Ann Coulter Battles Elizabeth Edwards on 'Hardball' Over 'Hate' Language

By: E&P Staff During an appearance by columnist Ann Coulter on Chris Matthews' MSNBC program "Hardball" today, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Sen. John Edwards, phoned in to ask Coulter to turn away from attacking individuals and using the language of "hate."

Coulter laughed it off and told Edwards that she was just trying to silence her, or even stop writing books. She then attacked her husband for making doing "shyster Las Vegas routine" in front of juries when he was a attorney that won huge damage claims against doctors, "bankrupting" them which meant they could "no longer deliver babies.... Don't talk to me about how to use language."

Edwards again asked her to not use hate language: "I'm going to politely ask you again to stop using personal attacks as part of your dialogue." Coulter said Edwards was just the wife of a candidate for president trying to defend her husband. "Stop raising money on your Web site," Coulter said.

"Why isn't John Edwards making this call?" Coulter asked.

Edwards asked Coulter why she had lied and said that her husband had a bumper sticker on his car that read, "Ask me about my dead son." Coulter replied: "That was three years ago." Edwards: "I'm the mother of the boy that died."

Coulter made headlines several months ago when she used an anti-gay slur in referring to John Edwards.

Just yesterday, Coulter had turned on President Bush, at least part way.

"I do sort of get the sense now that there is -- you know -- people reaching across the partisan divide, the country is unified," she told Chris Cuomo on Good Morning America. "Bush really is a uniter because we're all just waiting for this nincompoop to be gone. I think we all finally are on the same page on that."

While she praised Bush's handling of the war, she admitted that "his domestic policy has been an embarrassment."

She said the war is "the one thing I think Bush has done well. He's like another president in that way -- FDR. I think he's been magnificent on the war, and on domestic policy has been an embarrassment."

Her favorite candidate for 2008: Rep. Duncan Hunter, she said, while admitting that "no one has heard of him."