Ann Coulter Defends 'Retard' Tweet, Says 'Screw Them' To Critics

Ann Coulter Defends 'Retard' Tweet

Ann Coulter defended calling President Obama a "retard," saying "screw them" to critics of her tweet on Thursday.

Speaking on Alan Colmes' Fox News Radio show, Coulter said that she had no regret over using the word because she wasn't referring to someone with a disability.

"Look, no one would refer to a Down Syndrome child, someone with an actual mental handicap, by saying ‘retard.’ Where do you think the words ‘imbecile,’ ‘idiot,’ ‘moron,’ ‘cretin’ come from? These were all technical terms at one time. ‘Retard’ had been used colloquially to just mean ‘loser’ for 30 years,” Coulter insisted. “But no, no — these aggressive victims have to come out and tell you what words to use.”

After Monday's presidential debate, Coulter tweeted, "I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard." She later doubled down on her use of the slur, prompting even more backlash.

On Thursday, Colmes pressed her to respond to critics like John Franklin Stevens, a 30-year-old Special Olympic athlete, who penned a blog post about Coulter's tweet.

"It would be one thing if I said in my tweet a joke about Special Olympics, a joke about Down Syndrome," she said. "No one would call someone with Down Syndrome ‘retard.’ I call you a ‘retard.'"

When Holmes said that some people believe the word "retard" is as much a slur as the "n-word," Coulter dismissed her critics as the "word police."

“Oh, screw them,” she said. “That’s what they feel I do? I feel they’re being authoritarian bullying victims.”

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