Oh, That Wacky Ann Coulter!
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards,” Ann Coulter said today at CPAC. Her audience seemed to to evince both shock and delight.
The Human Rights Campaign’s Joe Solomnese was not happy.
“To interject this word into American political discourse is a vile and disgusting way to sink the debate to a new, all-time low. Make no doubt about it, these remarks go directly against what our Founding Fathers intended and have no place on the schoolyard, much less our country’s political arena.”
Next, there’ll be calls for Republican candidates to disassociate themselves from Coulter’s remarks.
Oh, yes, there certainly will:
Democratic Party boss Howard Dean demanded that Republican presidential candidates denounce conservative columnist Ann Coulter after she referred to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards as a ‘faggot’ during a speech Friday at a national conservative gathering.
Jeez, Ann, thanks; predictably, the lefty blogs are all a-twitter, as if something newsworthy had actually happened here (can a massive Glenn Greenwald denunciation of the right be far behind?).
I refuse to disassociate myself from Coulter’s remarks on the sound grounds that I’ve never associated myself with her to begin with. She’s an embarrassment, a publicity whore, and a completely unwelcome addition to any debate. Shame on the CPAC organizers for even inviting her…
Yeah, but they did invite her, Mark. As they do every year. And they put her face all over the publicity posters. The Republican party associates itself with Coulter all the time. She was introduced at CPAC by Mitt Romney, a top tier Republican presidential candidate. She sells millions of books and conservatives at CPAC were lined up around the corner for her autograph. It’s absurd to get mad at lefties for making a big deal of this. You know, whether you’ll admit it or not, that whenever anything even remotely close to this happens on the left, every single conservative blogger demands that Democrats disassociate themselves with the person.
Remember the whole Amanda Morcotte thing? She was just a campaign blogger, not a featured speaker at a major Democratic event. And she didn’t call a Republican presidential candidate a vile slur.
You can claim that you don’t associate yourself with Ann Coulter, but your party can’t get enough of her.
You know that if this were reversed the entire conservative blogosphere would have instantaneously gone apesh**.
Whatever, Anonymous…I mean, you seriously couldn’t possibly find a personage on the ‘right’ I could care less about.
Like I say, shame on CPAC for inviting her…that’s all I have to say. CPAC doesn’t represent me, and Ann Coulter doesn’t represent me, and nobody asked ‘Democrats’ to dissociate from Amanda Marcotte, they asked John Edwards, who had her on the payroll, to do so.
If Coulter were on Romney’s payroll, you’d have a story. As it stands…big yawn…
CPAC isn’t a Republican event per se. It’s not officially associated with any party. Now if she were speaking at the GOP convention, it would be a different story. It’s a fine line, but it’s the same distinction that allows MediaMutters.org to claim that it’s non-partisan and thus imply that it’s not biased.
I don’t think that anyone demanded that conservatives demanded that Democrats distance themselves from stuff that was said at the Yearly Kos (I don’t know of anything specific that was said there, but I have no doubt that there was at least one thing that was this bad).
Ann Coulter is a self-aggrandizing, vile, obnoxious fool, plain and simple, and she poisons the well of discourse as viciously as Amanda Marcotte does. As for the whole business of disassociating, I’m all for conservative bloggers disassociating themselves from her (or, as Mark did, pointing out they never associated with her in the first place). And I certainly hope I don’t see too many conservatives twisting themselves into pretzels to explain how her viciousness is just some colorful way of expressing valid points or screaming “censorship” whenever someone calls her on her brutish rhetoric.
That’s what I found most distressing about the Marcotte episode, how so many people on the left kneejerked their way to her defense, rather than sitting back and saying, “You know, we can do better than this childish, arrogant prattle.” Conservative bloggers who engage in similar unthinking defenses, who maintain that Kos-like attitude that you should never, ever acknowledge error on your side, should be ashamed of themselves. So far, I’ve noticed a lot more conservative bloggers denouncing Coulter than I noticed liberal bloggers denouncing Marcotte.
Sorry to have to say this but quit getting your panties in a bunch. This is the United States of America and we still have the freedom of speach. I think that means you can give your opinion on anything or anyone you want. Even if you sound like a DumbAss doing it! So relax if you don’t like what she has to say disagree but don’t shut her up.
Umm, Don, no one is shutting her up. Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism…
Mitt and Rudy and all the other GOP’ers could make great political hay from this by disassociating themselves from her remarks: they didn’t say it, don’t endorse it, furiously object to it, and find it disgusting and offensive. Take the high ground boys!
[...] Ha! Mark Coffey writes what many of us are thinking: [...]
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But it was funny. And maybe just a little bit accurate. Edwards is on the fem side. Besides the term faggot is used more often as insult to refer to someone who is cowardly. Edwards retreat and surrender policy on Iraq certainly qualifies as cowardly.
We all agree it was politically incorrect, but it was funny, and to some degree, accurate.
Um, Harry, no. It wasn’t funny, it’s not accurate, and even if Edwards were gay, that’s not something that should be an object of ridicule…nor is the use of the term ‘faggot’ to denote a coward even remotely acceptable.
This is the 21st century, my friend. That kind of crap doesn’t float any longer…
CPAC 2007 [Weekend Open Trackback]
CPAC 2007. Blogosphere round-up: Captain’s Quarters, GOPProgress.com, Jules Crittenden, Hot Air, Riehl World View, Right Wing News, The American Mind, Power Line, Right Wing Nut House, The Corner, A Blog For All, Roger L. Simon, Sister Toldjah, The S…
great post–thanks…don’t know if you’ve seen this video of Ann Coulter, but it’s pretty classic:
http://minor-ripper.blogspot.com/2006/12/ann-coulter-gets-owned.html
[...] Decision ‘08 [...]
Don, the freedom of speech comes the consequences of said freedom. Like the old example of “Freedom of speech doesn’t give you the right to stand in a crowded theater and yell ‘FIRE” just to see what happens.”
If she (or anyone) is going to make such vile statements, the she will have to accept the fallout that comes with it. What she does isn’t satire, but calculated viciousness.
Harry, calling someone a ‘faggot’ is never funny or amusing. It’s sad that you think it was.