18 February 2006
Lord, i can handle my enemies, but...
...please protect me from my friends.
You knew i was gonna say that, didn't you?
I thought Ann Coulter just sounded like a looney-bird looked at from my own (as i perceive it) slightly-left-of-center position.
Heh.
Apparently, warning bells about having such an out-and-out venom-spewing nutjob as one of the more penetrating voices "on your side" are beginning to tinkle not-so-faintly among right-wingers.
Jeff Harrell at Wizbang.com says:
A friend of mine, some years ago, remarked that "liberal commentators are mean-spirited" and challenged anyone to find similar in the right-wing press. Several people immediately pointed out John Derbyshire's then recent National Review column in which he called for the death of Chelsea Clinton before her 21st birthday to avoid continuing "the taint". Others quoted typical rants from Hannity, Boortz and Fatso.
While he keeps insisting that liberals are evil, he hasn't made that particular claim about liberal-vs.-conservative discourse since.
In An Open Letter to Ann Coulter Physics Geek says:
UrbanRepublican, under the heading Hate to Bash Ann But...., begins:
But then, i despise Michael Moore just slightly less than i despise Ann Coulter, so i try not to think about either when i can manage to do so. (or perhaps that sentence ought end "...manage to not do so." Sorry for the funky syntax.)
He goes on:
In that classic phrase, some of my best friends are Republicans -- or even Coulter-esque raving looney neo-cons. (Heck, DTL was a neo-con before we had a name to define the symptomology.) And some of my friends thought that Fahrenheit 9/11 was the greatest documentary ever made. Doesn't stop me from considering them friends.
But if they start to spew their hatred of The Other Side in the kind of warped and offensive terms in which Moore and Coulter engage, i tell them so.
It's about time -- past time, actually -- that some of the fighters-on-the-same-side began telling Ann Coulter-- and her left-wing equivalents, for that matter -- that they're doing more harm than good.
¶ 1:47 PM
You knew i was gonna say that, didn't you?
I thought Ann Coulter just sounded like a looney-bird looked at from my own (as i perceive it) slightly-left-of-center position.
Heh.
Apparently, warning bells about having such an out-and-out venom-spewing nutjob as one of the more penetrating voices "on your side" are beginning to tinkle not-so-faintly among right-wingers.
Jeff Harrell at Wizbang.com says:
Every time Ann Coulter gets up and calls Iranians -- or Iraqis, or Jordanians, or Saudis or Pakistanis or Yemenis or Afghans or Sudanese or whomever because really, aren't they all pretty much the same anyway? -- "ragheads," she gets the attention of people who think she's right on. She gets thunderous applause from the members of her audience who share her anger at and disgust with the Muslim fundamentalists who are presently waging their diffuse little war against civilization.Of course, half the comments posted to this by his regular readers are along the lines of "Hey -- Ann's right! 'Liberal' is the nastiest insult possible and 'raghead' is what those people over there are!"
But she also attracts the attention of people from both the left and the right who think that there are better ways of expressing anger than flinging outrageous and condescending ethnic slurs around. And at that moment, she's not just Ann Coulter. She's an icon of the entire conservative movement. She is the conservative movement. When she says "raghead" live on C-SPAN in front of a sign that says "Conservative Political Action Conference," she's speaking for all of us.
And a whole lot of us wish she'd just shut up.
A friend of mine, some years ago, remarked that "liberal commentators are mean-spirited" and challenged anyone to find similar in the right-wing press. Several people immediately pointed out John Derbyshire's then recent National Review column in which he called for the death of Chelsea Clinton before her 21st birthday to avoid continuing "the taint". Others quoted typical rants from Hannity, Boortz and Fatso.
While he keeps insisting that liberals are evil, he hasn't made that particular claim about liberal-vs.-conservative discourse since.
In An Open Letter to Ann Coulter Physics Geek says:
Then you released Treason. That's where you started to lose me. Essentially, you painted all liberals as treasonous bastards. Listen up, Ann: I'm as big a critic of the JFK administration as anyone, but when you use a brush wide enough to paint that president, as flawed as he was, as a traitor, you've gone off the deep end.
[...]
Ann, I have to ask you: when did you stop trying to be funny and just become mean? The whole "I hope your daughter is raped to death-JUST KIDDING!" schtick is something that I expect from my political opponents, and then only from the frothing at the mouth crazy ones. Reasonable people simply don't talk that way. If I haven't made myself clear to this point, that means that I've ceased to think of you as reasonable in any way, shape, or form.
UrbanRepublican, under the heading Hate to Bash Ann But...., begins:
I have always felt that if Ann Coulter was a democrat and a man we would have another Michael Moore.Ouch! I wouldn't have put it that way, but...
But then, i despise Michael Moore just slightly less than i despise Ann Coulter, so i try not to think about either when i can manage to do so. (or perhaps that sentence ought end "...manage to not do so." Sorry for the funky syntax.)
He goes on:
Now I am a huge proponent of free speech and believe that Michael and Ann both have the right to say whatever they want. However they both are viewed as mouthpieces for their movements and can cause people to like or dislike the group they represent.Perhaps the phraseology "...group they appear/claim to represent." (either or both ways) would be better, but his basic intent is quite clear.
In that classic phrase, some of my best friends are Republicans -- or even Coulter-esque raving looney neo-cons. (Heck, DTL was a neo-con before we had a name to define the symptomology.) And some of my friends thought that Fahrenheit 9/11 was the greatest documentary ever made. Doesn't stop me from considering them friends.
But if they start to spew their hatred of The Other Side in the kind of warped and offensive terms in which Moore and Coulter engage, i tell them so.
It's about time -- past time, actually -- that some of the fighters-on-the-same-side began telling Ann Coulter-- and her left-wing equivalents, for that matter -- that they're doing more harm than good.
¶ 1:47 PM
