The Republican candidates — and Ann Coulter — try out their acts | Salon News
How is it that Ann Coulter can get away with saying Al Gore is fat, Bill Clinton was the first black (“half white, half trash”) president, and that John Edwards is a “faggot,” without everyone in the room giving her the bitch-slap she so richly deserves? Okay, granted these are Republicans, but are there no fat Republicans? Are there no black Republicans? Are there no gay Republicans? (No, these are not meant to be trick questions.) Aren’t those some of the groups that the Republicans normally try to round up into a dog and pony show around the time of the National Convention? When that time rolls around again, what self-respecting fat, black, or gay is going to be willing to admit being a Republican when standing next to Coulter? Who’d admit it now? Straight, white, rich college kids, perhaps. Most likely some of whom will end up in Iraq, whether they like it or not, at some point, and will inherit Georgie’s federal deficit and the burden of his tax cuts for the rich, which undermines their own future retirements and medical care, not mention will shift the burden of their parents’ onto them as well.
Is there any Republican who is not embarrassed to have this bigoted, homophobic toxic waste dump of a human being invited to stand on a platform and represent them to the world? Why don’t the Republicans do something to shut her up? Are they afraid that if they said something she’d turn her invective against them? She’d call them big, fat, black, fags too? Hey, Giuliani! Hey, Romney! Hey, McCain! Pay attention, because when it comes down to the primaries, she’s going to have her sights on at least a couple of you.
Coulter called the 9/11 widows “witches” (because even her cojones weren’t big enough to come right out and articulate the blatant sub-text of the term – being used as cover for the word “bitches”) for wanting to have congressional hearings surrounding the circumstances of their husbands deaths, and whether or not the President had any warning of a possible attack, and then accusing them of politicizing their husbands deaths. Coulter is so intellectually dishonest that she has penned an apologia for Joseph McCarthy. Coulter doesn’t descend into ad hominem attacks, but starts there. Coulter has the gall to call John Edwards a “faggot” and then deny being homophobic. She goes one step further and perpetuates further myths about gays making more money than straights, and being victims, so “they should be natural Republicans.” Gee, Anne, except people like you, the cultural representatives of the party, keep making derogatory remarks about “faggots” and then denying them equal civil rights.
Obviously she is someone who is really, seriously, psychologically damaged in some profound manner. That is not meant to excuse her disgusting actions in any way. It is, however, the only possible explanation how someone who is the epitome of the elite – white, educated, well-off – can perceive themselves as a victim. There has to be a cognitive distortion of incredible proportions to allow her to believe herself to be in the right about so many things, when by objective standards she is so wrong. Her mind has taken the task of bending and interpretting her perceptions of reality to conform to some twisted paradigm, which in her own deluded little way satisfies some internal need.
Perhaps she is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome of some kind. Perhaps she’s on drugs. (Just step away from the pipe, Ann.) Perhaps she’s one of these people who has everything – the privilege, the education, the money – who is still miserable because every day she has to get up in the morning and look at herself in the mirror. She can’t stand the person she is, that vile morass of black evil with bad hair, so she has to externalize all those bad feelings. “Eew. Icky.” she says to herself. “I can’t handle these feelings of not liking myself. I need to find a way to deal with them.” So she projects them onto others. Because it is black people, and gays, and fat people who have made life really hard for Ann Coulter. If all those blacks, and gays, and fatties, would just die, Ann could be happy.
March 3, 2007 at 6:51 pm |
Ann Coulter’s comments were tawdry to say the least, and sadly she got what she wanted, attention.
However, in fairness, the comments of the hard left are equally reprehensible.
Whatever happened to civility?
March 4, 2007 at 9:56 am |
I find it strange Ann Coulter can spew hate and bigotry and no one says a word about it. People want to ban the “n” word but it’s ok for Ann Coulter to run around like the KKK on public media.
Well how about this. She is an ugly bitch that looks like a man and she should die a horrible death!
March 4, 2007 at 10:26 am |
“Tawdry” is not exactly the word I would use. “Incendiary” perhaps. And yes, she does get attention. The problem the Republicans have is that the attention being brought to bear is on the fact that they have chosen a racist, homophobic bigot to represent themselves. You don’t invite Coulter to come speak at your convention, and preceed or follow her on the speaking agenda, not knowing the type of virtiol she is going to spew.
The comments of the hard left are equally reprehensible? Um, like what? Calling Georgie B. an idiot as evidenced by his performance in the execution of his duties in handling the war in Iraq, the “war on terror,” education, health care, corporate oversight, Katrina, etc., is not civil? Calling Ann Coulter a bitch because she calls the leaders of the Democratic party racist and homophobic names? It might not be exactly polite, but what they’ve done certainly is an affront to the country and the people who live in it. Is it polite to tell the people denegrating you and pissing on your country to please stop? What happens when after all is said and done, politeness just doesn’t get the message through to them?
What’s the problem – they can dish it out but they can’t take it? How about the fact that the Republicans just love to say that Democrats are soft and spineless, but the moment that the Democrats take the gloves off and get down and dirty and throw a little mud back, the Republicans run away crying to mommy and invoke righteous outrage at the audacity that the Dems won’t just shut up and take their crap.
“Whatever happened to civility?” Hm… I’m not sure what you mean. Truth be told, politics in previous generations were just as down and dirty and malicious as they are in this one. By “civility” do you mean, “meekly accepting the status quo and not rocking the boat?” Do you mean, why can’t we all just sit down and discuss facts and reach a conclusion after reviewing all the evidence? Well, for starters, because BushCo. and the Republicans have lied to us from the beginning. Secondly, in the face of facts, they repudiate reality or ignore it completely. Thirdly, the undermine the acquiring of facts by others, inhibiting science research they don’t agree with, withholding approval for drugs they don’t think the public should have access to on moral grounds, outing intelligence assets, skewing national intelligence agencies to arrive at predetermined facts, etc. If being uncivil means saying that it’s not right, and that Georgie B. is a worthless turd with less intelligence than a cinder block, and that Dick Cheney is a heartless opportunistic bastard who has sent Americans to die in Iraq for the benefit of own wallet, then I’m willing to be uncivil.
If I can’t exercise the right to say these things, then it truly isn’t a right at all. It’s useless propaganda to prop up a facade of democracy. Why is it un-American to criticize a president during wartime, especially when he was the one who started the war? Do our freedoms get suspended during wartime? Are they only discretionary, at the whim of the President? Perhaps he’d like to have us believe that. But there are those of us who aren’t going to give it up without a fight. Even if that means being uncivil and impolite.
October 9, 2007 at 10:03 am |
[...] I have called for someone to give Ann Coulter the bitch slap she so richly deserves for her vicious, personal, homophobic and racist attacks on [...]