CNN's Howard Kurtz on Sunday seemed to be oblivious to his own sense of irony.
Seconds after the Reliable Sources host ridiculed conservative author Ann Coulter for being bleeped by MSNBC while on Morning Joe last week, he actually praised a poorly received promotional ad for the very show she was on (video follows with transcript and commentary):
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HOWARD KURTZ: Time now for our "Media Monitor," a weekly look at hits and errors in the news business. I was watching conservative bomb- thrower Ann Coulter on "Morning Joe" the other day and was just starting to think she was sounding rather reasonable when she brought up Mitt Romney's 1994 race against a man she despises, Ted Kennedy. And a moment later, as she railed against other politicians, MSNBC hit the delay button and cut her sound.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR: I mean, if you're flipping from positions you held when you came within five points of taking out that human pestilence, we have Romney and Gingrich...
(AUDIO GAP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Speaking of "Morning Joe," the reviews of its new promo were awful, sexist, obnoxious, and worse. It portrays co-host Mika Brzezinski as the uber-organized housewife relentlessly racing to the show in a skimpy running outfit while Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, and the boys club stagger in after a night of drinking, smoking, and partying.
(VIDEO CLIP)
KURTZ: My professional reaction? Seriously? It's a parody. They make fun of themselves. They all played along. Some of these critics are in dire need of a humor transplant.
Actually, what Coulter said was "dickweed." This is not a "slang for male genitals" as Kurtz said.
According to the Urban Dictionary, it is a "person so irredeemably stupid that their idiotic behavior causes pain to everyone that they interact with."
The Online Slang Dictionary agrees: "asshole, jerk, complete loser."
Strike one.
Strike two for Kurtz was ignoring that irrespective of the language Coulter used, she was trashing Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
This should have pleased Kurtz for in an earlier segment he lambasted conservative media as "essentially corrupt" because they weren't being harsh enough on the former Speaker of the House.
I guess we shouldn't expect he would recall what had occurred on his on show 40 minutes earlier, for if he had he might have praised Coulter for going against the conservative media tide concerning Gingrich.
Having missed that, one has to call strike three for Kurtz then actually defending an ad depicting a former member of Congress drinking and smoking in bed moments before going into work.
I quite imagine Coulter might think the word MSNBC bleeped out on her last week could be appropriate on this occasion as well.
