No kidding! The darling blonde of the right wing who is so cantankerous she was actually booted from National Review (after reading Goldberg’s column, I don’t really know with whom I side) says she’s a Deadhead, and furthermore proclaims that “Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren’t.”

“Oddly enough, I like the music. No one believes that I never took drugs at Dead shows (except for the massive clouds of passive marijuana smoke) but I went because I really liked the music. There are various groups I get enthusiastic about for awhile, but of all the music I’ve listened to over the years, the Grateful Dead is the one band I never grow tired of. Apparently, the same is true of me for ski-lift operators.”

You’re on your own as to the meaning of that last sentence. And sorry Ann, but I’m going to need some credible independent witnesses as to the second sentence.

She then trails off with a series of anecdotes that have led her to believe that Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band were all closet conservatives. And furthermore, with regard to Al Franken (who was in fact a personal friend of Jerry Garcia’s):

“Apart from Al Gore, Al Franken is the most un-Deadhead like person I know of who purports to be a Deadhead.”

Speaking of which, it was from Franken that I heard about Rush Limbaugh’s comment on the very day of Garcia’s death that the musician was: “Just another dead doper. And a dirt bag.” The comment has obviously taken on a certain irony in recent news. But I wonder what Ann Coulter ever did to correct her colleague on the matter. I can’t find anything on Google.

Coulter has been under a bit of fire herself for comments about 911 widows in her book entitled “Godless, the Church of Liberalism” including:

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.”

And more recently, her comment on decorated war hero Representative John Murtha (a long time war supporter who changed his mind last year) to the effect that if Murtha “did get fragged, he’d finally deserve one of those Purple Hearts” has earned her some new scrutiny.

You know, I’m sure she does it on purpose – and getting left wingers riled up is obviously her schtick. It’s what puts the butter on her table. It’s what psychobabble hacks used to call “an attention getting device.” But when left wing icons say anything of that is comparably inflammatory, there is Hell to pay as in the case of Bill Maher who lost his ABC network show for simply pointing out that there is nothing particularly courageous about lobbing missiles from hundreds of miles away from the target.

But for the double standards, I would have no problem accepting Taylor Hill’s account of how “cool and really funny” she is in talking about the Dead shows. Maybe this is why I was never really a Deadhead – having more in common with the “undeadheaded” Al Franken. I’d be happy to chalk it all up to the rigors of spirited political discourse and “sticks and stones.” But for the double standards.

And incidently, I disagree with the L.A. Times’ suggestion that she gets the bye because she is a woman. It’s because she’s conservative.

But hey, maybe Coulter really is deep. Maybe she’ll show some empathy the next time a left winger is strung up for some heresy of patriotic correctness. Maybe the next time she shows up to a not-really-the-Dead-anymore concert, the tye-dye denizens can greet her with all sincerity, “Peace sister!”

Photo source – Time Magazine.

Update: Ann Coulter recently partied with some liberal bloggers in Los Angeles.