Politics In Defense of Ann Coulter
posted by on March 7 at 10:56 AM
The gay writer at Time who wrote that mag’s—that dying mag’s—cover story about Coulter comes out for the defense…
…speech codes deeply offend conservatives, which is the point Ann Coulter was making when she said this last week: “I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot.’”…
Coulter is heterosexual, so I suppose I should condemn her as well. But note that she was using the word “faggot” with virtual quote marks around it. Surely all of us are allowed to do that—just the way I used the N word in quote marks above. She didn’t say “John Edwards is a faggot.” She would never say that—not because she respects the rights of gays to full equality before the law (she doesn’t)—but because it wouldn’t be funny. Coulter wants to make people laugh more than anything; she is, as I have argued here, a right-wing ironist and comedienne as much as she is a political commentator. This is obvious if you watch her speak with the sound off—she is smiling or even giggling most of the time; she theatrically rolls her eyes; you can see her pause and toss her hair into a jaunty cant before delivering a punchline. We don’t read her body language the way we normally do because the words she is uttering are so peremptory and shocking. If we did, we would put her in the same league as Bill Maher or Jackie Mason, not the dry policy analysts who are sometimes pitted against her on cable-news shows.
Hm… of course Coulter is a comedienne, if not a very funny one. And maybe we would read her body language more clearly if she was doing stand-up in a comedy club and not at a political conference attended by thousands of conservative activists and every last Republican asshole running for president. And Coulter didn’t describe her joke as a object lesson on the offensiveness of speech codes. The joke, according to Coulter, was calling a straight man a gay man, putting Edwards down by feminizing him, reducing Edwards to the level of a fairy—a politically powerless fairy. With good hair.
Still, the Time writer is correct when he says…
Pretty much everyone in mainstream politics, right and left, then condemned her. Coulter is very good at sparking these controversies. She does it once or twice a year, to the great benefit of her fame and book sales.
TIME SUX
The danger of Coulter is that she makes other right wing nut-jobs sound reasonable. If Coulter goes on a speaking tour calling for every phone call in the US to be monitored by the government, then the tapping of international phones calls to 'suspect' countries sounds entirely justifiable by comparison.
That is her power and why she will be at every GOP convention leading up the election. She could make Strom Thurman sound moderate. That and every one in the party of Lincoln wants to fuck her.
I don't get how what she DID say is at all funny, which is what this TIME writer is implying. Her "joke" is more stupid than offensive (though it's both).
I totally agree that political stand-up should be relegated to comedy clubs. By that token, the R's had a valid point during the 2004 election when they made the same kind of hay over the content of many Hollywood fundraisers...
Wow. This seals it. I'm officially canceling my TIME subscription. Not that I read it anyway.
Michael Savage makes her sound like a
your best friends.
I think GDC #2 is right. This is just a well staged extreme statement so that a conservative that looks like he or she is shocked at the statement can slip into a good position and suck up votes. She is not a comedian and making excuses for her is sick she is part of the manipulation process to get easily manipulated people to like a more moderate conservative candidate. This was a well thought out and staged statement with future benefits for a conservative movement. If a conservative candidate condemns the statement then some moderate liberals or conservatives that have recently jumped ship because of Bush will come back. The work of conservatives is damage control so why not just create the perfect moderate by making a situation where they can distance themselves from a creep like Counter instead of directly opposing Bush because there is too much of that going on. It would mean you could look like you don't support a republican president. It is like she is intentionally making herself the "fall guy" so that a nicer conservative can move into position.
Just my thought on the whole thing.
Why isn't she serving in Iraq?
If you've ever wished you could see Ann Coulter doing a photo op with a gay porn star, see this link:
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2007/03/jeff-gannon-redux.html
Good followup, Dan. Now that the hysteria of the comment is over, the point remains that Ann Coulter has flipped.
Brilliant, articulate are all valid adjectives for her. Her wit and sharp tongue against liberals were well deserved.
However, I noticed in the last two or three years, in particular, she has played the "extreme" card too much. Seeing liberals get away with "Bush is Hitler" statements without backlash, I think she decided to play their game. I don't like those far-out statements personally and the one about Edwards was one of them.
Ann Coulter is Micheal Savages' bitch.
You should hear what he has sayed about gay rights and liberals.
It makes Anns statements pale in comparison. And to conservatives, he is their voice not Ann. She's a women remember. Her place is in the home washing dishes and keeping her mouth shut, as any of her and Michael Savages' friends would have everyone believe if they had their way.
Ever notice when someone of the right wing party says something so offensive and backwoods, the first defense is ALWAYS "but it was a joke..."
How about a new society rule, Jokes have to be FUNNY.
Baffles,
You've obviously got a great dealer. If your memory were still intact, you might recall that this sort of controversy has been Ann Coulter's stock in trade basically from jump. To suggest that she's only recently learned it, and from liberals no less, is patently absurd.
Another great defense of Ann Coulter.
The woman runs my second favorite conservative woman's blog (after Michelle Malkin, of course), Atlas Shrugs.
Gorilla, I just think she jumped the shark the last few years. I felt her opinions earlier in her career were well placed.
And Gorilla, I am talking about outrageous (in a derogatory sense) were only the past few years.
rufus, you have to have a sense of humor first. I am finding many, many comedians aren't funny anymore either.
Atlas Shrugs? Give me a break.
Ayn Rand wrote some mildly entertaining romance novels (as long as you skip the speeches), but that was about it.
As for basing your political views on the writings of a romance novelist, I'd probably choose Jacqueline Sussan.
Hope I'm not going to get deleted for repeated posting, but I don't think anyone saw this last time...
There's this post on an academic blog that has something interesting to imply about Coulter:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004277.html
Has anyone heard anything about this? Surely it's worth a little digging?
So, Coulter's comment boiled down to this:
"I wanted to talk about something, but I am restricted by my inability to open my mouth without spewing venom."
Who decided this was worth reporting in the first place? This isn't news; it's a day in the life of Ann Coulter.
who cares? she's probably just doing it to get publicity to sell books, and it's obviously working. If you don't think being gay is such a big deal, then you shouldn't think being called a "faggot" is a big deal - the word cannot have bad connotations unless you think being gay has bad connotations. Coulter's annoying, because she's so desperate for attention and doesn't have a sense of humour, and other reasons, but who really cares. Making a fuss about her is kinda childish too. Not to mention the fact that it makes her vociferous critics look fanatically overzealous. The best thing we can do is ignore these boring people. Giving them so much publicity just eggs them on.
And us all. Ye who casts stones.
I think she has a great sense of humour. shes human afterall. We humans are dumb but we sure are funny.
She doesn't bother me, I don't always agree with her, but you guys neither to Dan Savage or these sloggers. So we are all in the mix. Don't fool yourselves. I can watch her and anything she says is like whatever. Big Fucking Deal. She's a lot better to listen to than that talk show host Michael Medved or Michael Savage.
Hell she sounds like my mom sometimes. And don't lie you know you got family like her. And you still love them.
let her say whatever - people are getting to rabidly politically correct. It's better to let her say whatever she wants than to be censoring every tom, dick and harry who uses ostensibly objectionable language. People really need to stop getting in a huff about such trivial things, after all, there is a war going on (at least one, last time I checked), and soldiers are coming home in body bags, and maimed for life. They should be the ones getting our attention, bless their hearts.
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