"[T]he truth is that it's conservatives themselves who blow the whistle on their bad boys and go after the real extremism on their side of the aisle." - Michelle Malkin, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (2005)
"When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors." - Ann Coulter in an address to the Conservative Political Action Conferance , Feb. 2, 2002
"I have a lot of respect for Ann Coulter" - Michelle Malkin, Nov. 28, 2004
"There are better ways to lay into liberals." - Michelle Malkin, linking to Ann Coulter's website, June 25, 2004
In the Superman comic books, there's a character known as Bizarro, an imperfect duplicate of Superman, who is not really evil, but ends up playing a villian because his perceptions of what are right and wrong are the opposite of what they should be. He comes from the Bizarro World, "a planet where alarm clocks dictate when to go to sleep, ugliness is beautiful," and everything is basically an imperfect, backwards skewed version of Earth.
While calling someone's logic "Bizarro" may be considered pejorative (and in this instance I am indeed using it as such), it may also be descriptive. And after watching this Hot Air video which Mrs. Malkin calls a "salute" to "Coultermania" I could not think of a more apt term to describe the up-is-down logic that animates Michelle's thinking.
Welcome to the Bizarro World of Michelle Malkin, where people who respond with indignation to hate-mongering are the "unhinged" ones. Where people who get upset over receiving the verbal equivalent of a punch in the face are the bullies, and the person doing the provactive punching is the victim.
Michelle begins the video by congratulating Coulter for her new book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, debuting at #1 on the New York Times best seller list. The book, Malkin says, should be called "priceless" because it "provoked" examples of "left-wing" "unhingedness, indignance, and hilarity." In the normal world, people who respond to petty insults, demagogery, hate, and idiocy with indignance are the hinged ones, but not in Bizarro World.
In Bizarro World, a book which asserts that anyone who does not share Ann Coulter's political beliefs are treasonous atheist communist liars whom can most effectively be communicated to with "a baseball bat" is sane, the detractors are "unhinged." A book that cites as authorities on science the leaders of a stealth creationism political movement pushing pseudoscience while asserting that one of the most robust, well-supported and firmly established theories and facts of science is "liberal mythology" is reasonable, the critics are the fools. Also by implication, anyone who believes that evolution is valid science is also all of the above, which means that Pope John Paul II was a liberal atheist communist, too, since he had described evolution as the "truth." This is the Bizarro World Michelle lives in.
Malkin calls the reaction that Coulter's work engenders her "invaluable" trademark. See, in Bizarro World, people who find statments like these upsetting are the extremists. In Bizarro World this isn't extremism
I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.The first example in the video of "unhingedness" is reaction to the portion of Godless which describes the "Jersey Girls" so:
These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process. These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much.In Bizarro World, telling widowed women they "enjoy" using their personal tragedy to make political statements is a valid point. But, as Dave Neiwert points out (and I swear his use of "bizarro" to describe Coulter's logic is coincidental, although the usage obviously correlates from the recognition of the inverted thinking of both Malkin and Coulter), that's not what the real problem Coulter has with the widows.
Actually, what galls Coulter about people like the 9/11 widows is that her standard response to Matt Lauer and Bill Clinton or anyone else who might possess the audacity to question in any fashion the Bush administration or conservatives generally is to accuse them of "treason" or, at worst, of "having forgotten what happened on 9/11." And that response, of course, doesn't work so well when you're talking about families of the victims.So going through the quotations that are given as examples of the "left-wing" response, we first are shown a call for book sellers in New Jersey to voluntarily not carry Ann's book because she should not profit from her hate-mongering. What is unhinged about this? While I disagree with asking booksellers not to carry the book (whoever made that statement should have left it at calling for the people of New Jersey not to purchase the book), one can hardly object to the idea that hate-mongering should not be profitable. Unless that is, one is from Bizarro World.
Secondly, what is left-wing about the statement? Malkin believes that the ACLU is "left-wing," but were anyone to make an effort to ban Coulter's book the ACLU would very likely be one of the first organizations to step up in defense of Coulter's free speech rights. In Bizarro World, such contradictions do not lead to cognitive dissonance.
The next example of "unhinged" reaction is a quote suggesting what Mr. Neiwert argues above, which Malkin apparently believes can be dismissed prima facie as absurd. Then on to a quote from Hillary Clinton, which is first prefaced with an unflattering picture of Clinton (obviously, the comment to follow must be unhinged, just look at the picture.) Clinton's quote expresses disbelief that someone could launch a "vicious, mean spirited attack" against people she believes to be deeply concerned with their country. In Bizarro World, being opposed to vicious, mean spirited attacks is unhinged.
Then the video shifts into Coulter's response to Clinton, an incoherent red herring allegation about Bill Clinton being a rapist. In Bizarro World, illogic is logic.
The video next cuts to Coulter's appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno where she tellingly reveals her skewed Bizarro World perceptions, explaining, "from my perspective I'm Dorothy ... and I've just dropped my house on the mainstream media." In Bizarro World, a mainstream media that has driven her book to #1, which gives her a pulpit to promote her hate-mongering in multiple venues with frequent appearances, for which there is no left-wing or liberal equivalent to Ann Coulter, is "liberally" biased. In Bizarro World, eliminationist rhetoric is "conservatives being able to talk back," and anyone who finds it objectionable is the "unhinged" left.
The same mainstream media is shown in the next segment of the video having a vapid discussion about whether or not the panelists find her attractive. This is thrown into the video why? Is it unhinged leftwing behavior? If it's not unhinged or left-wing, that leaves indignant and hilarity. There's no indignance in the video, so I guess that makes it hilarity. Seems to me like trite and superficial media "analysis" which fails to give the audience any relevant information about her book or the context of the controversy surrounding her recent comments, which if anything amounts to meaningless noise that does nothing other than to promote Coulter, but what do I know, I'm not from Bizarro World.
Then we get to the one example in the entire video of someone responding to Coulter in a fashion that can appropriately be considered an attack, Keith Olberman tossing out several insults about Coulter being shameless, soulless, and worse than insane. In Bizarro World, granting Coulter impunity for her attacks and insults while complaining about the lack of civility from "the left" the moment someone responds in kind is not hypocritical.
Malkin closes by
1) Distorting what Chris Mathews said about Ann Coulter. He did not "criticize her looks." He asked panelists if they thought she was attractive, and he answered the question that he himself did not find her attractive, but he offered no criticism of the way she looked.
2) Implying that Keith Olberman is insane, a point Malkin seems to feel needs no defense or explication.
She again calls this priceless. What is so priceless about having the national discourse dragged into the gutter? Malkin provides as examples of the "unhinged" nature of "liberals" people responding to Coulter's demonization of those with whom she disagrees, while Malkin is herself oblivious to the extremist nature of Coulter's remarks. Here's the basic pattern, distilled to its essence:
Coulter to "liberal": You should be killed, traitor.
"Liberal": F_ck you.
Malkin: See? The luny left moonbats are unhinged.
In the Bizarro World, hate-mongering is "invaluable" for the "priceless" opportunity it provides Michelle to contribute to the "liberal"-hate market.
That's the short take on Malkin's approach. For a more in-depth analysis, see Dave Neiwert's 6 part series on Unhinged, and later today or tomorrow I'll do a follow up explaining the larger significance of the video and why this issue needs to be addressed.
Reminds me of the Bush campaigns where he admonished everyone to not engage in the politics of personal destruction, all the while doing his best to totally trash his opponents.
ReplyDeleteBizzaro world is an apt description.
From "Part 2: Eye of the Unhinged:
ReplyDelete"There are certain stretches in the book -- particularly some of the Internet-spawned ugliness directed [at] Malkin -- that should give all liberals pause. There's little doubt that some of the people angered by Malkin's arguments responded with vicious, racist, and misogynist hate mail."
I personally suspect the only reason these two (dim) luminary ladies are given the amount of press they receive is that (a) both are women, (b) one is blonde and the other black, and (c) both can speak in complete sentences.
ReplyDeleteBy the lights of the right side of the aisle, that practically makes them zoological oddities that can be trotted out to show who 'evolved' their freakshow is. I mean, Neaderthals like Buchanan and Bennett, and Cro-Magdons like Limbaugh were good for a laugh back in their day, but this newest generation is proving a bit more sophisticated.
Must make sure to keep the act 'fresh', lest the rubes wake up to what they're listening to.
Go ahead and quote the part that follows that, Fly.
ReplyDeleteThat which does not destroy Malkin and Coulter only makes them stronger.
ReplyDeleteBizzaro world is an apt description.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. It is Malkin who becomes unhinged at the slightest criticism to her racist ultra-patriotic orthodoxy.
Yesterday, for example, she posted pictures of American flags that she said would sicken the Dixie Chicks.
And that’s right after her little video saying that “Hadji Girl” sung by that marine is not offensive (and she attempts to explain why), and the marines should not apologize, or something like that.
Anyway, the Sweater Kittenz (who she’s promoting because of “Hadji Girl” )aren’t the least bit offensive, but the Dixie Chicks are.
In Bizzaro world singing a racist song that glorifies murder is ultra-patriotic, and criticizing such a song is an affront to patriotic Americans everywhere.
It really comes down to two completely different versions of patriotism. The first, Malkin’s “ultra” brand where any behavior is acceptable as long as it’s wrapped in a flag, and where questioning such behavior or your government is treason.
The second brand of patriotism is one where it is your duty to question your government, and your responsibility to challenge the government and the people to live up to the ideals upon which this country was founded.
They are two completely different things. Bizarre indeed.
I wonder what Malkin would make of this?
ReplyDeleteTaunted and Jeered
Bolton Bolts from Oxford Protests
By MICHAEL CARMICHAEL
"John Bolton is the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon, if it should be my lot to be on hand for what is forecast to be the final battle between good and evil in this world."
Senator Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina, retired)
Facing an increasingly hostile group of law students in an Oxford seminar that had somehow gone dreadfully wrong, beads of sweat began to pop out on John Bolton's furrowed brow. Amidst a rising chorus of taunts, jeers, hisses and outright denunciations, Bolton was swiftly surrounded by his entourage of three American security agents and whisked out the door of the seminar room at Oriel College on Friday, the 9th of June.
I think she should stay out of Oxford or bring her own security.
Go ahead and quote the part that follows that, Fly.
ReplyDeleteAs best I recall it, vis-a-vis Malkin one obscure blogger made a reference along the lines of Asian party girls and ping-pong balls. (Michelle says she's gotten some "Asian whore" email.") Such commentary is hardly a significant phenomenon of the left blogosphere, and certainly left-of-center people are not hitting the best seller list and the talking head circuit with such tripe. Further, nasty emails can also come from the right, as I can swear to from personal experience, even tho I share only some values with the left, and some with the right.
The FLY said... blah blah.
ReplyDeleteThese people (Malkin, Coulter, the right wing extremists who have infiltrated our government) are using a tactic of the American Nazi party. Marching through a black neighborhood under the guise of the first amendment with the express intention of causing a riot so they can say, "See?" We told you so!" The courts have held that you can shout fire in a crowded theater when there is no fire but they have recognized the legal concept and existence of fighting words. I say we are making progress because what occurred in Greensboro no longer happens and the KKK and the Nazis are the ones likely to get killed.
Read that: you CAN'T shout fire etc.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when what happened to Alan Berg happens to Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Malkin or Savage, instead of a pie in the face, then you can cry foul. In the mean time, suck it up, Buttercup, or STFU.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering when the concern trolls will appear and say that, although Coulter goes too far in her rhetoric, they basically agree with her. Or, how Michael Moore is just as vicious. It's projection politics writ large.
ReplyDeleteLying liars do this -- they lie. In the case of these 2 hate-mongers, they lie to enable a political causes.
ReplyDeleteThey are examples that it is "acceptable" for women to be mean spirited and "over the top." The message is that women can be republicans and can be vile, hateful people.
Of course, they are diligently modeling the stereotype of vindicative "bitches" too.
They serve as examples that if neocon/repug policies and politics cause some hardship for some, that answer is to take that frustration out on people even less fortunate.
Sorry, HG, but have to share you have written far too much verbage on these tools of the right.
ReplyDeleteCoulter's book is not doing very well, don' tknow about Malkin's, but remember - these books get bought up by conservative organizations to give away. It is not like their sales actually represent a general consensus with their work.
IMHO, outside of an honest dialog about how these hate-mongers function in the MSM echo chamber, "catapulting the propaganda", there is no real merit in disecting their work or their personalities.
After all - there are plenty of others that are ready to take their place. These type of media pundits are created, not born.
Just my opinion, not trying to say you are wrong or critical - just think that we enable the likes of coulter and malkin by focusing on THEM instread of the dirty work they do of a political cause that goes against the best-interest of most Americans.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete"Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com first used the Bizarro World analogy to Bush World."
ReplyDeleteI like to think of the first popular use being the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry, after hearing George has talked NBC into a deal for less money than they originally offered, says to George, (paraphrased from memory) "that's how they negotiate in the bizarro world!"
Hume's Ghost,
ReplyDelete"However, Malkin never attempts to provide the reader with any perspective on all this. What percentage of the discourse, for instance, falls into this genuinely ugly category? That should, after all, tell us a great deal about the nature of the beast."
"Those experienced in Internet-based discourse are well aware that nastiness abounds on all sides, particularly in the political realm. But the quantity of this nastiness can also be telling. What's striking about sites like Free Republic and Little Green Footballs, for instance, is not just the ugliness of the rhetoric, but the sheer overbearing mass of it."
I think the author could have easily made a more accurate statement by also noting that the "ugliness" at LGF referred to there would generally be found in the comments section, not in the blogs posts. Not unlike this, or any other blog. For example, Glenn has spent a significant amount of time inviting discussion of the Bush administration, which is of course fair enough. But over time, the ongoing discussion has resulted in a few comments like this:
[Anonymous 10:57 AM]
"if the 9-11 bombers would have done that a week earlier, and focused on the national capitol, they could have nailed the whole bunch in a joint session of congress.
how unfortunate for us that they didnt!!"
Obviously a stupid comment that I would hope most Americans would find offensive. We don't know whether or not Glenn has read it, but we do know that so far he hasn't deleted it. Should we assume then that Glenn or the others creating posts here agree with unmoderated comments like this by extension?
Hypatia,
"As best I recall it, vis-a-vis Malkin one obscure blogger made a reference along the lines of Asian party girls and ping-pong balls."
Because of the ridiculous number of racist / Asian whore slurs, Michelle was forced to discontinue allowing comments on her own blog. Not cool...
tommy yum,
The only time I notice Ann Coulter is when she is in the news for making controversial comments [Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe it's working for her...]. I don't always agree with her, but she has put herself in the limelight, so I do take note when she has something interesting to say. Intellectually, from what I've seen of him I don't think Mr. Moore is capable of operating on the same level as Ms. Coulter.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe Fly writes: Because of the ridiculous number of racist / Asian whore slurs, Michelle was forced to discontinue allowing comments on her own blog. Not cool...
ReplyDeleteCodswallop. She wasn't "forced" to do anything. She could either monitor herself, or appoint a trusted other to delete such tripe. Further, there is software that weeds out posts containing offensive terms.
Glenn has been greatly insulted here, and actually, mostly from the far left, by some entity calling itself "Truth Machine." He didn't shut down comments because of the obscenity-laden crap TM was flinging, and as far as I know TM is still free to participate here.
Further, I also have been grossly insulted here. My ultimate response has been to ignore those comments.
In my strong opinion, Malkin, Powerline and other sites of the right disallow comments so that their posts cannot be challenged on their own web pages. There are ways to moderate and filter, but Malkin doesn't want any corrections to her distorted view of the world appearing where her followers are likely to see them.
Perhaps you should read that entry all at once, Fly, instead of a paragraph at a a time.
ReplyDelete"Codswallop"
ReplyDeleteGreat word.
The right has Ann, Michelle and Laura (Ingraham), among others…all smart and tough, and all hot babes. Who does the left have? Nancy Pelosi? Poor Nancy epitomizes the (charitably) plain, humorless, cross-eyed shrew. Add to the mix such laugh-a-minute beauties as Maxine Waters, Cynthia McKinney and Cindy Sheehan, and well, you get the idea.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem, however, isn’t simply that right-wing women are better looking than left-wing women. The real problem is that left wingers are so...unfunny. Glenn, for instance, comes across as a humorless prig, a hoary scold, a fustian fussbudget. He’s so…serious about everything. There is an old proverb that says a man fasts whose wife scolds all dinnertime. Is it any wonder that Jay Leno has Coulter on his show and not Glenn Greenwald?
Glenn and the rest of you need to lighten up. Tell a joke once in a while. Try to smile.
Stop being so damn boring.
The insect...
ReplyDelete[Anonymous 10:57 AM]
"if the 9-11 bombers would have done that a week earlier, and focused on the national capitol, they could have nailed the whole bunch in a joint session of congress.
how unfortunate for us that they didnt!!"
Obviously a stupid comment that I would hope most Americans would find offensive. We don't know whether or not Glenn has read it, but we do know that so far he hasn't deleted it. Should we assume then that Glenn or the others creating posts here agree with unmoderated comments like this by extension?
First, let's string up Shakespeare. It was he, after all, who said, "First, we kill all the lawyers." Then we can talk about the fact that "the insect" probably made this anonymous post himself; the difference between an off-color, gallows humor comment and an act like the OKC bombing and all the fans of the Turner Diaries who secretly celebrate the event, and we know they do, all right wing extremists to a man and woman.
Anonymous @ 11:10 AM, a friend of the insect, and probably responsible for planting "the shit" for the insect to hover over. Your comments deserve as much attention as the quality and sense of humor you posess. None.
ReplyDeleteI bet you laugh at your own bad jokes. No one else does. It's actually a disorder or disease. witzelsucht. The bitch that welped you dropped you on your head one too many times.
Hume's Ghost said...
ReplyDelete"Codswallop"
Great word.
It is. But it's codswollop.
I like doggerel and quiddity as well.
Actually, the first use of the Bizarro World as a political metaphor has to be a Saturday Night Live sketch written during the Reagan Era (and narrated by the great Michael O'Donahue).
ReplyDeleteWe've gone from Michelle Malkin to codswollop. Now there's a logical progression. I think we're done here.
ReplyDeleteHume: Very nice post. I would suggest that a proper analysis of this issue should also address the structural elements of the attacks by the Bizarro World denizens.
ReplyDeleteThese structural elements include the very sophisticated use of polling and focus groups to identify "wedge issues." These are those issues that fall in between the cracks, so to speak, and usually include emotional points that fence-sitters react to more than they do to rational "issues."
By exploiting the emotions related to these issues, the Right can carve away voters who might otherwise vote or participate politically against the Right's agenda. The classic wedge issue was the infamous Willy Horton commercials of the first Bush's campaign.
Using these commercials, Bush was able to whittle away Reaganite Democrats and independents who otherwise would have voted for Michael Dukakis.
Wedge issues are important because they stymy and deflect debate away from rational debate about underlying problems which, if debated, might deal with the problems that the country faces.
Of course, the above remarks assume that rational debate and discussion are what make a democracy work. Perhaps that assumption is invalid in today's political world.
From the cynic librarian at 12:19PM:
ReplyDelete"Of course, the above remarks assume that rational debate and discussion are what make a democracy work. Perhaps that assumption is invalid in today's political world."
Sadly so. Until we can conceive of a narative of our own that effectively counters the fictions of Rove and fellows, I'm afraid we won't make much headway.
condswollop v. codswallop
ReplyDeleteActually, it is spelled both ways ; I've employed both versions, including here, and have seen both in a wide variety of places.
Anonymous at 11:10, I have two words for you: Sadly, No! Sorry, I am too inept to link.
ReplyDeleteAs for Malkin, she really needs to stop doing video. Jesse just can't write TV copy for shit.
yankee: Until we can conceive of a narative of our own that effectively counters the fictions of Rove and fellows...
ReplyDeleteThe use of the "narrative" theme is indeed important. Unfortunately, I do not think that the present age can provide any grand narrative of the kind that has motivated past generations.
Having said that, what is perhaps most perplexing and outrageous to many a-theistic Leftists is the notion that the Xtian grand narrative has enough power to draw in as many people as it does. For me at least, this says more about the rationalistic, a-theistic Left than it does about the Xtians.
One explanation for the appeal of this narrative is that it explains such things as Radical Evil (Immanuel Kant's term) and the presence of evil in the world. Perhaps the rationalist Left is right in saying that the Xtian narrative is naive and basically irrational.
Having said this, however, they are left with voicing old platitudes about reason and science solving all our problems. For many people that simply doesn't wash anymore.
Sadly so. Until we can conceive of a narative of our own that effectively counters the fictions of Rove and fellows, I'm afraid we won't make much headway.
ReplyDeleteYou're going to need a lot more than a narrative. Some ideas that resonate would help. What the electorate hears from the left is cut-and-run, gay-gay-gay, and we-hate-God.
Good luck finding a narrative that effectively packages those notions to anyone but yourselves.
What the electorate hears from the left is cut-and-run, gay-gay-gay, and we-hate-God.
ReplyDeleteNot quite. That's what the electorate hears about the "left" from media figures like Coulter and company.
From anonymous at 12:48PM:
ReplyDelete"What the electorate hears from the left is cut-and-run, gay-gay-gay, and we-hate-God."
Only if you don't clean your ears out first, or listen only to Coulter and company. But then, that presupposes you're actually willing to *think* with something other than the reptile portion of your brain.
Not quite. That's what the electorate hears about the "left" from media figures like Coulter and company.
ReplyDeleteOh come now. Be honest with yourself. Coulter's message wouldn't resonate if it wasn't based on truth. Sure she exaggerates, and it is true she doesn't tell the whole story. Even so, she does make people laugh, which is a skill seemingly beyond the ability of anyone on the left (look at the pathetic ratings of Air America if you want some proof).
The left needs more than a narrative. It needs some soul, some wit, and a message that doesn't preach defeatism, deviancy and hatred of God.
anon @ 12:48pm: "What the electorate hears from the left is cut-and-run, gay-gay-gay, and we-hate-God."
ReplyDeleteIt's exactly this kind of mischacterization that stops debate at its inception. No liberal or Leftist thinks this way. The Right says that the Left caricatures and makes fun of these issues, which is true. But any serious discssion of the underlying assumptions never get aired either way. The suspicion I have voiced is that this is intentional. Both sides, no doubt, engage in wedge issue exploitation but I think they have not done it as ubiquitously as the Right has.
anon: ...she does make people laugh, which is a skill seemingly beyond the ability of anyone on the left...
ReplyDeleteI find this comment in and of itself hilarious. Coulter and Limbaugh's humor is not really so. Coulter especially believes in what she says--that people laugh at it probably should give her pause, but I imagine that she hopes to convince everyone that she's just "kidding."
Id she knew anything about true humor, she'd hide her head in a hole for shame.
The idea that there are no Left comedians is asinine. They are there, you just refuse to listen to or see them. Need I mention Lewis Black, Bill Maher, Eddy Izzard, and others?
The idea that there are no Left comedians is asinine.
ReplyDeleteI never said there weren't left comedians. In fact, there are a whole passel of them. Unfortunately, most of them are incredibly vulgar and potty-mouthed, so much so that network television or radio programs won’t allow them on the air.
What I am saying is that your political spokesmen are, for the most part, completely and utterly humorless. They come across as scolds, prigs and pecksniffs. They are boring. And their message is so...unpleasant. The average person laughs when Coulter makes fun of liberals. They know she is exaggerating. They know she is over-the-top. Even so, she is funny.
People don’t like to be scolded by humorless prigs. It is amazing to me that with all the supposed brainpower on the left, no one there can figure this out.
Why do you think that is?
anon: Unfortunately, most of them are incredibly vulgar and potty-mouthed, so much so that network television or radio programs won’t allow them on the air.
ReplyDeleteThis says more about you than it does them. Unless you grew up in a house insulated from the everyday talk and worries of the working or middle class, you must admit that what you call profanity is simply an honest expression of emotion. In fact, Lewis Black has a very funny take on this in his recent HBO special. He envisions someone who's just lost their job, their pension, and is facing middle age without healthcare. Now what words do you use to express your response to this situation?
The problem with most Tight humorists is that they hide behind a facde of priggishness while espousing some of the most hateful and extremely demonizing rhetoric possible.
Our narrative has to include denouncing the hatred of the Right
ReplyDeleteGood luck with that narrative. You and those who think the way you do are Rovian godsends.
Keep up the good work!
Yes, everyone can imagine how Malkin, Coulter, Hannity, and Anonymous will have a great big chuckle the day some liberal or Democrat says:
ReplyDelete"In this recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about whether he '[lied about Iraq],' even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate."
Anonymous will be praising this hypothetical individual's pleasant and amusing sense of humor.
Unless you grew up in a house insulated from the everyday talk and worries of the working or middle class, you must admit that what you call profanity is simply an honest expression of emotion.
ReplyDeleteLook, vulgarity doesn’t bother me. I use plenty myself. My point was that they are too vulgar to get on national television and radio networks. This is self-defeating for the left, don’t you think?
The problem with most Tight humorists is that they hide behind a facde of priggishness while espousing some of the most hateful and extremely demonizing rhetoric possible.
A “façade of priggishness”? Oh come on. Limbaugh isn’t a prig. Coulter, Ingraham and Malkin aren’t prigs. They are, in fact, exactly the opposite by definition, since they largely define themselves by consciously refusing to adhere to the rigid political correctness that so stifles and warps the vast majority of leftists, and is the chief feature of their priggish and tightly-wound natures.
I am simply saying that if the left is ultimately going to be successful, instead of ranting against the tactics of the right, it should emulate its tactics. Nothing, after all, bespeaks success like success, does it?
Our narrative has to include denouncing the hatred of the Right
ReplyDeleteThat's just it, by opposing you merely reinforce their position. They are not to be opposed but undermined. The way to do this is to provide an argument that makes their hatred and soullessness irrelevant. One does this by detailing a message that illuminates these as what they are while offering an inspiring and affirmative alternative.
"In this recurring nightmare of a presidency, we have a national debate about whether he '[lied about Iraq],' even though all sentient people know he did. Otherwise there would be debates only about whether to impeach or assassinate."
ReplyDeleteWell, Randy Rhodes gave it a shot, so to speak. People didn't find it funny. Perhaps someday the masses will catch up to the vanguard on this issue. Until then, you seem to be out of luck.
They are not to be opposed but undermined. … One does this by detailing a message that illuminates these as what they are while offering an inspiring and affirmative alternative.
ReplyDeleteThere you go. It took about thirty years for the right to ascend to power. Date this from the publication of WF Buckley’s God and Man at Yale to the election of Ronald Reagan. It will most probably take a similar length of time to reverse this fact-of-reality, but it will only succeed if the left can find a core set of values upon which to build a political movement and sustain that movement through lean years out of power.
Can the left do it? I think right now, the jury is out.
anon @ 2:19 pm: They are, in fact, exactly the opposite by definition, since they largely define themselves by consciously refusing to adhere to the rigid political correctness that so stifles and warps the vast majority of leftists, and is the chief feature of their priggish and tightly-wound natures.
ReplyDeleteThere are many levels of comedy, ranging from standup to Shakespeare. By your definition--or those of the Right, a non-bowdlerized version of Shakespeare would never make it onto TV. Then, of course, there's the great,profane, satirical and comedic genius Aristophanes. Any chance we could you to support a TV production of his Lysistrata?
Comedy attempts to exploit the contradictions inherent in everyday life. The comedic genius is the one who can show the disconnect between what the accepted wisdom or logic is the way that reality often counters that wisdom or logic. In terms of human beahvior, this often involves what's called hypocrisy.
The Right does something that i think is dishonest in its humor. That is, it uses a distorted caracature as its model and then makes fun of that. Logically, this is known as building a straw man. It means taking the worst possible argument your opponent is making and then trying to debunk that. The Right's humor attacks straw man after straw man and therefore their use of humor is doubly duplicitous.
I'm not saying the Left doesn't something similar. In fact, that is perhaps the limit of modern "comedy" as opposed to the great comedic writers. That is, the greats get their criterion of reality closer to what history shows it to be than the pipsqueaks who use humor merely to a puny vision of reality.
I found another pleasant joke for anonymous to apologize for.
ReplyDeleteIf only those damn humorless PC leftists weren't so sensitive. No harm in a joke, right?
Ah, yes. The "just a joke" defense. If any liberal made "jokes" remotely as hateful and putrid as Coulter's "jokes" about eliminating about half of the United States population there would be a hellstorm of indignant fury. But, Coulter, that's just "jokes."
ReplyDeleteLook, I don’t listen to Ann Coulter, nor do I read her books. I agree with many criticisms of her style, especially those expressed by Jonah Goldberg here. Even so, everyone (with a sense of humor, that is), knows she is most appealing to the young testosterone-plagued college freshman who gets a thrill rebelling against the political correctness that infests his university and the conversations that take place around his family’s dinner table. Ann is, for the most part, ironic in her humor, and she exaggerates purposefully for effect. No one really believes she wants half the population of the United States murdered, for instance. Not even you believe this, I suspect.
When you rant and rave against Ann, and I really don't mean any disrespect here, you sound like a humorless prig. Ann was on the Jay Leno show. She was funny. You folks will never make any progress if you can't laugh at yourselves now and then.
There are many levels of comedy, ranging from standup to Shakespeare. By your definition--or those of the Right, a non-bowdlerized version of Shakespeare would never make it onto TV. Then, of course, there's the great,profane, satirical and comedic genius Aristophanes. Any chance we could you to support a TV production of his Lysistrata?
ReplyDeleteThere have been countless non-bowdlerized Shakespearean productions on television. I am also willing to wager that Lysistrata has been many times performed on television in unadulterated form.
But I hope you’re not suggesting that letting Margaret Cho perform her act on national television during prime time compares in any way to seeing a PBS production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, or The Taming of the Shrew.
Comedy attempts to exploit the contradictions inherent in everyday life. The comedic genius is the one who can show the disconnect between what the accepted wisdom or logic is the way that reality often counters that wisdom or logic. In terms of human beahvior, this often involves what's called hypocrisy.
Yeah, well. In my book the definition of a “comic genius” is someone who can make people laugh for thirty years. Comedy isn’t comedy if it isn’t funny.
That is, it uses a distorted caracature as its model and then makes fun of that.
Some do, and it makes some people laugh. But as you say below, so do many on the left. Leftists laugh aplenty when the president is presented as the village idiot, a chimp, or Alfred E. Newman. If you don’t like it on the right, why do you defend it on the left?
Yes, she's a riot. That "joke" she told about the women whose husbands that died when a plane was hijacked and crashed into a building that the husbands probably would have divorced them if they hand't died, is hilarious on second thought. You've opened up my eyes, I'm just a humorless prig.
ReplyDeleteI'll get the hang of Bizarro World, yet.
anon: There have been countless non-bowdlerized Shakespearean productions on television. I am also willing to wager that Lysistrata has been many times performed on television in unadulterated form.
ReplyDeleteWell, the thing about Shakespeare is that his language, because of it's dated, loses much of its bawdy, profane quality in today's world. A good production of Shakespeare, which emphasizes this bawdiness is rare indeed on TV. As far as Lysistrata is concerned--I doubt it. It demands that the women and men go naked and that their phalluses (or phalli for you pedants) grow to enormous proportions.
But I hope you’re not suggesting that letting Margaret Cho perform her act on national television during prime time compares in any way to seeing a PBS production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, or The Taming of the Shrew.
Why not? If you think her material is any more profane or raunchy than Shakespeare or Aristophanes, I 1) doubt that you've read either of those authors or 2) haven't understood what you've read in them. What--in your estimate is so "off-limits" about Cho's work taht you think a great comedic writer like Chaucer might find offensive?
Yeah, well. In my book the definition of a “comic genius” is someone who can make people laugh for thirty years. Comedy isn’t comedy if it isn’t funny.
This is, I believe, what logicians call a tautology. The question under discussion was what constitutes the nature of comedy. I suggested that comedy exploits the disjunction between word and action, or reality and perception. The comedy--how funny it is--stands on hos far the gap is between those two.
Some do, and it makes some people laugh. But as you say below, so do many on the left. Leftists laugh aplenty when the president is presented as the village idiot, a chimp, or Alfred E. Newman. If you don’t like it on the right, why do you defend it on the left?
My comments related to straw man fallacy and how both sides use it. It's in the nature of comedy to portray your oppnent as a buffoon. The question is how much it equates to reality. Even Bush has made fun of himself for his inarticulateness.
This type of humor will always be there--it's a given in the political game. What I think many find offensive, however, about Limbaugh and Coulter is that their "comedic" schtick can be used to mask very deep and despicable things such as race and ethnic hatred, intolerance, and religious conformism.
You mentioned before that you find these authors funny because they oppose the status quo. I think that's right. My point is, however, that they merely oppose the status quo in order to impose another, more repressive status quo that would limit discussion and rational debate--not open up the field for further understanding between people who recognize their fallibility and humanity.
But perhaps this aspect of entertainment comedy shows the limits of comedy in and of itself to take on the bigger issues of who and what we are. This is where, i think, irony comes in--which, to my way of thinking, is a step above the types of gutter comedy we see exploited by some on the Left and many on the Right.
It is interesting from my persepctive that the Right has a tough time with ironic statements. This has its source, I think, in the fact that the Right would like to find certainty and aboslutes while irony is always undermining those very assumptions.
Why not? If you think her material is any more profane or raunchy than Shakespeare or Aristophanes, I 1) doubt that you've read either of those authors or 2) haven't understood what you've read in them.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think Margaret Cho is infinitely more rauncy and profoundly more profane then either William Shakespeare or Aristophanes. I suspect that if you believe otherwise you can count yourself among an extremely small minority of people who hold similar views.
What I think many find offensive, however, about Limbaugh and Coulter is that their "comedic" schtick can be used to mask very deep and despicable things such as race and ethnic hatred, intolerance, and religious conformism.
I simply don't believe that either Coulter or Limbaugh hate people based purely on their racial and/or ethnic characteristics. Their "hatred," if you will, is directed toward mushy liberals regardless of their racial and/or ethnic origin. They are genuinely non-discriminatory regarding to whom they direct their ironic, exaggerated humor, as long as the butts of their jokes are on the liberal or leftist side of the political spectrum.
It is interesting from my persepctive that the Right has a tough time with ironic statements.
Irony-deficiency is well-distributed among the cohorts that comprise the political bell curve. I've seen it everywhere. You say it is more prevalent on the right. I say it is more prevalent on the left. I'm sure you'll agree that in the same way a person will never admit to being humorless, that same person will be even less likely to admit to having no capacity for irony.
I think that in the (legitimate) outrage over Ann Coulter's comments about the widows of 9/11 that there is something being missed in the bigger picture. I think the strategy behind her attack is an attempt to remove the legitimacy of the last people allowed to speak out about 9/11 without being easily dismissed by the right and a lot of the media. Who else is really allowed to present an opinion? Some members of the 9/11 commission are (it also helps if you are a Republican member of that body) but no Democrats/Progressives - remember that we wouldn't even have the 9/11 commission without the 9/11 widows. Even Richard Clarke and other former officials who clearly have relevant expertise and experience are given virtually no media space on this issue.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Coulter is trying to make her particular opinion the mainstream - the goal is to weaken the relevance of the "Jersey Girls". She obviously thought it was relatively "safe" to attack. Look at the cover this has given many on the right to tepidly "condemn" her while continuing to chip away at the widows. The end result is to cut off access to opinions on 9/11 in the media sphere in the same way that porgressives are not allowed to speak on religion, the military and the War on Terror unless they agree with the Republican/Right.
It is a good sign that Coulter's book doesn't look to be selling that well, but I would suggest that we need to move beyond the outrage at Coulter's comments and use the controversy to push the debate back. Ask yourself - who should be allowed to speak out about 9/11? We can't open it back up to everyone immediately, but at the very least we can use the outrage over the attacks on the 9/11 widows as the wedge to push back.
I think the message should be that Ann Coulter has no right to make this disgusting attack on the victims of 9/11. They have every right to be heard on the issues surrounding it - and so do the people of New York City and Washington DC. Ann Coulter and the Republicans have no right to to decide who is allowed to speak up about the horrific events of 9/11. America should be listening to its conscience and the voice of that conscience happens to come from the families of the victims. Not from political celebrities like Ann Coulter.
the coulter "you should be killed, traitor
ReplyDeleteliberal "f....you"
malkin: see, the moonbat lunacy of liberals is..."
exchange that you cite is priceless.
for two reasons. first, it makes your point. second, it shows how liberals (and democrats) feed the illogic of the far right, by confusing 'toughness" for vitriol and strong language and adjectives.
all it does, for example, is futher enable the rather inane response to almost any substantive point "you just hate george bush." but then I see so many liberals focusing simply on that latter point, that it undermines the point "liberals don't hate george bush, they think his policies here at home are anti democratic and anti american, and miscalcuatled abroad.'
in a piece just written on the daily kos, this point about how vitriol leads to misfocus and can be counterproductive, is delved into mroe fully (in the second half of the piece).
also, the larger problem here, nicely contrasted by brilliant writes such as Hume (who seem to be right far more often than not) is that they have logic on their side. the far right has emotion. their logic is often maddeningly backward.
but emotion trumps logic, and is how they are able to even stay in the debate when, most of the time (but not always) michele malkin is just flat out wrong. sometimes outrageously so.
democrats have to tap into the emotion of their reason, and also the emotion that comes from being mislead, which is what the far right has done with America, and needs to be illustrated
geekmouth, excellent analysis. No doubt, her "strategy" was cooked up in some think tank. Like every godd little nazi, she's goose-stepping her way unthinkingly according to plan.
ReplyDeleteanon: Again, I just wonder how much of the great literature of this western civilization you patriotically defend you really understand.
ReplyDeleteI asked you for some examples from Cho that might be more offensive than Shakespeare. You respond by saying that this is what you believe or think--certainly not a very convincing rebuttal, since I know little of your acquaintance with western literature.
How Cho might be any raunchier than Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Aristophanes, Plautus, Rabelais, etc. I quote the following from Swift's poem, The Lady's Dressing Room, to give a flavor of how scataogical and profane these guys can be:
So things which must not be exprest,
When plumpt into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell,
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!
I could provide even more lustrous sayings from the others. I do not imagine that Swift would be allowed on TV or the radio--and perhaps, from what I can tell, you'd agree with that.
Comments like yours remind of the legislator who advocated using Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind as the basis for a school curriculm. The irony is that when Michael Moore called this guy and asked how many of the books isted by Bloom the legislator had read. Moore was somewhat flabbergasted when the guy couldn't name one.
Of course, for those who know such things, Allan Bloom, an arch neoconservative was gay. How ironic that the agenda he advocated before his death from AIDS is now used to persecute gays.
As I stated earlier this morning, Ann's primary utility to the RWNM is that she's a blonde woman who can speak in complete sentences. To the right-end, that makes her a unique zoological specimen that can be trotted out to speak on their behalf. Maklin serves a similar purpose.
ReplyDeleteSimply saying she's 'joking' when she says this rubbish both misses the more fundamental point (that this sort of hate-speech suffuses our public dialogue, despite being most notably coming from the right-end of the dial) and the effect such speech has, both on the tone of our public dialogue *and* those who are actually listening.
Perhaps she's just playing to the rubes to sell herself and copy of her books; I'd like to see her walk away from her comments should someone actually carbomb the NY Times or another newspaper. I also suspect she was busy hiding under the table as President Bush was the day of 9/11; no doubt we'll see a replay of this when the next attack hits.
"Hypatia" said...
ReplyDeletecondswollop v. codswallop
Actually, it is spelled both ways ; I've employed both versions, including here, and have seen both in a wide variety of places.
Hypatia {Mona) again. If not promulgating myths about communists, feminists, socialists, or leftists, or any "ism" of which you disapprove, it's comes down to words. It puts you in a class with Anonymous @ 3:50 PM, willing to believe anything that suits you, and sometimes, just to be a contrarian.
Let's Ask Oxford
(Or we could just go with the Urban Dictionary and Answers.com, which is Wiki verbatim.)
Word Origins
What is the origin of the word 'codswallop'?
The story goes that a gentleman by the name of Hiram Codd patented a bottle for fizzy drinks with a marble in the neck, which kept the bottle shut by pressure of the gas until it was pressed inwards. Wallop was a slang term for beer, and Codd's wallop came to be used by beer drinkers as a derogatory term for weak or gassy beer, or for soft drinks.
This theory has appeared in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, but there are problems with it. Codswallop is not recorded until the mid-20th century, rather a long time after Codd's invention, and there are no examples of the spelling Codd's wallop, which might be expected as an early form. These are not conclusive disproof of the theory - it is conceivable that the term circulated by word of mouth, like many slang terms, and that the connection with Codd's bottle had been forgotten by the time that the term was written down - but they do shed doubt on the tale.
There's that false or folk etymology again. But we will know soon enough what the "correct" spelling, if not it's true origin, is when Kim Lomax finishes researching BBC sit-com scripts from the period for his current programme on the BBC 2 series Balderdash and Piffle.
Codswollop or codswallop At the Luscombes.
I simply don't believe that either Coulter or Limbaugh hate people based purely on their racial and/or ethnic characteristics. Their "hatred," if you will, is directed toward mushy liberals regardless of their racial and/or ethnic origin. They are genuinely non-discriminatory regarding to whom they direct their ironic, exaggerated humor, as long as the butts of their jokes are on the liberal or leftist side of the political spectrum.
ReplyDeleteI don't know any "mushy liberals". I know of some fat and pasty conservatives who look like the Pillsbury doughboy.
Limbaugh
A Color Man Who Has A Problem With Color?
By Jeff Cohen and Steve Rendall
Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh may be returning to television. He recently auditioned for a job as color commentator on ABC's "Monday Night Football." The tryout followed weeks of self-promotion by the self-styled "truth detector" to the millions who listen daily to his syndicated radio show on some 600 stations.
Limbaugh's audition is stirring controversy. Sports columnist Thomas Boswell quipped that if Limbaugh joins "Monday Night Football" then baseball's game of the week broadcasters might "team up with John Rocker."
Veteran sports writer Michael Wilbon, who is black, indicated a boycott might result: "If Rush Limbaugh is put in that booth, I will NOT listen to the broadcast," he wrote in a Washington Post chat session. "His views on people like me are well documented and I would find it insulting and hypocritical to watch him…There are tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands who feel the same way I do."
If ABC hires Limbaugh, it's not clear a boycott will materialize. What is clear is that his expressed views on racial matters -- from the spiteful to the sophomoric -- would make him an odd color commentator. Indeed, CBS Sports dismissed Jimmy the Greek Snyder for ignorant racial remarks, less derisive than some of Limbaugh's.
As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: "Take that bone out of your nose and call me back." A decade ago, after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: "Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
In 1992, on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X: "Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out."
In a similar vein, here is Limbaugh's mocking take on the NAACP, a group with a ninety-year commitment to nonviolence: "The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."
When Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the "Movin' On Up" theme song from TV's "Jeffersons" when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting "ax" for "ask"-- when discussing black leaders.
Such quotes and antics -- many compiled by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) for our 1995 book -- offer a whiff of Limbaugh's racial sensibility. So does his claim that racism in America "is fueled primarily by the rantings and ravings" of people like Jesse Jackson. Or his ugly reference two years ago to the father of Madonna's first child, a Latino, as "a gang-member type guy" -- an individual with no gang background.
In 1994, Limbaugh mocked St. Louis for building a rail line to East St. Louis "where nobody goes." East St. Louis is home to roughly 40,000 residents -- 98 percent of whom are African-Americans. One of its 40,000 "nobodies" is star NFL linebacker Bryan Cox.
Once, in response to a caller arguing that black people need to be heard, Limbaugh responded: "They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?" That's not an unusual response for a talk radio host playing to an audience of "angry white males." It may not play so well among National Football League players, 70 percent of whom are African American.
Compared to some talk radio hosts, racism is not central to Rush Limbaugh's shtick. But there has been a pattern of commentary indicating his willingness to exploit prejudice against blacks to further his on-air arguments.
ABC has the right to hire Limbaugh, even at the risk of alienating members of its audience. ("Monday Night Football" is the second-most watched TV show in black households). Thrust into the world of pro football where Limbaugh himself would be something of a racial minority, is it possible that he'd rise above his history of racial bigotry and insensitivity? Not likely.
When all is said and done, the athletes are the key players on "Monday Night Football." It would be great to know how they'd feel about a color man who seems to have trouble with people of color.
Carter,
ReplyDeleteI don't have to love Bush to criticize his policies. I don't even have to feel indifferent about him. I can hate him or love and still criticize his policies. I happened to have disliked his father and his mother even more. To be honest, the entire family actually, going back to Prescott Bush, and I pretty much find George personally repugnant and without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. So the fuck what? Hitler loved dogs and kids, and they loved him back, and he was a vegetarian. I still hate the man as does most of the world.
CL...
ReplyDeleteWell, first you name Shakespeare and Aristophanes, and later you go on to include Swift, Chaucer and Rabelais. The latter three are decidedly earthier in their speech than the former, as your Swift quote aptly demonstrates.
It is true that in some Swift works (and in some of the others' works), you can find the word "shit." And yes, you will find in Chaucer and Rabelais plenty examples where their perspectives are decidedly scatological. But does this prove that Margaret Cho is no more vulgar or raunchy that those literary immortals?
Perhaps Cho will be read 500 years from now, or her performances studied by serious scholars at prestigious universities. But I don’t think so. Like so many others of her ilk, I find it likely that she’ll be forgotten long before her own generation leaves the scene. In his day, Lenny Bruce because famous for saying “shit” and “nigger” while on stage. Today, he is remembered as a sad, self-obsessed junky who used bad words to draw attention to himself. Is Cho a Swift or Rabelais? I think not. I think it is more likely she is a Lenny Bruce, although I do hope she doesn’t end her days lying naked next to a toilet, with a needle sticking out of her bloated arm.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteCL...
You needn't cast pearls before this swine, CL.
Anon, this is a silly argument, and as I said, I've used both spellings here. One has a more contemporary origin, both mean similar but not identical things, and both are in use. The codswollap version only since the 50s or 60s.
ReplyDeleteAnd Malkin spews both.
Nuf said...Rove is no genius, he has just studied propaganda. I'm sure he has a personal copy of Goebbels' diary. (PBS just ran a very revealing program about said diary)
ReplyDeleteWithout a doubt, which is why it's perfectly legit to compare them to any other demagogues, including Hitler and the Nazis, and indifference is not an option.
Without a doubt, which is why it's perfectly legit to compare them to any other demagogues, including Hitler and the Nazis, and indifference is not an option.
ReplyDeleteThere's a winning narrative for your side! Kark Rove is no better than Hitler and the Nazis! What genius!
Someone should tell Howard Dean right away.
The left needs more than a narrative. It needs some soul, some wit, and a message that doesn't preach defeatism, deviancy and hatred of God.
ReplyDeleteActually, that's exactly the message the left needs, seeing as the war is a mistake, homosexuality is fine and there is no God.
The problem isn't the left's message, it's the failure of their propaganda and the success of the right's. You can drum evolution into people and you can drum it out of them. That isn't a commentary on the merits of evolution theory (which border on absolute), but rather on the mechanisms which are used to promote or refute it. I mean, really. If you can bring large groups of people to believe that Jews are responsible for the world's ills, that blowing yourself up will deliver you instantly to a high class bordello, that there is a creator of the universe and he has a keen interest in women's fashion, that the body of Jesus can be enjoyed in the form of a cracker, or any of the other absurdities that have and continue to grip much of the world, then there's no reason to think that the quality of the message is of primary importance.
Only in Bizzaro World can a hard-drinking, chain-smoking never-been-married woman (who has lived with different men) dresses like a prostitute in very short black leather skirts even first thing in the morning, engages in the most nasty personal attacks imaginable, and routinely advocates murdering people she disagrees with (or encourages others to do so) be at the same time America’s best-selling Christian moralist who lectures others on their behavior for being “Godless.”
ReplyDeleteAre you an Ann Coulter Christian or are you Godless?
Irony.
So, let's see what we've seen here on this fine Father's Day, in regard to the "narrative" issue:
ReplyDeleteMargaret Cho should be on national television in prime time to deliver her timeless act because after all, she is no more vulgar than Swift, Chaucer and Rabelais.
Democrats should feel justified and comfortable delivering the message that Karl Rove is as great a monster as Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.
The only reason that the Democrat's message of defeatism, deviancy and atheism is not widely adopted is because Democrats haven't yet employed the right propaganda techniques to lead the herd their way.
Have I missed anything?
So, let's see what we've seen here on this fine Father's Day, in regard to the "narrative" issue:
ReplyDeleteMargaret Cho should be on national television in prime time to deliver her timeless act because after all, she is no more vulgar than Swift, Chaucer and Rabelais.
Democrats should feel justified and comfortable delivering the message that Karl Rove is as great a monster as Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.
The only reason that the Democrat's message of defeatism, deviancy and atheism is not widely adopted is because Democrats haven't yet employed the right propaganda techniques to lead the herd their way.
Have I missed anything?
Substitute Goebbels for Hitler and you've about got it. But I would probably rephrase it to say the only reason the Republican message of defeatism, intolerance and ignorance is widely adopted is because they have a propaganda arm that helps move the herd along.
From DavidByron 6:41PM:
ReplyDelete"But it is not irrelevent. It's deeply relevent and I don't want to ignore it, I want to eliminate it. I want to make very clear that it's WRONG and that people who support such things are IMMORAL."
All true. Like it or not, Coulter and company are part of the larger narrative/ideological scaffolding the right-end is propped up by these days, and thus cannot simply be ignored or dismissed.
However, David, you can't hope to 'eliminate' their bile any more than you can expect to completely wipe out base racism from the human genome, never mind American society. The best we can manage is to make it so conceptually and ethically unacceptable that it has no place in either the public dialogue nor the policy process.
This is neither easy nor quick. Look at how long such things as "Poll Tests" were in place after Reconstruction. The most we can do right now is getting the ball rolling, perhaps taking a line from Peter Daou and basically shaming the networks that give these harpies airtime and simply mocking their works at every turn.
As I've said, I suspect Coulter, Malkin and their fellow travellers are considered nothing more than performing marinettes by their paymasters (whether they realize it or not). Sad commentary on our public discourse, eh?
It is quite refreshing to see so many liberals in Rumpelstiltskin mode over the acerbic (but accurate) descriptions that fill "Godless."
ReplyDeleteAnn Coulter is #1 on the NY Times Bestseller list while Leftist wackos like Kos can't give their stupid books away.
Ann, hats off to you. You sure know how to get the RDDB's pissing down both legs.
From CoulterFan at 7:37PM:
ReplyDelete"Ann Coulter is #1 on the NY Times Bestseller list while Leftist wackos like Kos can't give their stupid books away."
Which proves...what? That you, CoulterFan, haven't read "Crashing the Gate", or that an absurd number of copies of "Godless" were bought up or pre-ordered?
"Ann, hats off to you. You sure know how to get the RDDB's pissing down both legs."
RDDBs? "Really Dumb Dumb Blondes"?
While that's an apt enough description of Coulter herself (although her roots are showing these days), I fall to see what that has to do with the discussion here.
...or that an absurd number of copies of "Godless" were bought up or pre-ordered?
ReplyDeleteWhat is this "absurd number" and what are your sources for the number?
best we can manage is to make it so conceptually and ethically unacceptable that it has no place in either the public dialogue nor the policy process.
ReplyDeleteThat hits the nail on the head. The majority of the right's political and cultural platform springs from fundamentally unjustified assumptions (and by unjustified I mean unsupported by evidence). Look at the wedge issues that are trotted out every election cycle. The Marriage Amendment- there is no evidence whatsoever that homosexuality in general or gay marriage in particular has any impact whatsoever on heterosexual marriage. A flag burning amendment- there is no evidence whatsoever that the burning of American flags has any impact whatsoever...upon anything, honestly. It would be difficult indeed to construct an argument putting forth the concrete damage that would be done to the country if every single flag was set alight simultaneously. Supporting the troops/staying the course- it's an exceedingly difficult argument to make on the basis of the evidence, but the Republican policy seems to be constructed for the sole purpose of working as an election slogan. And it just goes on and on.
The primary requirement for progressive media is to reintroduce the notion of evidence into the political process.
From anonymous at 7:51PM:
ReplyDelete"What is this "absurd number" and what are your sources for the number?"
Ask CoulterFan. He's the one claiming the latest screed is #1.
He's the one claiming the latest screed is #1.
ReplyDeleteGodless is #1 on the NY Times non-fiction hardcover list. You don't dispute this, do you? You claim this is because an "absurd number" of copies were "bought up" (whatever that means) or "pre-ordered" (whatever that means).
Aren't liberals supposed to be truthful at all times?
Divid and conquor.
ReplyDeleteMore and more to come...
Lovely.
Obviously the comment section of this blog is very threatening to someone who is going to try to shut it down.
Hmmm. I can't imagine why free and open discussion would be threatening to anyone - all views have been posted here, left, right, middle, and endless variations thereof.
That must be the problem. But why?
Obviously the comment section of this blog is very threatening to someone who is going to try to shut it down.
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I can't imagine why free and open discussion would be threatening to anyone - all views have been posted here, left, right, middle, and endless variations thereof.
That must be the problem. But why?
"Tolerance is, however, not only the centrepiece but the paradox of liberalism. For liberalism enjoins tolerance of opposing viewpoints, and allows them to have their say, leaving it to the democracy of ideas to decide which shall prevail. The result is too often the death of toleration itself, because those who live by hard principles and uncompromising views in political, moral, and religious respects always, if given half a chance, silence liberals because liberalism, by its nature, threatens the hegemony they wish to impose." -A.C. Grayling, Meditations for the Humanist
Deimosphobos said...
ReplyDelete'm tryng hrd 2 b uni'k, but i end up luking jst cntrivd, and nbdy wll tak the tym 2 reed my f-erts. 'ts way 2 hrd 2 an a wast uf tim 2 spnd all th tym it msta tuk 2 rit tht pst wen nbdy wl bthr 2 red 't.
If you hope to be read, you'll have to give up the painfully afektd contr-eye=-vance. I could make neither heads nor tails neither of it, and would never spend the time to see if theres something behind all the show.
Great post Ghost. I've been documenting some of the reaction to the whole episode. I put together a little Ann Montage. The views and commenst have been overwhelming. Mostly in favor of the sane position that Ann is a hate-mongering Madonna wannabe. But there is some diversity usually in the form of name-calling -- "traitors" and "troop haters" seem to be the most popular. Check it out.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/user/truthcommission
...always, if given half a chance, silence liberals because liberalism, by its nature, threatens the hegemony they wish to impose.
ReplyDeleteNow that's just wrong. We love to let you speak. We want EVERYONE to hear your inane prattle, worshipping of terrorists, wackos, and fruitcakes. Your every word displays the complete lack of a grasp on any kind of reality and proves our case time and time again.
So keep it up, we love hearing Cynthia McKinney, Babs Boxer, the stuttering Nancy Pelosi, Mr. "personality" Reid, and all the rest of inmates in the loony left asylum. It's better than Saturday morning cartoons and provide fuel for the next Coulter book.
Note: RDDB - Red Dirty Diaper Babies. That is what Michael Savage calls liberals - that and a mental illness.
"Now that's just wrong. We love to let you speak."
ReplyDeleteSee how this mind works? Anyone who believes Coulter's hateful rhetoric is disgusting is a liberal Democrat. Projecting his own extremely partisan bias onto others, he does not allow that anyone can disagree with his views and not be "them." There are no libertarians, conservatives, independents or Republicans that find Coulter objectionable. The act of disagreeing with Coulterfan puts them into the "liberal" outgroup because his binary abosulutist mindset leaves without the mental tools necessary to able to think otherwise.
Excellent post Hume's Ghost. I've been trying to shame Coulter fans at patterico.com.
ReplyDelete"he does not allow that anyone can disagree with his views and not be "them." There are no libertarians, conservatives, independents or Republicans that find Coulter objectionable."
ReplyDeleteNot so. Anyone can and many of all political persuasions do. But they're not likely to be found in this sewer. Conservatives I know who find her writing objectionable I happen to disagree with because they typically base their objections on the fact that all she'll accomplish is to infuriate the Left. They fail to see that her goal is to do exactly that.
As long as we're discussing traits here, how about your obsession of trying to explain what others are thinking and on what basis they form their opinions when you are so obviously clueless in the matter. I happen to agree with Coulter because I have read many of her books and she's right more often than not. Liberals tend to be Godless. They are a culture of death, whether it is in pushing for killing the ill (euthanasia) or killing the unborn (abortion). They are for a Socialistic system that has failed everywhere in the world that it has been attempted and been responsible for the deaths of billions. Ann Coulter just points that out.
Liberals, not being able to actually, you know, refute what she says, attack her in ad hominem insults and slurs. I know it makes you "feel" good and that is really important to Lefties everywhere, but you're wrong and neither Ann Coulter nor I much care what you feel. We don't even care what you think - if that's what you call it. We are winning the elections. We control congress. The Democrats (liberals) have lost power in 3 straight elections and will lose even more in November. The harbinger was in CA-50, where Leftists were already thumping their chests a few days before the election - and then they lost. Kos, the guy who helped to put the Vermont abortionist into the White House - no wait... is 0 for 20 in his efforts to get anyone elected. Even he is turning coat with his support for Mark Warner, one of those he used to say he loathed.
From my perspective, this is a comedy. Keep it up, you make me laugh. The Left right now is like Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges all rolled into one. The biggest "race" right now is between Lieberman and that Leftist wacko that Kos is pushing. Both Democrats and both tearing each other apart. We sit back and chuckle, although I will miss one of the last Democrats who hasn't gone crazy if Joe loses. Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter have the nasty habit of shining a light on the cockroaches that call themselves the Left. Being cockroaches, they object and head for cover. But they still will shine the light.
coulterfan: I happen to agree with Coulter because I have read many of her books...
ReplyDeleteUmmmm... duh.
I don't know about anyone else, but I like the name calling and when there's profanity involved, it just becomes more fun.
ReplyDeletecoulterfan said...
ReplyDelete"I happen to agree with Coulter because I have read many of her books and she's right more often than not. Liberals tend to be Godless. They are a culture of death, whether it is in pushing for killing the ill (euthanasia) or killing the unborn (abortion)."
Ah yes. The Coulterfans of the world would prefer that all live so that they can die fighting the wars they start with their lies.
A real culture of life they have there.
Name the Godless Liberal
ReplyDeleteCoulterfam et al., can you name the godless liberals who said the following?
a) The Poor will inherit the earth. (That's the easy one.)
b) "[He] Luther preached that the true "Turks," the real enemies, were all on "our" side. He specified them, "greed, usury, arrogance, arbitrary morality, tyranny of those in high places, unfaithfulness, evil." Arrogance disturbed him most."
c) "Wherefore the division and appropriation of things which are based on human law, do not preclude the fact that man's needs have to be remedied by means of these very things. Hence whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor. For this reason: "It is the hungry man's bread that you withhold, the naked man's cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man's ransom and freedom.""
d) Now ... no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold... and distribution was made to each as any had need.
e) "Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago."
f) "... no part of it [the earth] was assigned to any one in particular, and that the limits of private possession have been left to be fixed by man's own industry, and by the laws of individual races. Moreover, the earth, even though apportioned among private owners, ceases not thereby to minister to the needs of all, inasmuch as there is not one who does not sustain life from what the land produces. Those who do not possess the soil contribute their labor; hence, it may truly be said that all human subsistence is derived either from labor on one's own land, or from some toil, some calling, which is paid for either in the produce of the land itself, or in that which is exchanged for what the land brings forth."
g) "The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us..."
anonymous wrote
ReplyDelete"Glenn and the rest of you need to lighten up. Tell a joke once in a while. Try to smile.
Stop being so damn boring."
maybe, but the Constitution is not really a funny subject. and the wash post for instance, isn't all that funny either. and it does a lousy job of covering the most seminal issue of our times
but here's a joke:
"the drinking age should be 18. when you're 18 you're old enought o vote. you should be old enough to drink. look we have to vote for. you need a drink."
here's a better one, fron Leno, in case you missed it:
"President Bush said today he has nothing but respect for Mexico and its people and he will always speak the truth to them. Here's my question: When can we get that deal?"
some other jokes? most of the right wing blogs that delete comments that don't agree with their point of view, so that their viewers are not exposed to other facts, and the media's ass kissing coverage of what has been the most extreme and anti democratic administration in U.S. history. but those aren't as funny.....
anoymous said:
ReplyDeleteCarter,
I don't have to love Bush to criticize his policies. I don't even have to feel indifferent about him. I can hate him or love and still criticize his policies. I happened to have disliked his father and his mother even more. To be honest, the entire family actually, going back to Prescott Bush, and I pretty much find George personally repugnant and without any redeeming qualities whatsoever. So the fuck what? Hitler loved dogs and kids, and they loved him back, and he was a vegetarian. I still hate the man as does most of the world.
this sounds self righteous, which, as unpopular as it is to say, is a part of the problem with the way that democrats have communicated some of their message to a broader cross section of America.
You dont have to do anything, anonymous. but if democrats want to be effective in communicating beyond to their own choir, then vitriol and unncessary adjectives and hate filled rhetoric are counter productive, and play right into the far right's hands.
if you disagree, that is fine. maybe a lot of democrats do. but democrats have also lost for the past five years to FAR right wing conservatives, who have been wrong about almost everything, , so maybe its time democrats started trying to address their own role in this and why the far right is able to constantly mischaracterize them and define the terms of the debate.....
coulter fan wrote: "We want EVERYONE to hear your inane prattle."
ReplyDeletecoulter fan then wrote, in an example of something far worse than inane prattle:
"[your] worshipping of terrorists,"
so if that is what coulter even remotely needs to believe to try to ignore any views but his/her own, it proves that coulter fans grasp on poitical reality, or the actual views of democrats, is actually classifiably and certifiably insane.
coulter fan then writes "Your every word displays the complete lack of a grasp on any kind of reality."
truly, we live, at least for some people, in alice and wonderland times.
on a much more subtle level, it is this kind of twisted logic that has become pervasive in the national debate...
and the democrats have done a poor job exposing it, or maybe even recognizing the need.
as a prime example, a link to this not so well written, but still important post, for example, (it was a bit spam like, I realize now, so a bit of razzing was in order) got 15 troll ratings, on the daily kos. hmmm, not too keen for the message there.... another very popular liberal blog banned the poster for pimpin this same piece too aggressively.
could it just be that, hmmm, democrats don't know what to focus on? just a thought.....
carter 1:49 AM recycled most excellently and nicely most of the GOP talking points...
ReplyDeleteCarter is a troll.
ReplyDeleteanon @ 11:36: Why do you think that is?
ReplyDeleteMaybe because we think "drinking buddy" is an asinine qualification for a political leader.
carter:
ReplyDeleteThe left has been playing nice since the Contract with America. Fuck all it's done for them, too.
Blowing up the OKC federal building didn't seem to hurt the right wing. I'm not suggesting we blow up any federal buildings but if anybody could find a few real "left wing whackos" and they took it upon themselves to take tire iron to Ann Coulter and give her a Tonya Harding kneecap replacement, or Rush, Savage, Malkin, O'Reilly or Hannity, I doubt most of America would mind very much, or care. You reap what you sow. And as Cal Thomas has said on Fox, literally...
ReplyDeleteCal Thomas referring to Fox News Channel: "There's only so much of that trailer trash pie to go around".
Psyberian,
ReplyDeleteI've had a similar hunch for a while.
From the cynic librarian at 1:13AM:
ReplyDelete"Name the Godless Liberal"
You're trying too hard there, CL. I doubt CoulterFan or his/her fellow travellers have much interest in either history or 'truth'.
From anonymous at 8:11PM:
ReplyDelete"Godless is #1 on the NY Times non-fiction hardcover list. You don't dispute this, do you? You claim this is because an "absurd number" of copies were "bought up" (whatever that means) or "pre-ordered" (whatever that means)."
Oh, I don't doubt she's #1 this week; 'you rise to the level of your own incompetence' and all that.
I use the term 'absurd number' not because I have specific nor reliable sales numbers available, but rather as a general notion that it would take a significant (and given the material we're talking about, just plain absurd) number of orders from bookstores and on-line markets (Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders, etc.) to drive this latest screed of her's to the #1 spot. From my understanding, The NY Times Best Seller list is actually driven by orders of the book rather than sales per se, hence my original comment.
"Aren't liberals supposed to be truthful at all times?"
We are, and I am. Try emulating the example.
8:11 PM
Note: RDDB - Red Dirty Diaper Babies. That is what Michael Savage calls liberals - that and a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThere you go.
Straight from the playground in fourth grade from the schoolyard bully.
Now you know how far you have to devolve to climb into the gutter with your typical GoOPer.
I use the term 'absurd number' not because I have specific nor reliable sales numbers available, but rather as a general notion that it would take a significant (and given the material we're talking about, just plain absurd) number of orders from bookstores and on-line markets (Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Borders, etc.) to drive this latest screed of her's to the #1 spot.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, the NY Times places an asterisk next to books on its best seller lists whose sales include large orders outside of the main book distribution channels. No such asterisk exists next to Coulter's book.
It was Pauline Kael who famously remarked, upon the election of Richard Nixon (in 1968, I believe), that she couldn't understand it, because "no one I know voted for him." Is it possible that you might be suffering from a Kael-like narrow-mindedness when it comes to the question of how many books Ann Coulter actually sells?
From anonymous at 11:06AM:
ReplyDelete"As you know, the NY Times places an asterisk next to books on its best seller lists whose sales include large orders outside of the main book distribution channels. No such asterisk exists next to Coulter's book."
Those *are* the main book distribution channels. I believe the asterisk is reserved for orders directly to think tanks and the like. I welcome correction on this point and would appreciate hard numbers for her book sales (if only for sheer anthropolgoical value).
"Is it possible that you might be suffering from a Kael-like narrow-mindedness when it comes to the question of how many books Ann Coulter actually sells?"
Is it possible where she ends up on the NYT Best Seller list is neither relevant (save for a future anthropological study) nor indicative of her honesty, accuracy, or sanity? I frankly couldn't care less how many books she sells nor how many peons waste their time fantasizing about her; I find it hard to believe any thinking individual is buying her screeds for anything other than the overly-flattering portrait she puts on the covers.
If you wish to continue wasting your time on this point, be my guest. I have better things to do with my time.
From SnarkyShark at 9:03AM:
ReplyDelete"Note: RDDB - Red Dirty Diaper Babies."
Thank you. I was wondering about that.
When the national dialogue gets +completely+ dragged into the gutter like this coulter/malkin shit, there will only be one place left to take it: to the guns. That's the next lower point.
ReplyDelete"Not so. Anyone can and many of all political persuasions do. But they're not likely to be found in this sewer."
ReplyDeleteAnd another post from Bizarro world, where Coulterfan defends himself against the claim of using eliminationist rhetoric by paraphrasing Goebbels.
It's a good thing that the conservatives combine this noxious tripe with utter gutlessness, or we'd be in serious trouble. If Coulter's fans genuinely believed their rhetoric, we'd be in real danger of roundup as the "traitors" they claim us to be.
Fortunately for liberals everywhere, these guys are strictly the Tastatur-Shutzstaffel.
Guys like Fly make me sorry I make any effort to be thorough or even-handed.
ReplyDeleteP.S. FWIW, I've reflected on Bizarro World a number of times, including a lyrical description of Bush as a "child of the Bizarro Universe." Also here. A useful concept nowadays, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteHypatia,
ReplyDelete"Codswallop. She wasn't "forced" to do anything."
I'm guessing that moderating hundreds of racial hate / slur comments per week would be a real drag after a while. There is, after all, a big difference between people posting valid comments on one's political views, as opposed to attacking their ethnicity or virtue as part of an organized effort to stifle.
"In my strong opinion, Malkin, Powerline and other sites of the right disallow comments so that their posts cannot be challenged on their own web pages."
While Michelle has elected to discontinue live comments, she does have her email address posted, and she does post reader emails as she deems appropriate. Perhaps that's an easier way for her to filter out the codswallop...
David Neiwert,
"Guys like Fly make me sorry I make any effort to be thorough or even-handed."
I think the left started to become "unhinged" halfway through President Clinton's second term. Sadly, the 2000 and 2004 elections pushed the whole dream machine over the edge.
Aren't Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter both entitled to their own opinions? Your "even-handed" book report there is yet another symptom of the disgruntled left lashing out in frustration, instead of coming up with a political platform to call their own.
"Frogs being slowly boiled to death, indeed."
I don't think the liberals current Tofurkey agenda is going to be a winner in 2008. The floor is open, excluding Bush lied, Bush broke the law, Ann Coulter is mean, etc., etc., etc., what is the Democrat plan for America? O'Brien...? Neiwert....? Bueller.....? Anyone......?
I think the left started to become "unhinged" halfway through President Clinton's second term. Sadly, the 2000 and 2004 elections pushed the whole dream machine over the edge.
ReplyDeleteAren't Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter both entitled to their own opinions? Your "even-handed" book report there is yet another symptom of the disgruntled left lashing out in frustration, instead of coming up with a political platform to call their own.
What? What does that have to do with what he said? He can't do a book review unless he comes up with a political platform. How does this response answer the criticism that you've quoted him out of context and distorted what he said in that post?
Do you spend much time thinking about what you write before you write it? Seriously, that response makes sense to you?
H.G.,
ReplyDelete"Seriously, that response makes sense to you?"
Yes! Yes it does!
Since you had to ask, I'll explain it for you.
I'm guessing that because you don't get the obvious connection between your describing others as "oblivious" or "extremist" out of context, and a reader asking you to back up those statements with facts, you are perhaps so preoccupied with Michelle Malkin that you are unable to properly consider how your own [real world?] logic fits into the bigger picture.
Here's an example from David's post:
"Everywhere you turn in Malkin's book, you'll find lurid descriptions of liberal ugliness, looniness, and viciousness. Most of what she reports is accurate, though in many cases what she defines as looniness is, shall we say, a matter of perspective."
"The problem is what she doesn't report." [...]
David then gives an example to back up this statement:
"Dick Cheney's crude eruption on the Senate floor, telling Sen. Patrick Leahy, "Go f**k yourself," is a classic example of unhinged behavior" [...]
Well done David...
Here is an example from H.G.'s post:
"Malkin is herself oblivious to the extremist nature of Coulter's remarks. Here's the basic pattern, distilled to its essence:"
"Coulter to "liberal": You should be killed, traitor.
"Liberal": F_ck you.
Malkin: See? The luny left moonbats are unhinged."
Here, the problem is what H.G. doesn't report.
For example: In the HotAir video Ms. Coulter states that when asked by a New York Times reporter to respond to Hillary Clinton's accusation that her book was mean spirited toward the "Jersey Girls", she responded: "Before Hillary refers to other people being mean to women, she should talk to her husband" [...].
Is that extremist? Isn't that a perfectly rational response to Hillary's comments about the book?
The point is if, as you claim, these oblivious or extreme "right wing" authors are really representative of conservatives in general being so far out of the political main stream that they wrongfully use "mean" rhetoric as a blunt instrument to beat their more astute liberal opponents over the head while concealing their own faults, you should demonstrate how the left has the better more main stream ideas [for 2008].
Of course if it turns out that the left just continues the status quo of complaining about the current administration [and the mean right wing noise machine] going into the election without discussing a meaningful platform of their own for 2008, they will fully deserve some more harsh criticism.
No one really believes she wants half the population of the United States murdered, for instance. Not even you believe this, I suspect.
ReplyDelete--Some fuckhead troll
I believe it, and when 'coulterfan shows up and starts talking about 'shining light on cockroaches' I know I'm right. Anyone on this thread defending Coulter, especially the disgusting 'Fly' cannot wait for the moment that America becomes what Frank Church most feared: Argentina North. Then they can launch their own version of Operation Condor. Maybe they'll get to be stars in the reality-based version of Death and the Maiden, or Imagining Argentina. I know that would suit Coulterfan.
Max Renn,
ReplyDeleteI you sure your not confusing Ann Coulter with Madonna?
Is that extremist? Isn't that a perfectly rational response to Hillary's comments about the book?
ReplyDeleteNo, it's illogical, as I said it was. But the type of wild speculations and allegations about Clinton and the habit of turning unrelated points back to criticism of Bill Clinton are common characteristics of extremist groups.
The point is if, as you claim, these oblivious or extreme "right wing" authors are really representative of conservatives in general being so far out of the political main stream
Ok, I'm getting tired of critics of my postings projecting arguments onto me that I did not make. I no where said anything about Coulter and Malkin being representative of conservatives in general, or that conservatives are far out of the mainstream.
I said that they infuse extremist ideas into mainstream political discourse, which serves to shift
the nation's values towards the extremes, corrupting them with hate.
I also noted specifically that it was not a partisan issue, and listed a Conservative organization which has denounced Coulter for the very reasons I suggested - "Ann Coulter is mainstreaming extremism within the Conservative Movement" - which is why I find it annoying to have my critisism labeled "liberal". If Borchers and I have the same critism of Coulter, how is it his criticsm is "conservative" and mine is "liberal"?
H.G.,
ReplyDelete"But the type of wild speculations and allegations about Clinton and the habit of turning unrelated points back to criticism of Bill Clinton are common characteristics of extremist groups"
In responding to a question Ms. Coulter was using examples of Bill Clinton's womanizing to correctly point out that Hillary's own husband could be fairly described as "mean to women" such as his own wife. I think that's fair game. Yes, those extremist groups, like the US Senate during the impeachment trial for instance...
"Ok, I'm getting tired of critics of my postings projecting arguments onto me that I did not make."
You may have a point there, but I was responding to both you and David. It was David that implied the right in general, and not one or two individuals, is dragging the national discourse down:
"Nor is there any recognition that the right might have played a significant role in dragging the national discourse down into this gutter."
I actually agree with you in that some of Ms. Coulter's remarks are outside the main stream, but then again so are some of Tom Cruise's and I don't see anyone complaining about his off the wall rants:
"The thing that I'm saying about Brooke is that there's misinformation, okay. And she doesn't understand the history of psychiatry. She-- she doesn't understand in the same way that you don't understand it, Matt."
The main reason I am critical of your post is that it seems that you don't realize that you have taken the bait. Ann Coulter on her website readily admits that her book is intended to provoke an over reaction from liberals:
"If you're upset about what I said about the Witches of East Brunswick, try turning the page. Surely, I must have offended more than those four harpies. Wait 'til you get a load of what I say about liberals in the rest of the book! You haven't seen the half of it.
For snarling victims, my book is Christmas in July. [...]
Finally, a word to those of you out there who have yet to be offended by something I have written or said: Please be patient. I am working as fast as I can."
If you look at Michelle Malkin's other videos, you will find that she is always talking with the same happy, playful expression on her face. It seems pretty obvious to me that the series of HotAir videos are intended as entertaining satire, not serious news broadcasts.
Here, Ms. Malkin is using short video segments of Ann Coulter critics to cheerfully and quite correctly point out that critics of Ms. Coulters work performed as many observers, including Ms. Coulter herself, expected they would.
Red herring. Look that up then get back to me. And which members of the Senate said that Bill clinton was a rapist as an attempt to deflect criticism of telling widows that if their husbands had lived they would have divorced them?
ReplyDeleteI've written about Cruise, too. And when Tom Cruise makes a regular habit of saying non-scientologists should be killed, I'll damn well be writing about that as well.
Bottom line - Coulter is a disgusting hate-monger. She is undefensible. I have little patience for her apologists.
"Coulter is a disgusting hate-monger. She is undefensible."
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether or not that is true, because I haven't read Ann Coulter to begin with. From what I have read or seen of her, Ms. Coulter seems to have an unusually agile mind. She certainly made short work of Hillary Clinton...
As I tried to point out, judging from the reaction it seems obvious to me that Ms. Coulter has purposefully crafted a controversial public image, not unlike Michael Moore, who is considerably less intelligent but still smart enough to realize the publicity value of controversy.
Case in point:
"call for book sellers in New Jersey to voluntarily not carry Ann's book because she should not profit from her hate-mongering"
When people like yourself echo the idea that Ms. Coulters new book should be taken off the shelves [or boycotted] in New Jersey, you are likely going to encourage more people to buy the book out of idle curiosity, rather than boycott it. For example:
In my own experience, while I did view the HotAir video, I did not pay any particular attention to the call to pull the book from New Jersey stores [or boycott it] until I read it here. I am now actually more interested in reading her book, because Ms. Coulter does seem to strike a nerve with Bush critics.
"I've written about Cruise, too."
Ooops, before heading over to amazon.com, I did dutifully go to your blog to check out your posts on Mr. Cruise, and sure enough there you are criticizing him. Nice job...
"When people like yourself echo the idea that Ms. Coulters new book should be taken off the shelves [or boycotted] in New Jersey"
ReplyDeleteThere's no "or" about it. I said that that I did not agree with the call not to carry the books.
Hume's Ghost wrote: " In Bizarro World, such contradictions do not lead to cognitive dissonance."
ReplyDeleteI've yet to see evidence that cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon that happens at all in Bizarro World.