Guilty by Ann Coulter Page A

a mile and a half off the mark. If only McCain had come at Obama with everything he had! Or even with everything I had. Hillary supporter Lisa Caputo explained that Hillary was talking about Obama's racist loon pastor, Jeremiah Wright, because “these are the kind of attacks that the Republicans are going to throw at Senator Obama.” 6 Well, thanks for the heads-up!
    Was the issue why Obama had sat through a deranged segregationist reverend's sermons for twenty years? No, of course not, you stupid racist. “The issue is,” as Clinton hatchet man Harold Ickes said of Obama's Rev. Wright problem, “what Republicans [will do] … I think they're going to give him a very tough time.” 7
It's not a question of what Sirhan Sirhan did. That's beside the point. It's what Sirhan Sirhan's critics are going to do with it that concerns us.
    Warning of what Republicans would do with the Reverend Wright, an unnamed Clinton ally told the
New York Times,
“The Republicans made John Kerry look like a coward in 2004,” and quoting Wright “wouldn't even look like ‘Swift-boating.’ ” 8 For something called the “Republican Attack Machine,” it sure seems to get used by a lot of Democrats. These are the lionhearted warriors who plan to lead us through the terror war? (I only raise the point of their collective, pants-wetting cowardice now because, if I don't, you can bet al Qaeda will!)
    Clinton's New Hampshire campaign cochairman William Shaheen injected the idea that Obama had been a drug dealer into the race by raising What-the-Republicans-Will-Do: “The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight … and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use.” Shaheen continued, “It'll be, ‘When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?’ ” Of course, Shaheen himself had no problem with Obama's being a major stoner, but there were “so many openings for Republican dirty tricks.” America still awaits the first Republican to criticize Obama for his admitted drug use. Maybe their attack machine is in the shop or something.
    In point of fact, the historical record shows that attacks on a politicianfor his marijuana use will come from the mainstream media—not the apocryphal Republican Attack Machine. In 1987, writing about the prior drug use of Reagan Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg,
New York Times
columnist Anthony Lewis said, “How could a President who talks about the need for law and order pick as a Supreme Court nominee someone who illegally used marijuana when he was a law professor?” 9 Yes, and how much more embarrassing would it be if it were the president himself who had smoked weed? Apparently, not so much if the pothead is a Democrat.
    Anthony “Reefer Madness” Lewis continued, “There is no way of escaping the fact that having on the Supreme Court someone who had violated the drug laws as an adult would be embarrassing or worse.” Or worse! Granted, Lewis knows from “embarrassing or worse,” judging from his columns. He also hooted at Reagan's claim that Ginsburg's pot-smoking was a youthful indiscretion.
    What
is
the cut-off point for “youthful indiscretions”? Ginsburg was thirty-three when he smoked pot. Bill Clinton was thirty-two when Juanita Broaddrick says he raped her. Michelle Obama was forty-four when she said America is a “downright mean” country. 10 And B. Hussein Obama was twenty-six to forty-six years old during the twenty years he was an enthusiastic member of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's congregation.
    The
Times
was forced to editorialize repeatedly about Ginsburg's “marijuana matter,” in order to get the balance just right between self-righteous indignation about Ginsburg on one hand and condescending contempt for antipot Puritans on the other. For a few awkward moments it almost