At least, that’s what the implication is in this post at Simianbrain:
I decided to do a little digging this morning to see how the conservative blogs were responding to Ann Coulter’s latest… I don’t even know how to phrase what it was. “Gaffe” makes it sound accidental, “transgression” gives it an air of authority well beyond what it was. Let’s just call it her latest moment of mouthing off in front of humans.
[…]
I have–as a gay person–a deeply held notion that homophobia is decidedly unfashionable in the world today, and that even moderately educated people who’ve traveled in any kind of social network in their lives have encountered gay people and can deal with gay people. That doesn’t mean that they’re flocking to vote for marriage equality or can get their minds around gay relationships, but on the basic human level, most people in most situations will accept another person in the room.
A lot of liberals will point out that this is not an absense of homophobia, and of course I agree, but another piece of being human is that we note difference and it causes us consternation. There is no way that I can look at a world history text and see it otherwise; we are creatures that are fundamentally -ist. As children our brains are as absorbtive as they are invisible while doing it; we live in cultures and are raised by our imperfect families; we learn without even knowing that we’re learing.
Anyone who tells you they aren’t racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or suspicious of the guy down the street is lying. The best we can hope to become is aware of our own compulsions toward these and make the decision that they will not impede us.
So it was with great joy that I read Captain’s Quarters, reporting from CPAC:
At some point, Republicans will need to get over their issues with homosexuality. Regardless of whether one believes it to be a choice or a hardwired response, it has little impact on anyone but the gay or lesbian person. We can argue that homosexuality doesn’t require legal protection, but not when we have our front-line activists referring to them as “faggots” or worse. That indicates a disturbing level of animosity rather than a true desire to allow people the same rights and protections regardless of their lifestyles.
I loved the quick summary by Dean Barnett on Hugh Hewitt’s blog:
Idiotic. Disgusting. Stupid. Moronic.
Even Michelle Malkin is critical. Rick Moran at Right Wing Nuthouse (which I have to admit reading more and more):
Enough is enough. I am sick to death of this woman leading people to believe that she speaks for conservatives. She doesn’t speak for me. And if you believe that she speaks for you, or if you were one of those mouth breathers who applauded when she used that disgusting epithet deliberately to hurt other people (not just John Edwards), then you are hopelessly beyond the pale yourself and would do well to examine exactly what you believe a conservative is and what is acceptable political discourse.
Anyone who reads this site knows I am not a wallflower when it comes to lashing out at my political foes. But there are limits. And Coulter regularly crosses them – not because she doesn’t know any better but because she deliberately uses hate language to get a rise out of the left and get the rest of us talking about her.
And I want to take this opportunity, while we’re on the subject, to mention that I despise online writing that uses churlish spelling to demean political foes. Blog posts and comments with “Bu$h”, “pResident”, “Repugnicans” and the like have lost me from the get-go. We’re political bloggers. If this activity is worth the effort, it must matter. These are issues we’re talking about. This is philosophy and freedom. The least you could do when making an argument is avoid intentional misspellings.
Back to the bloggy roundup: Pretty much the only support I see for Coulter’s inanity among the bigger right blogs (based on a Technorati search) is on Jeff Goldstein’s Protein Wisdom, and even that is just an exercise in attempting to piggy-back his own lame jokes onto hers.
[my emphasis]
A couple things: first, the post Simianbrain’s “Shamanic” links to on my site wasn’t written by me. So I’m not really sure how I can be accused of trying to “piggy-back” my “own lame jokes” on to Coulter’s lame joke, because I’m not responsible, in any way, for the post in question. Beyond that, however—and having just now looked at it—I don’t even see how it can be in anyway construed as “support” for Coulter in the first place. Dan Collins, who authored the post, seems to be pointing out a certain double-standard, sure. But if you read through the comments of said post, reaction to Coulter is decidedly harsh, with a few people offering a qualified defense—and even then, it is on semantic (rather than “homophobic”) grounds.
So Shamanic’s characterization of my site as somehow breaking from the norm for “conservative” sites in its “support” for Coulter is completely disingenuous.
To borrow a bit of Shamanic’s ‘s pompous and self-serving phrasing, I have—as a straight person –a deeply held notion that the desire to find homophobia where it does not in fact exist should be decidedly unfashionable in the world today. Hell, even moderately educated gay people who’ve traveled in any kind of social network have encountered conservatives, and so should be able to react to them without surprise when it turns out they aren’t, in fact, homophobic. Because that feeing of “joy” Shamanic felt when she found what s/he implies were the appropriate denunciations of Coulter on rightwing sites?—that is triggered by the caricaturish belief that conservatives are, by default, homophobic, and that until they prove themselves otherwise (by a willingness to denounce someone else’s speech), they are to be regarded as morally suspect.
Which of course bespeaks a rather crass bias of its own—but one that Shamantic has conveniently forgiven herself for, if only obliquely, when she writes, “[a]nyone who tells you they aren’t racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or suspicious of the guy down the street is lying. The best we can hope to become is aware of our own compulsions toward these and make the decision that they will not impede us.”
This is, of course, total nonsense—as there is absolutely no reason whatever to suggest that those who disclaim racism, sexism, or homophobia are necessarily hiding racism, sexism, and homophobia behind false denials.
But what it does allow is for people like Simianbrain’s Shamanic to decide who, in fact, gets tagged with such labels (progressives have the unique ability to afford themselves such powers of discernment, having first acknowledged that we are all, in fact, social sinners; still, apparently some sinners are more equal than others, and so are required to do more than the elect to prove that they aren’t haters)—and her criteria for deciding who to paint with these brushes is so subjective that it doesn’t even require knowing who is the actual agency responsible for the speech she finds offensive, nor accurately characterizing what that agency’s actual position is.
Personally, I don’t feel any need whatever to issue public condemnations of Ann Coulter—though were you to ask me, I’d readily tell you that her remark was juvenile, and that it could well be seen as homophobic (though I am in no position to peer into Coulter’s soul; and of course, “faggot”—though tied to homosexuality—has long been wielded as a slur against masculinity, which has little to do with sexual preference, in much the same way “pussy” is used). And the reason I feel no need to publicly condemn Coulter is that Coulter has never spoken for me.
It is only the absurd idea—grounded in progressive identity politics—that conservatives (or in my case, classical liberals) so march in ideological and ethical lockstep that they are required, when one of their “own” steps out of line, to issue such ludicrous calls for “condemnation” and “distancing” in the first place.
And, as anyone who reads my site regularly knows, I champion the primacy of the individual, and so I react to such posts as Shamanic’s—which are merely passive-aggressive attempts to police the kind of speech she finds offensive, while tethering it to a political position she finds unappealing—with what I believe to be an appropriate level of scorn.
In short—I don’t accept her premise, so I am under no obligation to play by her speech rules. And when Shamanic shows herself to be more interested in scoring ideological points than in accurately or fairly characterizing her opponents (she flatters some as a cover to condemn others), it is fair to question both her motives and his analyses. Because, gay woman or no, she has no inherent authority to define homophobia. It’s just that, as a progressive gay person, she believes she does. Because such is the elitist and soft-totalitarian nature of progressive identity politics.
What is so sad, I think is that many “conservatives” and classical liberals have already lost the battle simply for having accepted the terms of debate—something I made clear earlier when I wrote about both the Bill Bennett dustup and the Tony Snow “tar-baby” non-scandal.
To be clear, while I don’t believe it inappropriate to distance oneself from certain remarks if, in fact, one feels strongly enough to do so, I also feel like the “need” to get out in front of such things is a form of surrender to a public speech code that I’m finding, structurally at least, quite problematic. Ann Coulter doesn’t work for any particular candidate, nor does she speak for “conservatives” en masse. So demanding that people necessarily distance themselves from Coulter publicly is a bit like demanding that ocean lovers distance themselves from stingrays in the wake of Steve Irwin’s death.
I emailed Simianbrain and asked that the post be clarified. Will it happen? Who knows. But what is obvious to me is that many leftwing bloggers still believe they can earn a merit badge for taking unfair shots at me and my readers. Which, once all the supercilious and faux-introspective rhetoric is stripped from the surrounding kernel premise of arguments like Shamantic’s, is indicative of a self-righteous failing on their part moreso than any ethical failings on mine.
****
update: How deep is my hatred of the gays? Well, evidently it isn’t enough to suggest that I support Ann Coulter’s remarks, because now the claim is that I attacked Bill Maher to give Ann Coulter cover!
BECAUSE OF THE…er…COULTERMANIA, maybe…?
****
update 2: THE RAGING MORALISM THAT IS GLENN GREENWALD(S)! Evidently, while the people who read and comment on the progressive community site The Huffington Post are not representative of anything, Ann Coulter is THE SINGLE DEFINING PERSONALITY OF THE ENTIRE CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL MOVEMENT!
Take it away, Cassandra.
Reached for comment, Reason‘s David Weigel asked not to be reached for comment.
(h/t Dan Collins)
Hmmm. I would have thought that referring to Coulter’s “stentorian piehole” and making the ironic suggestion that she was simply demonstrating the constructedness of the idea of “faggot” would have been enough to mark where I came down on the issue, the silly tranny.
But I just want to point out again that I am not now, nor have I ever been–to the best of my knowledge–Jeff Goldstein. Nor do I anticipate ever being Jeff Goldstein.
Understanding one’s own bias is a good start, but it means nothing if it doesn’t inform one’s behavior–unless of course one hews to the philosophical absurdity that one is justified by faith alone in the new religiosity.
Leftists assume that conservatives or Republican exist in lockstep with each other because they are so completely in lockstep with each other. One of the key characteristics of leftists is that they often check their cognitive processes at the door, so to speak. Throw in a little projection and surely conservatives are the same way.
I know certain words do irreparable damage to some people–unless said words are used by said people in jokes, comedy routines and as title of television shows–but I still found Coulter’s e-mail to the New York Times hilarious:
“C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”
Gee, I hope it wasn’t anything I wrote. Or don’t I? Prosimianbrain will never know, will she? Lalala, more medicine now? Thank you, Brittany.
Preston Taylor Holmes weighs in at Six-Meat Buffet.
Just shows ya how widespread sock-puppetry is on the left. They do it, so everyone must.
Wait. Did that insensitive bastard say that the jokes were lame?
C’mon! What friggin’ century are we in, now?
Finally. A Rightwing blogger that gets it. I have been so pissed off at all the sanctimonious excoriation and breast beating this weekend.
I just got an email from Sister Toldjah alerting me that the site may be showing up for some people in a very tiny font size.
Is anybody else having this problem, and if so, what browser, etc., are you using?
I think you could add Preston Taylor Holmes and Curt at Flopping Aces.
Oops. Here’s the correct link.
Coulter was called multiple names in that and other threads. None of them implied support or even tolerance of her idiocy.
Of course, if you can’t use negative comments from a blog as evidence against it, I guess you can’t use positive comments from it, either.
Dan linked to six meat buffet… where after being completely disgusted by the visual of a tongue entering the front door; existing out god knows where in a Pirates hat (I had a nightmare where it even had Johnny Depp’s face sockpuppeted onto it ewwwwwww) I learned I could purchase “faggot offsets”. As a straight guy I am assuming that in the near future I will have the money for these withheld like social security from my paycheck.
Then I can look forward to slavery offsets (which corporate america has been paying to Jesse Jackson for years) carbon offsets etc. getting direct deposited to some vast federal bureaucracy
tw: amount96 percent of your income will soon go to offset your dickweed conservative white existence here bollixing up the place
You forgot that the attack was systematic. Have I been dropped from Dark Lord’s email?
Or the tongue could “exit”… which is still a disturbing visual.
It is only the absurd ideaâ€â€grounded in progressive identity politicsâ€â€that conservatives (or in my case, classical liberals) so march in ideological and ethical lockstep that they are required, when one of their “own†steps out of line, to issue such ludicrous calls for “condemnation†and “distancing†in the first place.
I’m not so sure about this. Whenever Jack Murtha opens his yap, Hugh Hewitt et al wonder why the MSM never ask other Democrats for their position on his issue.
That said, there’s a difference between senators and mere opinionists, and it is a little silly to be harangued for not CONDEMNING Ann Coulter, in CAPITAL LETTERS, when she goes off the handle.
But then again, we work in lockstep, right? Hence why all comments on all blogs are indicative of Wingnut Nation, while some incredibly stupid and/or vicious comments on the left are just fringe cranks, move along, move along, nothing more to see here.
Apropos of nothing: turing saw36, coming to a theater near you soon!
I am ssoooo tired of the Coulter bashing. As always, I’m amazed at how quickly Republicans are to throw one of their own under the bus. And it does seem to be those who are most effective at what they do. My first reaction was “gosh, what a bunch of prissy saps.” So far, I love Hannity’s response and wish more Republicans had his guts.
SH: I didn’t hear it. I’d rather see it before I comment on it and whatever. You know, no other person is responsible for what a person says except that person. And so, if they have a problem with what Ann Coulter says, blame Ann Coulter. You can’t blame somebody else for what she said. So I didn’t see it.
I have a visceral reaction to this type of nonsense. As I am often the only Black person (or conservative) in the room at work, etc., I have exactly zero tolerance for being asked to defend or denounce any other Black person, conservative, whatever. My fave response is to say “I don’t where you got your Massa complex from but don’t you ever step to me demanding that I condemn (or condone) anyone.” That pretty much ends the conversation. I highly recommend it. Feel free to adjust it as needed.
Coulter’s slam was at lefty types who think rehab is a cure (excuse) for anything. IMO it had nothing to do with sexuality.
Now, the leftists (usual suspects) and certain right of center bloggers are acting like Andy Sullivan. Emotional melt-downs and purple prose abound!As a somewhat popular blogger once said, “Boo freaking Hoo!”
If Coulter’s statement is now considered the equivalent of Robert Byrd’s repeated use of the word, “nigger” on the Senate floor, too many have indeed become inculcated to the PC agenda.
As to Shamanic, the Japanese have a saying, “If all you have is a hammer, all you see are nails.”
Ugh this whole coulter thing has given me teh Ghey
How about a restaurant/tranny cabaret establishment which offers its patrons restroom choice of either The Men’s Room or The Other Room?
As a straght female I don’t find LIPS ‘joke’ funny but rather an insult yet seems to be perfectly acceptable to gays.
Having been in the NYC theater scene I can assure everyone that Coulter’s use of the word ‘faggot’ is paltry compared to the endless stream of crap spewed against those ‘not gay’.
After some fifteen years of experiencing really vicious and intentional hatred towards those ‘not gay’ my sympathy level for ‘anything gay’ is Zero. As in zilch, nada, no sympathy at all.
Note to gayists this is my own opinion not representitve of anyone else including this site’s owner.
Well, there’s a difference here, particularly when Dems are backing Murtha’s legislative play.
Quite a bit different, I think—though if you read the linked posts about Bennett you’ll see that I don’t like when conservatives play identity politics, either.
Perhaps we need a footnote to the 1st ammendment, listing the words exempt from said ammendment. I find it embarrassing that commenters here, who have called dissenters ”twats” (a demeaning attack not on the object, but on all womankind) then turn around and ironically call Coulter a ”douchebag” (really, an attack on the entire personal hygene community).
For those of you wishing to toss Coulter off the bus for daring to be non-PC, I guess you should show me the door too, because I find the PC crowd way more disgusting than anything she has said.
I actually did show up for the last election, and voted republican, but it seems next time the choice will be to vote for someone that wants to embrace political correctness in general, and the , ummm, alternitive lifestyle movement in particular, or no one at all.
I’ll stay home next time.
Good luck on that “the gay lifestyle doesn’t harm society” thing.
I do commiserate. I am quarter Israeli and I have relatives in that beleaguered land. I have been called upon to defend “my Prime Minister” whenever Ariel Sharon said or did something which offended Americans. (The remnant 75% of me is British but for some reason, Tony Blair is never “my Prime Minister”; go figure.) Eventually some clown would then offer his opinion about the Jewish media.
I’m happy to discuss Israeli policy or Jewish culture. But I’m not willing to be hectored as if I’m to blame for every act of the Elders of Zion. The ZOG cheques aren’t big enough for me to put up with that shit.
As best I can see, certain people are just bigots with issues with certain groups. When some figurehead from that group steps out of line (the line being drawn purely in the bigot’s pinhead skull) those bigots then take it out on the nearest available target. If someone snarks at you about Sharpton, Sharon – or, hell, Coulter – then yeah, he’s shown that he’s made an assumption about the whole group based on some unattractive person whom he has built up as a devil.
You could argue that this figurehead isn’t a devil or that the figurehead doesn’t represent everybody. More likely, it’s a waste of time to argue with a bigot. Give him the finger and walk off.
BREEDERIST!!!!1!!!!
Well, when someone deserves to be there, as with Coulter…
lee–
I’m sorry that you feel that way. I think personally that her having used “faggot” in that context was much like calling somebody a “retard” in a speech, because you disagree with them. I think that the same thing can be said of the typical leftie tactic of dismissing someone as “insane” because he holds a different opinion.
Oh, yeah, I know that it plugs into a wider context, vis-a-vis people apologizing for being non-PC by checking into rehab. Thing is, she could have considered that the media wouldn’t report it in that context. What would have been wrong with calling him a “metrosexual limousine Marxist ambulance chaser”?
I don’t think that gays can be held accountable for their sexual orientation. I don’t think that retarded people are to blame for their mental defects. I don’t think that people who disagree with me are prima facie insane or fascistic or evil, though they may prove themselves to be so.
I think her comment was dumb.
The net effect of the continuing discussion of Ann’s remark will do more to reinforce the association of the left with a certain compromised masculinity than it will to reinforce an association with the right with homophobia.
I think Jeff explains part of why the right is innoculated here:
Republicans simply aren’t particularly homophobic, and I’d add that they are substantially, demonstrably, measurably less so, as a class, than lower-income, lower education-level individuals are as a class. America #2 is rife with the fag jokes. Public schools are having the darndest time policing this.
I think this works in tandem with the fact that Ann’s comment was made by a woman. Not in her role as a member of a protected class, but as a tall blond intimidating blond woman who is tall and blond and bitchy. And admirably thin. Many a straight guy could almost swear he has heard such a woman muttering the exact same slur under the din of the bar as he slinks away from her evident dismissal of his masculine wonderfulness. In other words, Ann’s “attack” conforms with more than one stereotype.
What is left is pure Madison Avenue. Your client’s name is endlessly reiterated within six words of a perjorative against which, in the anti-masculine sense Jeff notes, he himself is likely not adequately innoculated. Keep that dynamic in mind as the conversation continues and then wanes.
I think the proper pluralization is Glenns Greenwald, though I’d have to check with Edwin Newman.
The collective noun might be either a ‘crock’ – a crock of Greenwald’ or an ‘ostentation of Glenns’.
I don’t like your promiscuous use of the term “piehole.” Pie is likely the most delightful food ever created. I’m not just talking about desert pies, but various pot pies.
Use “cakehole” instead.
Your too-facile employ of an animal most closely associated with painfully penetrative attacks on virile men is suspect as well.
I feel negatively about Coulter’s remark for a few different reasons, but the incredible lameness of it is not the least important one.
By this I mean that this whole thing is a massive own-goal. “Conservatives” just pantsed themselves, and I’m pretty pissed about it. All of Jeff’s stout talk of her not speaking for him is fine and dandy (and valid), but it’s not practical in the political. It has nothing to do with identity groupthink foisted upon us by cryptomarxist social influences, it’s just poor politics. And by extension, it proves to me that Ann is only out for #1, quite unserious, and I wish I knew why the fuck would you put someone like that on the podium at CPAC.
Coulter is like decaying radioactive matter: you can always predict what kind of decay you’ll have over time, but never from one moment to the next. Coulter is always bound to stay right on the bounds of good taste and “normal” decency, but that means that there’s a lot of derivation there.
This is the inevitable “Christ Ann do shut up forever” moment that’s probably been building for years with me. Call it “throwing her under the bus” if you like, but for a long time I’ve wished she wasn’t even on the sidewalk.
We are now living in a post-“Coulter said she would call John Edwards a faggot” at CPAC. Niiiiiiiice. I’m enough of a prissy RINO dhimmi that I’m unhappy with that and wish she was just. . .absent.
Jeff,
I discuss this more HERE. Part of the Libertarian/Right has always had problems with Ann. Especially that part which considers itself “respectable” (Glenn Reynolds, et al). Now more elements of the blogosphere are becoming (or trying to become) “respectable.†They have developed large (by internet standard) readerships and they now care – very much – about what they believe “respectable opinion†thinks of them.
It’s a common phenomenon in Washington, DC. A man gets elected as a Conservative and after a while the arbiters of polite society talk about how Representative X has “grown;†which means that he has abandoned his conservative ideals and is now an ineffective drone, part of the Washington hive; mouthing conventional platitudes and endorsing “approved†ideas.
It seems to be happening in the blogosphere. The almost hysterical desire to distance oneself from Ann Coulter can only be understood in this way. But I’m persuaded that most don’t realize the power of convention. I imagine that we’ll see much more of this in the years ahead as blogging goes mainstream.
Tachyonsnuggy,
Perfect example of my comment. You don’t really care about Anne’s comment; you very much care about what the MSM will say about Anne’s comment. And that’s fine and dandy if you want the MSM to continue to set the agenda. If you care about changing the agenda, you may want to think about your reaction.
I think moneyrunner is spot on in general, though I think there is room to argue there is more at play in the ongoing vivisection of Coulter.
Not to go too off-topic, but I think what mr is talking about is also affected by the opportunities the larger blogs have to multiplatform – to extend their voice onto cable and NPR and C*SPAN, opinion magazines and appearances at forums where the host amiably picks up travel expenses.
For example, and with all love to Glenn Reynolds, I yet harbor a suspicion about his rather too-carefully crafted position on Global Warmingness – that irrespective of the science we should refrain from utilizing fossil fuels as they are far more valuable as chemical feedstock and have legitimate, proven pollution concerns associated with them. Seems like a straddle designed to appease the NPR producers while not alienating his readership.
Like mr, I also imagine we’ll see more of this in the years ahead. Might be time to start thinking about putting a name to it.
Thanks hf,
How about “Global Respectability?”
I believe R. Emmett Tyrrell has dubbed it “Strange New Respect.”
I was playing with “vanilla beaning” – the process by which you add speckled inflection to a product understood to be inoffensively bland so as to enhance its marketability without alienating the core consumer.
Are we trying to elide the fact that Coulter made her remarks at a gathering of conservatives?
It’s not like she was just standing on a street corner yelling at passersby.
Wow, alphie. Stop the presses! What a scoop!!!!
alphie, did you read Jeff’s post at all? No eliding round these parts … J addresses your concerns here:
Your take?
I think that Ann should learn how to apologize like a Democrat. No statement is too offensive that it can’t be forgiven by apologizing for the fact that those offended were simply too stupid to realize that the offensive statement wasn’t actually offensive at all, but perhaps a botched joke. Ann’s a smart girl–she didn’t end up stuck in Iraq, after all–so she can probably figure this out. Her best bet would be to express regret that people didn’t understand she was comparing Jonathan Edwards to a bundle of sticks (which is actually more appropos for Al Gore).
I also think Ann should eat more pizza.
What about “niggot”?
Tachyonsnuggy:
Maybe because RINO McCain snubbed them….
My take is that any blogger that was actually at CPAC has an obligation to disown Coulter (or not).
Those who weren’t there, however, are under no such obligation.
alphie – it seems like that’s pretty much what’s happened… has this earned the right blogosphere your begrudging respect?
Actually the most damaging aspect of Coulter’s little faux pas is that it reinforces all those tired old stereotypes of conservatives-as-humorless-drones. Calling someone a playground name at a political convention isn’t particularly clever. If you must offend, at least try to be funny while you’re doing it.
This, on the other hand, did make me laugh:
Thanks for the link, Jeff
Having just read Cassandra’s post—and to actually speak to the subject at hand—I don’t know why anybody has to “distance” themselves from Coulter. To me, Coulter is just a sarcastic humorist; no different than, say, Al Franken, Margaret Cho, Janeane Garofolo, Rosie O’Donnell….
What the fuck is the problem here?
Re, happyfeet’s “time to start thinking about putting a name to it”:
I propose the “Yeats Effect”: the best lack all conviction and the worst / are full of passionate intensity.
The best answer to complaints about Coulter is, “screw you, bigot, what makes you think that I’d agree with that loser”; and the best answer to the global-warming hairshirt crowd is, “where’s your degree in Climatology”.
I’m done rolling over for these assholes.
Moi: “I think that Ann should learn how to apologize like a Democrat”
Or, to paraphrase the great Enlightenment philosophers:
(Oh man, I’m going to Hell for that…)
At least you’re going to be in good company, David.
Ann makes me laugh. If that makes me a bad person, then so be it.
It’s irrelevant to me what the MSM thinks about Ann Coulter, although I don’t relish dealing with the unavoidable finger-pointing (at me!) from them.
The MSM? How about my gramma? 90 years old, never cussed in her life and has voted straight Republican for 100 of those ninety years. Lets get her take on “the joke”. I’m sure she’ll LOL all the live long day.
I will likely cast my next Presidental vote for one of the faces at CPAC, and Coulter in there being a cast iron beeyotch and saying ill shit is a real turd in the punchbowl. Minus Coulter I’m pretty onboard the CPAC “thing” in a basic wonky sense. Having her there doing her Fozzy Bear schtick makes the the whole thing a fair bit crappier by simple mathmatics.
It doesn’t pass the “shoe on the other foot test” one bit. You cannot posit a similar scenario, with the sides reversed, in which we are not equating the “joke” with the attendees and party in general.
Florid protests about “the individual” are disingenuous when applied selectively here. We can’t have our cake and eat it to. This way lies madness, and taken to its logical extreme it’s also a nifty way to prevent anybody from ever being able to make an extrapolation or generalization based on limited but accurate information.
I don’t know about pround, happy.
Seeing through the game isn’t the same thing as winning the game.
Seeing as Coulter is now on the front page of the Washington Post, I’d say she’s the only winner here.
alphie – did you mean the NYT? I’m not finding a story at the WaPo… just an AP piece and a tedious “sketch” by Dana Milbank – either way – it’s hard to overstate the du journess of “Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot” … the word itself will prevent this one from getting overmuch watercooler play, and sooner or later I bet people, at least on the right, will remember that we are at war, and a sense of perspective will reassert itself.
As far as Coulter coming out of this a winner goes? I imagine liberals will be very reluctant to try to administer a meaningful coup de grace, since she’s worth more alive than dead to them. She may find herself vaulted into the rarified league of Pat Robertson – an MSM totem for conservatives at large, her every utterance scrutinized for invective that can be folded into newswire items and positioned as reflective of the Republican party as a whole.
At the end of the day though, she’s never going to be on the ballot. Longshot ripple effect? Democrats may become a bit more wary of an Al Franken candidacy.
”….We can’t have our cake and eat it to. This way lies madness,….”
– And thusly is the entire genre’ of the Secular Progressive “victimhoodeness” explained.
– Whereas we, classic Liberals, Liberatarians, or Conservatives, can at anytime choose the option to stop entertaining this particular identity gtoup political construct, designed souly to keep the Left in the game.
It was there briefly on the front page of the Washington Post, happy. Now it’s gone for some reason.
As for Franken, if he does run, he’ll have to live with everything he’s said in the past.
I’ve never really listened to him, but I kinda remember he was part of a comedy duo that cracked me up with an imitation of a dubbed Japanese movie.
Good stuff.
BBh,
It’s not like the right doesn’t play the victimhood game, too.
BDS?
You hate the troops?
Anyone who questions Israel is an anti-Semite?
etc.
Same thing, just different tone.
Pointing out that the left uses the same tactics just highlights the right’s use of those tactics.
Dan,
Well, see, that would have been doing what the retarded are claiming Coulter did, throwing playground insults, rather than making a tongue in cheek joke that works on two levels; making fun of the PC culture, and Edwards. Which I thought was pretty damn funny. Please don’t hold me accountable for my humour orientation.
So, what? We should adopt MacCains stratagy of shaping our platform to what the MSM ordains acceptable?
May as well renounce the church now, and join the communist party.
That’s just insane.
But, never mind all that, the important thing is, the right bloggisphere has forgotten the lefts disappointment at Cheneys inconvenient survival, and focused on the horror of using the word “faggot”, truly an unpardonable sin.
Plus, ya’all have finally found common ground with alphie.
All in all, a red letter day for “classical liberalism”
Coulter was just doing her job—she’s the rightie court jester, japing and stirring up fusses. I think she overstepped, and should be appropriately mocked. The Repub candidates can’t be very happy now, her having flushed them out into the open.
This has been one of the overlooked phenomena in this whole thing. Honestly, I was kind of amazed to see the Edwards campaign embrace this brouhaha for fundraising purposes.
Whatever the repercussions for Coulter or “conservatives” themselves, Edwards is sitting here playing up the fact that he is stereotyped as unmasculine. He might as well hang a banner onstage at his campaign stops: “YO, PEOPLE CALL ME A FAG!”
Weird, from a public-relations/psychology-of-marketing perspective.
Bbh!
Where the hell ya been buddy?
Now wait a minute, lee. Just go look at Darleen’s Cheney disappointment card, or my latest post.
A. cynn, please tell me what the hell this means?
Seriously–WTF?
B. Ann Coulter called John Edwards a name and Glenn Greenwald and the usual suspects are upset. Read that again.
And again.
And again.
Have we finally reached the heretofore theoretical singularity of the absurd?
As I recall, several wingers felt compelled to repudiate Coulter for her remark. Gotta hurt. That’s what I meant. Nothing metaphysical; just political.
Why?
Ya know, the funny thing is—how many leftards felt compelled to repudiate Rosie’s “ching chong” bit?
I’m betting the number’s zero or very close to it.
Why is that, cynn? I mean, we all know the left never has anyone who says stupid things that get repudiated.
I’ll lob Murtha out there to begin with…
But, I digress…I see either McCain, Giuliani, or Romney as the most likely Republican nominee and desite your clear intention of tying them to Coulter (now there’s an image)–I just don’t think “homophobe” is what leaps to mind in describing any of the three. So, in fact, no it does not hurt. Try again.
Yeah Robert, they took Reagans 11th commandment to heart.
If Reagan was president today, the right would be screaming louder than the left about his “evil empire” comment.
Oh, and news flash–John Edwards is never going to be President.
It’s kind of like when Phil Gramm or Alan Cranston or that other Graham from Florida said they were running…
Not going to happen.
Does that mean he’s fair game for the other f-word? Nope. But let’s keep the panty wadding to just wrinkles and no knots…m’kay?
My take? Quit feeding the damned trolls.
Look, no big deal; just an observation. The Republican contenders had to deal with a distraction arising from their own base. Hopefully, Ann will cinch her bridle tighter in the future; she’s becoming a liability.
Shouldn’t you be telling this to Ann?
Now it’s the f-word?!
Holy fuck! Next it’s going to be wrong to call anyone the r-word…cuz lets face it, calling someone a republican is just mean.
It finally came clear to me that the relationship was going nowhere the day my super-sexy, cabin-in-the-woods, but ultra-liberal lover dropped the “n” word casually into conversation. We had long since agreed to disagree re: the appropriateness of BJ’s in the Oval Office, so when I mentioned I really didn’t approve of the use of that word, and he replied that that was because of my “liberal white guilt,” it was clear he was talking right out of his cute little ass.
First of all… moi?? liberal??
And second… I had ancestors who owned slaves, and ancestors who appear as “mulatto” on censuses (censi?). For that matter, I had ancestors who were killed by Indians, and ancestors who were Native Americans. So what, exactly, am I feeling guilty about?
Total nonsense is exactly right, Jeff!
TW: ch-ch-ch-ch-changes48… turn and face the strange…
lee,
I’m just not going to give the leftards any reason to pile on Jeff–i.e., “You see, his comments section is full of hate.”
This entire episode is such an exercise in silliness; the English language doesn’t HAVE a term to properly describe the level of silliness.
In any event, this tempest illustrates one of the metaphysical truths of our time–the left is incapable of seeing the beams in their own eyes. I don’t recall any of the Republican candidates paying Coulter to spew in a marked difference with–yes the Edwards campaign and she-of-the kind-words-for-us-Catholics. Repeat after me: What about free speech?
Boy is it a LLLOOONNNGGGG way to next November.
– lee – It seems that the obvious simply cannot be repeated often enough. Both sides have their ever present emotional/political knees cocked, and ready to jerk. As someone else commented, Coulter makes her living bear-baiting the opposition.
– Some things she says are well thought out and striking, such as her successful campaign to shut down the lefts feckless use of “un-impeachable sources” to hide their bigotries, others not so much. Good with the bad sort of thing.
– The matket place at large will decide her fate. Personally I can only get so cozy with someone who seriously revises the historical record in order to pimp for Carthyism. At that point for my money, she slips into the fevor swamps with the most extreme of her ideological enemies.
wishbone: not quite sure what you mean to convey, but I know it’s less about free speech than it is about sanctimony. And the sanctimony is palpable.
From who, cynn?
I’d be very careful about using “sanctimony” right now.
One of the more annoying aspects to this “Coulter kerfuffle” is the opportunity it provides for moonbats such as Greenwald and Sullivan to climb on their high horses (or very hirsute human backsides) and moan about the “absolute horror” of it all. The utter hypocrisy of those shits, given their almost daily routine of posting equally vicious and nasty BDS-types of comments, is staggering!
Interesting how Ann used the word “faggot”, and now everybody seems to want to see her in rehab.
I can forgive ANYTHING said in the name of humor as long its actually FUNNY. That said, Coulter remains unforgiven.
“Faggot” is an inherently unfunny word when used in front of a broad audience. Like “nigger”, “faggot” belongs to a class of word with so much emotional power as insults that uttering one, as an insult, is about as funny as dousing someone in gasoline and lighting a match. Avoiding such words is not about being “politically correct” or bowing to the MSM, its about the difference between being a cultured person and a foul-mouthed trog.
I’ll admit, sometimes foul-mouthed people spouting indecent language CAN be funny. But Eddie Murphy does not expect invitations to speak at major political conferences, and neither should Coulter. Besides, If CPAC wants crude humor they should invite Parker & Stone to speak. They are a lot funnier.
If Giuliani gets the nomination, it’d be fun to watch the Donks try to smear him as a “homophobe”.
I was going to stay out of this, but hell, I can’t. I thought it was funny, I think the reaction is funnier. I mean, it was a joke about a guy who was forced into rehab for calling someone a name.
I went to all male private schools (as evidenced by my clear, intelligent writing and great spelling) for 8 years, I have probably met more homosexuals than all the Glenn Greenwalds put together.* I still think this was a funny joke. We used to call each other a fag for any reason at all, it wasn’t as much a synonym for homosexual as it was just a common slur for really anyone who didn’t measure up. Like Jeff said, kinda the way we use “pussy” to describe a pro quarterback who slides instead of taking the hit.
Fag wasn’t the word we would use to identify a presumed homosexual in our midst, we had better more descriptive names for those, like Father Joe, Father Mike, Father Smith, Father Jones…
And Jeff, I’m sorry for bringing the heat into your comments section. I’m sure they picked my pirate comment out, but seriously, who gives a shit who they fuck? You should have seen some of the chicks I did in college.
* I know they are homosexual.
I’d like to take a moment to publicly repudiate Mel Brooks and Dom DeLuise. For shame.
Things I would pay to see, #27.
#26 is the first season of “Hawii Five-O” on DVD–already purchased and en route.
Ann is an actress. Did you watch he movements while delivering and after the line?
That line has got to be worth an extra $10,000 for her.
Lost My Cookies,
Worse you should have seen the ones I turned down. I hope they forgive me. I should have been more merciful.
stood77 – I was lucky if there was 1 in line.
Not to mention Arlo Guthrie, if anyone remembers ….
Look, names for homosexuals are ubiquitous and some, like “fag(got)”, “queen”, even “queer” and “homo” are no longer used in polite society or in public arenas. Let’s not be tone deaf about this. You don’t know how many people I have talked to over the years who want to “take back” the word “gay”, to no avail. You can still get away with it in “Deck the Halls” or discussing Nietzsche’s book on gaya scienza but not elsewhere. That’s the way it is.
Clearly, Coulter used the word “faggot” for laughs. And it got laughs. And now, the GOP has to live with it. Of course this is all bullshit, and, unlike the unfolding Walter Reed scandal which is also being played as bullshit (although it does underline a serious problem that I have addressed many times), the FACT is that the election season is on us, and every public utterance is being choreographed for political use.
Using a word like “faggot” in a public GOP forum is just inexcusable. I certainly wouldn’t invite Coulter to any more GOP meetings. She’s made he career being “outrageous” and the frisson of her outrage has worn off, for some of us, it wore off a long time ago. She can quit now. I for one won’t miss her.
I really apolgize for not reading any of the comments on this thread. So if someone has already mentioned this add the redundancy to the account for laziness and a strong desire for sleep.
Ann Coulter’s “faggot” remark has totally taken the MSM focus off of Obama. That makes it a racist remark, not homophobic. In fact, the MSM is now exposed as racist for allowing their attention to be diverted by such an obvious ploy.
In double in fact, whenever a conservative refuses to denounce Coulter and demand she be burned at the stake and then thrown to the wolves, all conservatives are guilty by association of double secret racism because the MSM focus is further diverted from Obama to rend and tear at the tattered reputations of blogging conservatives, even conservative bloggers who “claim” to not be conservative at all!
(God, there is nothing like the feeling of using italics, bold and an exclamation point in the same run on sentance. I feel so alive, so free!)
Er, wishbone… not ter freak yez er nuthin but it’s the November after this one…
Blue Crab Boulevard, Confederate Yankee and Fausta’s Blog all blasted Coulter, too.
BECAUSE OF THE “NO RETURNS WITHOUT RECEIPT” POLICY !!!
You forgot the Flintstones.
Shamanic did respond to Jeff’s email, and was relieved that it wasn’t Jeff who’d made the post, but disagrees about the nature of the post itself, leaving it to the reader to decide whether or not it constitutes a defense or a non-denunciation of Coulter.
see the nice boys, dancing in pairs
golden earring, golden tan, blow wave in their hair
sure they’re all straight, straight as a line
all the gays are macho don’t you see their leather shine
 .We can’t have our cake and eat it to. This way lies madness,….â€Â
– And thusly is the entire genre’ of the Secular Progressive “victimhoodeness†explained.
Not getting it. How? If I understand you correctly I’m not able to call Coulter a huge she-shit unless I’m OK with participating in progressive “victimhoodness”? How is that supposed to work?
Get this: me disagreeing with Coulter doesn’t do that. It just means I don’t want to hear someone get up on the podium and CPAC and say “faggot.”
Some things “look bad” to others because they are bad. The fact that the dread MSM might make hay of it doesn’t change that. It just makes it even more impossibly stupid.
We can disagree whether the “joke” was bad or not. Maybe I’m just old school and it’s keeping me from accepting that tossing “faggot” around at CPAC is cool. I have no problem with that.
I also understand that there’s a significant double standard in how leftist speech and rightist speech are reported. It can make you crazy. But don’t let it actually make you crazy, so crazy that you see Orwell’s boot print where it doesn’t exist.
The enemy hasn’t pod-peopled me. This “then they’ve already gotten to you” shit is funny though.
Not as funny as “faggot” but pretty funny.
Sad, but not for the usual reasons.
Ann Coulter, apparently lazy.
1) Why target the Breck Girl? Not the frontrunner, going nowhere in the polls, so why attack him? This was the easy way out.
2) Why the “faggot”? Why not something more clever? “I’m glad I’m a Republican because I hear Edwards ties up the hair dryer for hours”; “Thankfully this is a convention of Republican men, so there was still hot water int he hotel for my shower this morning”. Again, taking the easy way.
And I’m not a comedian, public speaker, writer, etc. This was less that 2 minutes of thinking off the top of my head with limited info, and I think I did better, with more class, and maybe ever funnier.
So, I’m calling Coulter lazy.
Elsewhere on the blogs, I saw a YouTube video of Henry Rollins giving Coulter what for. She deserved the bulk of it, too. Woman just can’t say no to a punchline, no matter how rotten it is.
I’ve heard this epithet described in the past 24 hours, for the first time ever, as “the F word”.
Make no mistake, polemicists among the far Left see this as an opportunity and are working it.
(FYI, I think Ann Coulter decided to take one of her periodic trips to the wilderness—she’ll pay a price for this. But the publicity will more than make up for it; I imagine she has a book in the pipeline. This was carefully planned, strategic and loathsome.)
Coulter should stick to making fun of cavemen. Less politically incorrect. (As if we didn’t know what those GEICO commercials are really about.)
lee –
FWIW, it’s not that the point of the joke wasn’t apparent. Even at first take, I took it as more of a slam at the PC movement than anything else.
The point was that the reaction was 100%, totally predictable. There is absolutely no difference between what Coulter just did and what Amanda Marcotte did to Edwards: both made controversial and somewhat inflammatory remarks which they knew would reflect badly on others.
Now if you want to do that to yourself (say, at your own book signing) have at it and take the heat when it comes like a grownup, which Ann has always done. But have a little sense of time and place. This is a question, in my mind, of maturity and situational awareness.
The two criticisms always levelled at Rethugs are that they are ‘mean-spirited’ and homophobic. So what does Ann do? She purposely fires off a wisecrack at a Rethug event that gives Dems every excuse in the world to call Rethugs mean-spirited and homophobic.
Dumb, dumb, dumb. And not funny. Or helpful.
Also, you can add me to the list of people for whom calling someone a faggot – or any name – at a political convention is just not acceptable behavior.
It has absolutely nothing to do with PC culture, which I have derided since day 1 and everything to do with simple good manners. I would hope we’re all grown up enough that we don’t think we need to act out just to show we’re not “knuckling under” to the Left – there are plenty of polite ways to express un-PC sentiments, and Ann could have used them.
And it’s very likely that had she done so and had her ideas had merit, I’d be defending her today. Different situation entirely.
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