The Ann Coulter “faggot” incident has set the right-wing blogs buzzing with commendable attempts to distance themselves from her and denounce her incessant hateful gibbering. But some have claimed that it’s unfair to pin this sort of behavior on right-wingers, that lefties do the same thing or worse.

Of course there are inflammatory statements made by the left. But you don’t hear the kind of truly vile hatefulness you constantly hear on the right, and you certainly don’t hear it as commonly, or on a routine basis from major figures who are either in office or appear in prominent roles at political functions and in the media. Patterico, however, tries to disprove this (fairly self-evident) claim by presenting a roll call of “true hate speech” from “prominent leftist figures”. You can go read the list if you want to; the quotes are mostly accurate. It’s hard not to notice a couple of things about his collection, though.

Most obviously, a considerable number of sources on it could in no way be considered “prominent leftist figures”. Several are professional comedians who are not particularly associated with politics (Chris Rock - often called conservative for his criticism of low-income blacks; Conan O’Brian; Craig Kilborn); some are totally marginal figures regardless of their politics (Charlie Brooker, a British TV reviewer; Dan Savage, an alternative-paper sex columnist; the St. Petersburg, Florida, Democratic Club [?!]); some are simply not leftist or liberal (Louis Farrakan?! - when was the last time you heard the Nation of Islam called “leftist”?).

More to the point, after scouring both sides of the Atlantic as far back as he could reach, he could only find two dozen quotations, from 21 figures (he gets Farrakhan in there 4 times for effect - it reminds of Warren Beatty’s line in “Bulworth”: “I’m sure they put something bad about Farrakhan in there for you!”). And how far back, exactly, did he have to go to find them? Well, here are the dates of the quotes he cites, in order:

  • Nina Totenberg: 1995
  • Julianne Malveaux: 1994 (who?)
  • Richard Cohen: 1999
  • Craig Kilborn: 2000
  • St. Petersburg Democratic Club: 2004
  • Conan O’Brien: 1998
  • Chris Rock: 1998
  • Spike Lee: 1999
  • James Carville: 1998, if not earlier
  • Alexander Cockburn: 2000
  • Dan Savage: 2000
  • Robert Byrd: 2001
  • Jesse Jackson: 1984
  • Louis Farrakhan: 1995, 1994, 2000, 1994
  • Howard Dean: 2005
  • Charlie Brooker: 2004
  • Pete Stark: 2003
  • Earl Hilliard: 2002 (not proven he wrote the flyer in question)
  • Markos: 2004
  • Atrios: 2006 (a direct quote of a joke from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy)
  • Lou Hendra: 2006

I can’t help but notice some of them are as much as 23 years old. On average, they are almost 8 years old. Barely a third were spoken within this century (counting from 2001) - only two are within the past year. This is the “leftist” scourge Patterico trumpets. He’s proven his point: the “leftists” of America and Europe (defined to include religious reactionaries, comedians, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) do say rather undisciplined things about conservatives . . . once a year, on average.

By way of contrast, this rom just the latest Ann Coulter column alone, before her CPAC meltdown:

  • Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.
  • They want us to starve the productive sector of fossil fuel and allow the world’s factories to grind to a halt.
  • There are more reputable scientists defending astrology than defending “global warming,” but liberals simply announce that the debate has been resolved in their favor and demand that we shut down all production.
  • When are liberals going to break the news to their friends in Darfur that they all have to starve to death to save the planet?
  • “Global warming” is the left’s pagan rage against mankind.
  • Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. [Among "liberals", here, she includes Stalin and Hitler]
  • Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks
  • Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans
  • Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans
  • global warming is the most insane, psychotic idea liberals have ever concocted to kill off “useless eaters.”
  • If we have to live in a pure “natural” environment like the Indians, then our entire transcontinental nation can only support about 1 million human beings. Sorry, fellas — 299 million of you are going to have to go.
  • [Environmentalists] never intended for us to survive.
  • [According to liberals,] [t]he entire fuel-guzzling, tacky, beer-drinking, NASCAR-watching middle class with their over-large families will simply have to die.

    • Yep - you can find fully half as many quotes, twice as insane, in one single column by Ann Coulter - and this one written and published while she was still the right’s darling - as in 23 years’ worth of selective quotation from every dubious “liberal” on two continents. And that doesn’t even touch on Ronald Reagan, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Grover Norquist, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney . . . . Patterico tells us it’s just the same thing. What do you think we’d get if we went back over 23 years of right-wing hate?

    Update: Patterico, on his blog, points out that the Conan O’Brien attribution is wrong; it was something said by Alec Baldwin on O’Brien’s show. I can’t see that that changes anything about the basic debate.