of public discourse."

WOW - isn't THAT quite a leap in interpretation?

He then goes on that Coulter shouldn't question the sexuality of those who are married (which she wasn't doing) because she herself has never been married...implying that her own sexuality should be questioned more than Edwards'.

I have liked some of Medved's writings in the past, but this is so off-the-wall wrong you would think it came from Huffington Post or something.

I like what Atlas Shrugs says here:

"My point is I hate how the right has completely thrown her under the bus. She is a brilliant, beautiful, acerbic, bright light of the right. The right can't run fast enough the other way. Seems to me they are a bunch of faggots as well."

Again, the joke admittedly wasn't funny. But she wasn't engaging in hate speech or making anti-gay comments in any way. Let's forget this and move on.