Tale Told by an Idiot

Apropos of nothing, I happen to be reading the classic George Eliot novel Silas Marner at the moment. For those who don't know, it's about an old weaver in a 19th-century English country town, an exile from his former community and a miser, who finds an abandoned baby girl and through her learns to live among his fellows again.

It wouldn't seem to have much to do with modern American life, at least not in specifics, but then I ran across a passage about the town's medical practices and superstitions:

"There were women in Raveloe, at that present time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags round their necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann Coulter had."

Yes, you heard right.

Now, it would be foolish to suggest that a novel from the early 1860's could be at all prophetic. On the other hand, George Eliot was no dummy. The question is, if Ann Coulter actually did have an idiot child, at least in a metaphorical sense, who might it be? And how much of an idiot is he, after all?

Benshlomo says, Wisdom cries aloud in the street and no one heeds her.