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Faint-hearted Howard Kurtz is getting the vapors over Amnesty International's use of the word "gulag" to describe conditions at Guantanamo. Why, they're cheapening our discourse! How could they? And, etc. Just soak in the outrage.

Excuse me, but did Schulz say that it's okay to unleash words like "gulag," even if it's not an "exact or literal analogy," because it gets him booked on Fox News? Is that the new standard? Yes, Chris, I called the president a war criminal because it was the only way I could get on Hardball?

I'll bet he unleashed those same outrage guns on the likes of Ann Coulter, a consistently vile and slanderous and lying opinion-monger. Right? Right?

Well, no. In response to some WaPo chatters' impassioned, and correct, denunciations of Ann Coulter, please note Mr. Kurtz's decided lack of opinion -- "I haven't read the piece..." ;"Well, I'm going to wait until I read the story..." Pathetic.

Here's Kurtz in full outrage on Coulter from 1998 :

While Coulter can toss off references to James Madison's view of impeachment as quickly as the next lawyer, she delights in going for the jugular. On "Rivera Live," she said Clinton's use of his secretary, Betty Currie, "is so craven and cowardly. It's like a hostage holding a baby in front of him. . . . He would use taxpayer-funded jobs to pay off his little government-funded brothel.

"On "Equal Time": "We're now at the point that it's beyond whether or not this guy is a horny hick. I really think it's a question of his mental stability. He really could be a lunatic. . . . I think it is a rational question for Americans to ask whether their president is insane."

Lunatic? Insane? Coulter's inflammatory style, not surprisingly, has its detractors.

Whoa, let her have it, man! At least she's no Amnesty International. Those do-gooder punks.