Looking at all the Dem for President threads I can't believe you could say "And really, I've always taken pride in the fact that Republicans are more civil and respectful in their rhetoric than the Democrats are."
As for Coulter, it will be interesting to see what she has to say about the 08 elections. Republicans out for a win may not be so kind to her this time around.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Looking at all the Dem for President threads I can't believe you could say "And really, I've always taken pride in the fact that Republicans are more civil and respectful in their rhetoric than the Democrats are."
As for Coulter, it will be interesting to see what she has to say about the 08 elections. Republicans out for a win may not be so kind to her this time around.
So simply discussing the Democrat candidates and the issues raised is "uncivil"?
As I think I've made clear, while Coulter's bombastic remarks are good self-promotion for her, and get her noticed, while sticking it to the Democrats, and are even satisfying in some ways, because she gives liberal/democrats a taste of their own uncivility, I still prefer conservative pundits who take the high road in pointing out liberal tactics, without resorting to them.
Quote: the G-man said: I'm sorry, Dave, but I can't agree with you that Ann's initial remark was clever at all.
Furthermore, when she does stuff like this, she distracts from what serious conservatives said that the CPAC conference, many of who, in fact, disavowed her remarks almost immediately.
She really needs to stop pulling shit like this.
I agree. Whatever valid points where made, or valid discussions that were started, were completely fucked over by her. So in fact she was hurting her own side of the political spectrum.
She makes some interesting points about Neitsche, religion-based morality, the rise of genocidal totalian governments in the largely post-religious 20th century, and the right to bear arms being a hedge against totalitarianism.
Her remarks about Clinton and Lewinsky are a bit of a detour from her central point.
remember when Anne Coulter was hired by the Paula Jones team and then leaked priviledged information to ruin settlement talks and make Clinton look bad? what a noble woman you admire, wondy. ;P
Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
remember when Anne Coulter was hired by the Paula Jones team and then leaked priviledged information to ruin settlement talks and make Clinton look bad? what a noble woman you admire, wondy.
Gee, that's funny, Ray. Because you always have such a high opinion of leakers and whistle-blowers. So long as it's a Republican that looks bad from the leak.
Coulter broke no laws. She was disgusted by Clinton getting away with it. That he had groped, harassed, and even raped women in the past and gotten away with it. And would have gotten away with perjury too, if Monica Lewinsky hadn't produced a semen-stained dress proving that Clinton was lying.
What's less than noble and outright shameful is that Democrats allowed Clinton to stay in office, despite his clear crimes and contempt for the law.
As I've said before: in the same situation, Republicans crossed the aisle and joined Democrats in calling for Nixon's impeachment. Whereas Democrats corruptly clung to power, in contempt for the law and justice.
Coulter said she saw this as an outrage, and spoke out.
Ann Blames Clinton, Carter for 9/11 and Dreams of Denying Women the Vote
Quote:
“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
“It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’”
So in her zeal to minimize the Democratic vote, she'd take away her own right to vote??
You don't seem amused. You seem way too serious for someone who claims not to take this stuff seriously.
Don't take this too seriously but I really don't like playing this game. Ann Coulter built a career out of saying the most offensive and/or stupid things and then tossing her hair, laughing, and then saying that she wasn't being serious.
If you want to say that it's tired, then that's fine, but denying it's schtick by thinking she was serious with that quote is rather gullible of you. It was a satirically general remark
Ann Coulter built a career out of saying the most offensive and/or stupid things and then tossing her hair, laughing, and then saying that she wasn't being serious.
It's a tired shtick already.
Even though I sometimes I agree with her points, I actually tend to agree with whomod that it's a tired schtick. In fact, as some of you know, I was at Cornell with her when she started this shtick. It got real tiresome back then too...and that was over 20 years ago.
As I think I've made clear, while Coulter's bombastic remarks are good self-promotion for her, and get her noticed, while sticking it to the Democrats, and are even satisfying in some ways, because she gives liberal/democrats a taste of their own uncivility, I still prefer conservative pundits who take the high road in pointing out liberal tactics, without resorting to them.
I'm not gonna knock her for attracting publicity since her books are solid. Sure she insults DEMs in 'em, but you actually get a chance to read her citations and most of her books are half composed of cliff-notes.
The problem with Coulter is that joking or not, she is presented and seen in the media as a spokesperson for Republicans and conservatism in general. Yeah, she can be joking and facetious perhaps. But she generally isn't taken as such by most people. This applies to O'Reilley and Limbaugh as well.
She's sort of like the right wing Jesse Jackson. She is seen and usually presented as representing ALL conservatives or at least being a mainstream conservative voice. And if you're going to be seen in that role, it really behooves your party to either disavow that person's repeated and routine dumb comments or else tell them to shut the fuck up. Or both.
It hurts the party and it sets a really negative tone. A tone that is then emulated by others that admire and believe in them. Then suddenly the harshest rhetoric and personal attack becomes the political dialogue rather than the issues themselves being the dialogue. Which in turn then rises up to where even the politicians themselves start using the divisive rhetoric if only to be able to reach and motivate the masses who have been infected (or rather "entralled" ) with this virus of divisiveness. And yeah, a few politicians even rise up thru the ranks fully drinking the Kool-Aid.
I'd give that advise to Jackson and the Democrats too BTW. I mentioned in the Jackson thread how yes, there indeed are people who buy into Jesse's idiotic rhetoric and message. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that Jesse Jackson and whatever coalitions and constituencies of pissed off people he attracts are more a hindrance than an asset to the Party and thus should be marginalized or flat out ignored when they open their mouths to complain about perceived slights to his influence.
Yeah, there is still injustice out there. I really don't think Jackson is looking to alleviate them much though so much as he is out there seeking to exploit them and seeking to create a climate of divisiveness. And thus I don't need him and I certainly don't need his inflated sense of leadership. Both in political circles and in what's given to him by the media who tout him as a leading voice or as representing Democratic voters in general.
What this country needs right now is a climate of cooperation, consensus and compromise. What we get from both Coulter (and the punditry) and Jackson is a climate of polarization. Like I mentioned earlier today, i wish it wasn't seen as weakness to show things like apologies when you offend, kind words, and compromise. Perhaps more people might actually give a shit about politics if it wasn't all about absolutes.
I think the only gullible ones are those who believe she isn't being serious most of the time. I'm sure her "faggot" comment at Edwards was a joke but her "Jersey girls" and "Camel jockies" comments were sincere as far as I could tell.
Ann is a rock and if I were a republican/conservative I'd want her thrown into the closest lake so she couldn't embarrass my party anymore. She's the worst of them all dumber then Hannity, more dellusional then O'Reilly, and more indiffrent then Limbaugh.
I'll give her this much credit she's got more then any of them combined. Literally speaking of course.
Ann Coulter–who desperately and rather pathetically wants to believe she’s still relevant–has to come out and prove that she’s the top of the slime heap by saying something even more outrageous. Her new book isn’t selling well, and well, let’s be honest, she reeeally needs to sell some.
Appearing on Tucker to pimp her latest rag (and how sad a gig that is, the lowest rated show on MSNBC), the Republican Spokesperson tosses out her contribution to the right wing mud wallowing to make everyone forget that they are the last stubborn stragglers to utter failure: John Edwards had an 18 month affair — as reported by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER. At that point, even Tucker had to laugh at the feckless Coulter. Let’s face it, if Tucker’s laughing at your journalistic sourcing, Ann, you’re officially a joke.
Tucker just can’t get past the tabloid comment. He tells Ann he’ll wait to get confirmation on the Enquirer story the next time he’s at the supermarket — and as the segment comes to a close and she stares doe-eyed into the camera Tucker slips this in:
Carlson: “Good luck at Safeway.”
And then there’s this… it’s scary how far she has to go to out do herself…The smell of desperation just reeks from her.
John Edwards had an 18 month affair — as reported by the NATIONAL ENQUIRER. At that point, even Tucker had to laugh at the feckless Coulter. Let’s face it, if Tucker’s laughing at your journalistic sourcing, Ann, you’re officially a joke.
Uh, yeah. Laughing at a source certainly does make it unqualified alright.
Yes, I'm well aware of what the National Enquirer is. But instead of saying, "laughing at your source," perhaps you should say, "her source is trash," and work from there.
And why on Earth would ANYONE wishing to be taken seriously, and especially a nationally known pundit and author go on TV and act like those idiotic dunderheads you sometimes stand behind in the supermarket who swallow this crap and actually bring it up in conversation?
Because she hates John Edwards and can't resist an opportunity to talk crap about him and his marriage on air. No matter how dubious and ridiculous the source.
It may have been infuriating if it wasn't so sad. The undignified nadir of a hate merchant.
I believe TIME magazine reported, during the Clinton years, that Bill and Hillary Clinton slept in separate bedrooms, manifesting the level of animosity in their marriage.
Regardless of what you guys think of Ann Coulter, I'd hardly say she's irrelevant, with 5 successive bestsellers on the stands.
I thought she came across as witty and intelligent in the Tucker Carlson clip, and Carlson appears to be laughing with her and not at her. He was very friendly and not mocking her.
Ann Coulter in passing mentioned that a story was just breaking on John Edwards, the NATIONAL INQUIRER reporting he had an 18-month extra-marital affair, and she wondered when the mainstream media would pick up on it. Carlson with a laugh said he'd wait to see whether the INQUIRER's story is corroborated before he believes it.
You make it sound like she was reporting the story, when in fact she just gave a few words of mention to it.
The Globe and the ENQUIRER both publish in my hometown of Boca Raton. I've been to the offices, and have a friend at the GLOBE. I'd been in their previous offices at the American Media building, prior to the anthrax mailed there after 9-11-2001, and used to drive by the media circus of network reporter vans, parked outside there for weeks after the anthrax story broke. My office was about 200 yards away from it.
Lots of people buy lots of crappy books all the time. Doesn't mean shit. Just because you and the rest of the fan club bought ten copies each doesn't mean she's right.
November 6th, 2012: Americas new Independence Day.
I believe TIME magazine reported, during the Clinton years, that Bill and Hillary Clinton slept in separate bedrooms, manifesting the level of animosity in their marriage.
uh huh? And?
TIME magazine is a legitimate news source. Referencing it on a news show would indeed serve to bolster an argument.
Coming on a TV news show, presenting yourself as a political commentaor and talking about how Obama's a bulimic and an alcoholic because you read in STAR magazine yesterday would be an entirely different matter altogether.
Lots of people buy lots of crappy books all the time. Doesn't mean shit. Just because you and the rest of the fan club bought ten copies each doesn't mean she's right.
I agree! Ayn Rand is totally overrated and her name is spelled really really retarded.
Lots of people buy lots of crappy books all the time. Doesn't mean shit. Just because you and the rest of the fan club bought ten copies each doesn't mean she's right.
I agree! Ayn Rand is totally overrated and her name is spelled really really retarded.
My point and my problem is that people still find this woman to either be a reasonable voice or else excuse her HATE. Real hate, not just " I hate the Iraq war therefroe I hate Bush" brand of labeling differences of policy as hate.
She appeared on CNBC’s Danny Deutch “Big Idea” show and shared her warped view of Christianity vis a vis Judaism. As usual she says the most patently offensive statements and then pretends that they’re “fact.” Deutch didn’t take kindly to her definition of Christians as “perfected Jews” or her urging Jews (such as Deutch, I believe) to “get perfected.”
COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn’t really say that, did you?
Funny. She doesn't sound like she's kidding....
Like I said, the Republican Party really has to step up and publically distance themselves from this person who's only purpouse as far as I can see is to stoke hatred and controversy in people.
It's called evangelism. Christians consider themselves to be "fulfilled" jews. The Muslims consider everyone who's not them to be infidels, but I don't see you posting a YouTube about that.
Originally Posted By: Pariah Carey
Take Hitler, for instance.
Oh, wait, he was to the really, really, really FAR Right, wasn't he.
It's called evangelism. Christians consider themselves to be "fulfilled" jews. The Muslims consider everyone who's not them to be infidels, but I don't see you posting a YouTube about that.
Well, I'm not going to argue that. I was just taught that if you enter the house of a Jew or of any other faith, you don't evangelize by insulting the person in their own home. It's being a bad witness.
It's also called tact (or lack therof).
I think the apostle Paul was a great example of that. As was Jesus. I think Ann Coulter is a lousy example of that.
Tell me, how many people do you think she's going to bring to Christianity as opposed to how many she's going to repel and create a lasting negative impression of Christianity?
I dunooo. You just seem to me hell bent on defending ANY crass comment she makes. Which is part of why I post them. She's a barometer. I'd like to think that there are still reasonable people out there in the Republican Party who aren't to the extreme of Attila the Hun and will step up to disavow her as any kind of representative of their train of thought..
Why? Because then it'd be a hopeful sign that not everyone is dug in to a all or nothing mindset that makes no room for consensus and compromise. Coulter draws lines in the sand and it seems that way too many people for my tastes run eagerly towards them. Simply on account of the fact that she is so polarizing. Man, I see it here. Some on the right think the Civil War is fully on or something and Coulter is part of that.She just shows a mean intolerance for anything not Republican and right wing. "Heaven looks Republican"???!! Geez!
Feel free to post video of radical Islamists who call Jews and other people infidels. I'll happily denounce them if you'd like.
In fact i'll help you. Next time Sharpton or Jackson say something extremely stupid or inflammatory (like Obama acts "white"), I'll You Tube it and denounce it myself. After all, it's not like I haven't already.
I don't care how many people she brings to Christianity. That's not why I read her stuff.
I'm defending her because she's constantly misinterpreted. I know that's what she wants, but I'm a sucker for correcting people who go after her simply because she phrases something initially not so extreme in a fashion she knows people will perceive as inflammatory. Every outrageous thing she says is easily translated into wuss-speak (as I demonstrated earlier). It's not my/her fault if the Deutsch, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and HIV can't see past her jive. The fact that they're unable to means that she has effectively succeeded, many times, to put one over on them.
Phrasing something in an offensive manner does not make the implications of whatever's being said necessarily offensive.
Media Critic Tim Rutten wrote an essay regardingthe Coulter fisaco. A lot more eloquently worded than I can accomplish but he basically nailed my point about poison being the new political discourse. What I didn't know was that AFTER this episide aired, Coulter was still defiant and unapologetic (is there ever an instance of the opposite happening?) and thru her ally not only accused Donny Deutsch of amubshing her but accused HIM of being an anti-Christian bigot.
I've commented on these types of games here before. Where the best defense is to twist it around and go on the offense. I don't think this is going to work for Coulter this time.
Ann Coulter is buzzing from one talk show to another these days, peddling her new book. Our era values mindless contention as a kind of entertainment, and we don't just reward relentless self-promotion -- we admire it. Thus, Coulter's phenomenal success at marketing distasteful, mean-spirited books -- poorly written and spottily researched -- that otherwise would go all but unremarked upon by everyone except the rhetorical ghouls who haunt the political fringes.
Now, no Coulter promotional campaign would be complete without a calculated outrage -- a call for the forcible conversion of all Muslims, for example, or a demand for revocation of women's suffrage, an insult hurled at gays or the grieving widows of Sept. 11 victims. As more than one political consultant has remarked, the American far right is a carnivorous constituency, and it needs to be regularly thrown red meat. Coulter's singular genius has been to ignite tightly focused and timely controversies, thereby getting her ideological opponents to toss the scraps to her fans.
So if you know what's coming, why play ball and deliver the denunciation that validates the Coulter strategy?
In part, it's because this time Coulter didn't intend to ignite the firestorm that's currently raging around her; in part, it's because the implications of these latest remarks simply are too threatening to be allowed to stand.
Earlier this week, Coulter went on "The Big Idea," a talk show aired on CNBC, the cable channel devoted to business news. Its host, Donny Deutsch, is a preternaturally affable businessman who invites successful people on to talk about how they turn their ideas into money. Coulter was there to describe how she had -- in our vulgar commercial argot --"branded" herself. At one point, Deutsch asked her what an ideal country would be like, and she replied that it would be one in which everyone was "a Christian." Deutsch, who happens to be Jewish, protested that Coulter was advocating his people's elimination. She responded that she simply hoped to see Jews "perfected" through conversion to Christianity.
Deutsch, to his everlasting credit, wasn't having any of it, and the full transcript of their extended and -- on Coulter's side -- vilely offensive exchange on the matter is widely available online. Reaction over the last couple of days has been swift.
The National Jewish Democratic Council weighed in with a petition asking other broadcast news organizations not to give Coulter a forum. "While Ann Coulter has freedom of speech, news outlets should exercise their freedom to use better judgment," said council Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "Just as media outlets don't invite those who believe that Martians walk the Earth to frequently comment on science stories, it's time they stop inviting Ann Coulter to comment on politics." (Sadly, too many Americans now believe the only way to confront offensive or dangerous speech is to silence it.)
Rabbi Marvin Heir, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that Coulter's "remarks that Jews needed to be perfected and America would be better off if everyone was Christian are deeply offensive and have been the classic language of anti-Semites throughout the millennia. She may have been a guest on CNBC's 'Big Idea,' but what she invoked is the oldest 'Bigoted Idea,' and she should apologize." (Good luck on that one, rabbi.)
Perhaps the best response came from the Anti-Defamation League, which called Coulter's comments "outrageous, offensive and a throwback to the centuries-old teaching of contempt for Jews and Judaism. The notion that Jews are religiously inferior or imperfect because they do not accept Christian beliefs was the basis for 2,000 years of church-based anti-Semitism. While she is entitled to her beliefs, using mainstream media to espouse the idea that Judaism needs to be replaced with Christianity and that each individual Jew is somehow deficient and needs to be "perfected" is rank Christian supersessionism and has been rejected by the Catholic Church and the vast majority of mainstream Christian denominations. Clearly, Ann Coulter needs a wake-up call about the power of words to injure others and fuel hatred. She needs an education, too, about the roots of anti-Semitism."
That she does. As the league points out, "supersessionism," the theological notion that Christianity "completes" or "perfects" Judaism is, along with the deicide libel, anti-Semitism's major theological underpinning. Indeed, in Central and Western Europe between the world wars, there was a substantial body of purportedly "respectable" intellectual opinion that held "supersessionism" made possible a "reasonable" theological anti-Semitism that was entirely licit, as opposed to the Nazis' and fascists' illicit, "racially based" anti-Semitism. It is fair to say that the rails leading to Auschwitz were greased by precisely the opinion Coulter expressed on American television this week.
It's a scandal that in this pluralist nation it falls to the voices of organized Jewry to make this case, because it is a case whose outcome is of the greatest consequence to us all. For too long we've pretended that the brutal political rhetoric that now characterizes our partisan politics can be quarantined, that it won't inevitably leach over into every other aspect of our lives. In fact, it's doing just that, and soon the coarse and vituperative language of the war between red and blue -- with it's instantaneous imputations of bad-faith and utter disrespect for minimal civility -- will begin to color aspects of our civil society where mutual respect is too crucial and hard won to tolerate this sort of risk.
Here, for example, is what transpired on the airwaves Friday. Deutsch went onto NBC's "Today" show and called it "scary" that, in this instance, Coulter was not being deliberately provocative. "We're playing with dangerous words in our society -- there's no accountability, there's a glibness that we in the media kind of elevate."
Meanwhile, Coulter was on the Kevin McCullough radio talk show, making the utterly absurd case that Deutsch somehow had ambushed her. On his blog later in the day, McCullough agreed. Deutsch, he said, "is an angry anti-Christian bigot, looking to make a name for himself by biting into Christian icons."
How many Americans really want to follow Ann Coulter into this sort of confrontation? Not many, one suspects. But are enough of them willing to give up, once and for all, the sort of dangerous fun she and her rhetorical fellow travelers provide?
Rutten also pointed a finger at the media which I myself as well as many other people on the left have complained about many times in the past. She is given these forums in which to say the most outrageous hateful things without challenge and with a promise of repeat appearances for it. I guess controversy and outrage invites ratings. It however doesn't invite consensus and commonality if you aern't part of Coulter's "us". If you happen to be the dreaded "other" , which in this case is a "liberal" , well then that poison seeps into people's minds to where they start thinking that you (liberals) hate America, you (liberals) do this and you do that. In no way do you end up resembling ,.... I dunoo... a human being? It's way past time to not be treating this woman as if she is actually providing reasoned political discourse and treating her like what she is. A cancer.
Of course, just because a figure is influential doesn't mean he or she is right.
Take Hitler, for instance.
Oh, wait, he was to the really, really, really FAR Right, wasn't he.
National Socialism (Nazism) enforced government control of all state and industrial facilities. It engaged in state control of all aspects of life, and in government controlled social engineering.
but I really don't like playing this game. Ann Coulter built a career out of saying the most offensive and/or stupid things and then tossing her hair, laughing, and then saying that she wasn't being serious.
