Dean Barnett: still an idiot.

Our boy DB on the Edwards/Coulter confrontation:

For what it’s worth, I don’t claim to be an aficionado of arcane Hardball facts, but until yesterday I was not aware it was a call-in show. If I knew it was, I would have called in many times in the past to offer Chris Matthews some constructive criticism, e.g. limit yourself to 20 Red Bulls a day.

How did Elizabeth Edwards have a call in number handy when to the rest of the viewing public’s knowledge no such number existed? A cynical individual might conclude that there was nothing spontaneous about Ms. Edwards’ outrage whatsoever, and that the whole incident was big set-up co-hatched by the creative minds at Hardball and the Edwards Campaign.

Yeah, that's it! A big setup hatched by those liberals at MSNBC to make Ann Coulter look bad!

Only here's what really happened.

So how did the Ann Coulter/Elizabeth Edwards confrontation happen? Before Tuesday‘s HARDBALL appearance, MSNBC promoted that viewer comments and questions would be part of the program.

TAMMY HADDAD, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, HARDBALL: The Edwards campaign called to ask if it was possible that Elizabeth could talk to Ann Coulter live on the air, and we told them yes.

SHUSTER: In turn, Haddad had a conversation with Coulter.

HADDAD: I talked to Ann before the show and told her that we had gotten a call from the Edwards campaign and that Elizabeth might call in. And she was fine with it.

Barnett goes on to say that Edwards was "hiding behind his wife's apron-strings." He's just bitter that Edwards is absolutely flattening Hew's candidate, the Mittster, in every objective poll.