Guilty by Ann Coulter Read Free Book Online

According to the
New York Times,
two teenagers alleged that as foster children, they had been flown to hotels around the country where they participated in sex orgies attended by prominent Republicans. One teenager claimed she was forced to stand naked in the middle of a party and auctioned off as a sex slave to the highest bidder. A “child care specialist” began telling reporters that one teenager described a party that involved sex between “more than two people, same sex and opposite sex.” 56
    Granting that teenagers tend to exaggerate, what part of that storycould possibly have been true? Even the
Times
must have smelled a rat, because after one story mentioning the investigation, there were no further articles on foster child sex orgies until July 1990, when the
Times
reported that the story was a hoax. “Lurid reports of child sex abuse, drug trafficking, pornography and political intrigue that have held Omaha enthralled for nearly two years,” the
Times
article began, “were a ‘carefully crafted hoax,’ a county grand jury in Nebraska has concluded.” 57
    The two teenagers who concocted the story were indicted for perjury by the grand jury, and two months later a federal grand jury reached the same conclusion and indicted one of the same two accusers on eight counts of perjury. 58
    That was “the Franklin child-sex ring” that Jonathan Alter dramatically rolled out in 2007 to prove Republican “hypocrisy” on family values. Alter's next exposé on Republican hypocrisy on sex? Tawana Brawley! Didn't Brawley accuse a Republican prosecutor of raping her? And how about the Duke lacrosse case? Some of the falsely accused Duke lacrosse players must have been Republicans. This was the equivalent of a column on the mendacity of the Jews that cited the Dreyfus case as proof.
    Inasmuch as Alter surely has all back issues in the
New York Times
carefully filed in plastic folders, it appears that he intentionally cited bogus information in a deliberate attempt to reintroduce a hoax into the public bloodstream. At least Dan Rather was actually stupid. Alter's invocation of “the Franklin child-sex ring” may be the most vile lie ever spread by the establishment media. No right-wing radio host has ever propagated such a fraud.
    On the bright side, at least his lie appeared only in the pages of
Newsweek
(circulation: 1,123). If Alter were any less physically repellent, he might have said it on TV, and millions more people could have been hoodwinked by this farce.
    Meanwhile, just a few years ago, there was a sex story about Bill Clinton that turned out to be true, but it was killed by a magazine called—HEY! That magazine was called
“Newsweek”
too!
    To be fair, in the “Franklin child-sex ring” article, Alter did not rest his case on the hoax scandal. He also cited two gay Republicans exposedin sex scandals a quarter-century earlier. One was a one-term representative from Mississippi, Jon Hinson—yes,
that
Jon Hinson—and the other was the great Maryland Republican Bob Bauman. Alter called Bauman “arguably the single most anti-gay and sanctimonious right-winger in town”—which is liberal-speak for “conservative.” Bauman was in fact a strong social conservative who promoted family values. Only liberals consider it offensive for a gay person to have strong morals.
    Correction: Earlier in this chapter, in comments on Frank Rich, I was operating under the impression that Rich is gay and castigated him for sneering at gay men. Based on Rich's speaking style and manner, I simply assumed that he was gay, just as I assume that Little Richard is gay. Apparently he is not, and although I consider it a matter of indifference, I apologize if there was any offense taken. In my defense, I submit any video of Frank Rich talking on TV. I insist on an all-black jury.
    IT's A PERVERSE WORLD WHEN THE MOST AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE are