By now, everyone has covered Ann Coulter’s remark at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last Friday:
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I … can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Indeed, a number of conservatives have urged CPAC to stop inviting Coulter to speak there. Our esteemed host, Jeff Goldstein, has noted that Coulter has never spoken for him. None of which is sufficient for some (because of the… well, you know.) For his part, John Edwards is hoping to use the incident to raise money for his presidential nomination run.
Have you noticed who was left out of this story?
That would be Grey’s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington, to whom Coulter was alluding with the reference to rehab.
Washington not only called his gay co-star T.R. Knight a “faggot” on the set, but also repeated the slur in the course of denying it at the Golden Globes. He then met with gay and lesbian organization leaders to apologize and went into an unidentified rehab center for anger-management sessions and psychological examinations.
Last Friday—the same day as Coulter’s remark—Washington was given an NAACP Image Award.
The Image Awards honor projects and individuals who promote diversity in the arts in television, recording, literature and film.
So if Coulter apologized and took a week off from work, she might not only get invited back to CPAC, but also get an award from the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
And now you know… the rest of the story.
First: yes, Coulter told a joke, in addition to saying something not very nice about John Edwards. If she had told the joke apart from targeting anyone with the word “faggot,” there would be a whole lot of nothing right now. But telling a joke doesn’t eclipse the other things that a person says.
The inability to get along with other people, and to fit in with society at large, is a great reason to go into rehab. Ducking blame for your actions–another great reason. I’m not as interested in blaming people for interpersonal foibles than hoping they will get the help they need to become stronger, better people. Controlling your ability to get along with other people is a good thing.
Fifty years ago, opening up on a black guy with the N-word would not mark a person as being out of line, much less out of control or socially inept. If someone did that today, I could see them going into rehab, not because using the N-word is such a horrible thoughtcrime, but because if someone can’t get through the day without being an offensive prick to those around them, they have a problem.
If they wanted to drag a person into therapy for using the word “faggot” in the privacy of his own home, or on anonymous internet comments, that would be atrocious. But being able to get along with one’s friends/relatives/coworkers is a hallmark of sanity (yours and theirs)
In Ann’s case, we don’t have an inability to get along, we have an unwillingness. Dragging someone into rehab for that would be despicable. That’s why no one is suggesting Ann go into rehab. We just want her to shut up, and to stop trying to get Hillary elected so Ann can sell more books and regain her former prominence.
I keep thinking that Coulter wasn’t stupid, per se, but rather that she probably thought the joke would have been received and analyzed differently.
Now, if she’d called Edwards a wussy or a pantywaist, it would have made the point she was probably going for, would not have been deemed offensive to a segment of the populace, and would have had the benefit of being accurate.
I think the right-wing road to rehabilitation works the other way around.
First you get one of these, then you check into here for an extended stay.
Daryl-
“The inability to get along with other people, and to fit in with society at large, is a great reason to go into rehab. Ducking blame for your actions–another great reason.”
Not just reasons, but great reasons? Is that what we do now to cranky people, send them off to reeducation camps? Or do you go off to the camp if enough people don’t like you?
Is making casual use of the word ‘faggot’ now the equivalent of being hooked on drugs?
Action Chimp™
While you are at the AEI website, spend a little time reading Bernard Lewis’ work and educate yourself on the Middle East.
It may just change your perspective on Balloon Fences.
And Mile-High-Bermsâ„¢.
btw, Action Chimp™ is good, but alpo© is better.
I actually agree with alphie that giving Tenet the MoF was a move that’s beyond bad. Bush should have fired Tenet as close to Day One as possible. Actually, Clinton should have fired him first, but Clinton was, apparently, far too busy playing golf and not being blown by interns.
I say Toe May toe, you say alpo, but I’m concerned about the deadly insult to dogs worldwide.
CANINEIST!
Not sure we want to bring up Washington, because he did want to cause a coworker pain with his malicious speech. Maybe not the best defense.
And with all t(Ihe things you CAN attack the Breck Girl for (I mean, hundreds of thousands of women in this country have been subjected to unnecessary surgery; they’ve had their wombs cut open with steel blades for no reason except hospitals’ fear of Edwards’ lawsuits), the best an intellectual giant like Coulter can manage is a “Gray’s Anatomy” joke? Sefl-involved, stupid, lazy… and superficial.
monkyboy: Props for sneaking back in as alphie. But you have to realize that you’re going down, ultimately, anyway.
This post was not a defense of Coulter. As I noted in the first sentence of the post, there are plenty of people talking about Coulter specifically.
Rather, the post notes how quickly the Hollywood community and the NAACP was willing to look past the remark that inspired Coulter’s remark and give a “promoting diversity” award to the man who made that remark (which as GMC suggests, was arguably worse in its intent than Coulter’s formulation).
Indeed, quite apart from whether being offensive warrants rehab (as Daryl suggests), I think it’s hard to argue that Washington’s weeklong stint in some undisclosed location makes him a changed man.
It suggests that our culture now embraces a form of drive-thru rehab culture that ironically trivializes the purported problems it onstensibly seeks to address.
As for “a,” I’m sure that Tenet (whom “a” forgot was a Clinton holdover) will be deemed rehabbed when he starts criticizing the Bush Admin.
I was trying not to be didactic in the intial post, and perhaps was too oblique in making the point.
Related:
Though Cowell seems to have said it in the colloquial sense, the same is increasingly true in the religious and historical sense of the word.