John Leo: Rhetoric is over the top

New York Daily News ^ | 28 December 2003 | John Leo

[sinkspur]

I'm sorry, but what a load. All her looks have done for her is that the liberals attack her more viciously, instead of the way they just utterly ignore, for example, Mona Charen and Phyllis Schafly.

You make my point. Charen and Schlafley are plain-looking women, and are largely ignored outside of conservative circles, and Coulter would be too.

Because she escalates the vitriol in each successive column, she's left with nothing but to call opponents "traitors" and to advocate violence against them to get attention.

Krauthammer and Mark Steyn deserve the kudos they get precisely because they cut with measured words.

[Boxsford]

Well stated. I agree, she's bright and she knows exactly what she's doing. It's brilliant to drive the left crazy with her 'over the top' remarks. Liberals are not used to conservatives playing this game.

[thoughtomator]

First of all, Ann Coulter is correct according to the facts and the meaning of the language when she says that many on the Left are traitors. Second, AC did not create a bitter environment out of nothingness - it already existed for many years, created entirely by the attack dogs of the Clinton Administration (do you really need to be reminded how low they went?), and AC is a conservative response to it. And a quite successful one at that.

Citing AC as an example of over-the-top rhetoric is disingenuous. The finger needs to be pointing at James Carville and Paul Begala, for starters.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Ann Coulter has taken partisan commentary about as far as it can go. . .This is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing chairs on the Jerry Springer show. It increases the odds that our political combat will get worse.

I don't think so. I am old enough to remember decades of the left's screaming invective, "RACIST! BIGOT! NAZI!" that virtually shut down discourse.

It was the application of the dialectic where our side apologized profusely and to prove that we were none of those things we accepted the left's agenda one step at a time. Besides there are subtleties today in the Springer-like world that may influence millions.

One of Coast to Coast AM's Norry's favorite regular guests reports that the Bush family is really a family of extraterrestrial reptiles shape-shifted into human form. World domination is the goal.

Another favorite from the Art Bell days and one who has done great service by exposing experimental vaccines used on our armed services nevertheless urges people to get a book by Ramsey Clark that exposes the Bush war crimes -- and has written that anyone who supports the current President is a Nazi supporter.

Then there's the show's regular "chemtrail" expert who's written articles asking. Is Bush Nuts? Or Just a Dangerous 'Dry Drunk'?

The point is here are two good Americans, Art Bell and George Norry, both military veterans who feeeeeeeeel strongly that "big oil" rules and is harming America. There could be free energy. There could be a pollution-free environment. There could be much less "global warming." There could be fewer wars. The list is long but alas the evil lizzard in the White House rules and America suffers.

These are interesting times and they ain't going away. It started decades ago. It's a matter of winning or losing. There is no compromise IMO. It's about whose America survives.

[thoughtomator]

Name one conservative female commentator who is either fat or ugly. There really isn't one of any prominence. Partly this bolsters the case that Ann would not be listened to if she were fat and/or ugly, and partly this confirms my theory that the Democrats are the party of fat, ugly women. Notice on the Left there are women who are both in the extreme... Albright, for example, and Helen Thomas.

[Qwinn]

"You make my point. Charen and Schlafley are plain-looking women, and are largely ignored outside of conservative circles, and Coulter would be too."

No, you're missing my point. She would not be ignored IN CONSERVATIVE CIRCLES. Why don't they matter? If it wasn't for Schafly, the ERA would almost certainly have passed. It's not like she doesn't -matter-. You said "no one" would listen to Ann if she was ugly, not "Democrats". And if Ann was plain looking and wrote Treason, a lot of conservatives would have read her book and they would be indeed convinced that McCarthy was unfairly slandered and that most liberal positions are in fact treasonous. Do you think if she was ugly the Left would have -agreed-? You're practically -giving- the Dems the power to establish the debate and pick and choose who's opinions matter, because all that matters to you is what happens "outside conservative circles". Bull!

"Because she escalates the vitriol in each successive column, she's left with nothing but to call opponents "traitors" and to advocate violence against them to get attention."

Oh, please. You make it sound like she's constantly screeching "KILL ALL LIBERALS". Have you even read her book? If you can mischaracterize her in the exact same way liberals do, it's plain you never have.

Qwinn

[sinkspur]

You make it sound like she's constantly screeching "KILL ALL LIBERALS".

She says it enough that that's what she's known for.

And no, I haven't read any of her books, because I've read too many of her columns.

[Qwinn]

"Name one conservative female commentator who is either fat or ugly."

Uh, I already did. Mona Charen is extremely talented and bright and a great contributor to the national debate, but great looks is not among her gifts.

Ditto Maggie Gallagher's contributions, and she's by no means ugly, but she's hardly what anyone could call slim.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

"She says it enough that that's what she's known for."

Uh, she's never said anything even remotely close to that. Not once. And what she HAS said has only barely been said enough that liberals have been able to make sure to portray it as if that's all she ever says.

"That's what she's known for." Please. You think conservatives have been the ones to determine "what she's known for"?

Please, do give me some examples of these columns of hers where she advocates violence against liberals. Violence against -terrorists-, oh, hell yeah, she'll advocate that and loudly. So will I. Don't you? But anything that could even be remotely construed as suggesting violence against any liberal has been so rare in comparison to what the Left spews DAILY that condemnations like yours are utterly ridiculous.

I wish somebody would give me the page number of the McVeigh quote about the NY times. I bet anything that in it's proper context, the point she was making would become abundantly clear.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

One last thing:

"Krauthammer and Mark Steyn deserve the kudos they get precisely because they cut with measured words."

Krauthammer and Steyn are continually trashed and demonized by the Left. They are hardly given any more credibility or kudos. The response you get from the Left doesn't -matter- and isn't going to get -better- if you're -polite- to them.

She calls a spade a spade, and a traitor a traitor. She has the balls to tell the truth about McCarthy. SOMEONE has to bloody say it, and it's about time.

Qwinn

[M1911A1]

I like John Leo, and I also enjoy Ann Coulter. It is tempting to say that we should engage in the same tactics that our opponents have indulged in, but I agree that care should be taken here.

War is a time of extremes, yet there has to be something to return to. If winning the war on terror means turning the US into a country where political opponents are murdered, then we lose. Bringing up that idea, even for the shock value, is repulsive, no matter who does it.

[JusPasenThru]

"A good set of bowels is worth any amount of brains".--Josh Billings

[StriperSniper]

When idiots like Clark say they will beat the sh*t out of anybody that questions their integrity or patriotism, I would like to see a conservative in the national spotlight step forward and publicly smack them across the face.

J.C. Watts. (Might as well make it hurt ;-)

[nobdysfool]

Veteran PBS star Bill Moyers, once a judicious man, recently said that Republicans are planning "the deliberate, intentional destruction of the United States of America."

Often, when one plans to do something like this, it is expedient to blame the truth of what is planned on one's enemies, in order to mask one's true intentions. It should be obvious that it is the Left, who intends the intentional destruction of the USA. How do they mask that? By accusing the Conservatives (ne: Republicans) of that very thing, to encourage the undecided and easily swayed to run to the Left to "protect" them from such evil, when it is the Left who plans to do that very thing. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.....

[GWPATTEN]

I beg to differ, Mona Charen is a very pretty woman, and Phyllis Schlafly was quite stunning in her day.

[Qwinn]

Hmmm. Perhaps. I guess I shouldn't say what I said, as I've only seen one picture of her.

I hate to say it, I agree with Mona Charen all the time and think she's a terrific human being, but from this picture, I would not evaluate her as a "very pretty woman". I base that on the assumption that people would usually pick their -best- picture to post beside all their columns.

Perhaps you have a better picture?

Qwinn

[woofie]

Leo is a hippopotumus

[Batrachian]

"If Ann Coulter was fat and ugly, nobody would pay a bit of attention to one word she said."

Michael Moore is fat and ugly, and people pay attention to what he says. Are you saying that we on the right are prejudiced against fat, ugly people?

[Brian Allen]

<< Veteran PBS "star," Bill Moyers, once a judicious man .... >>

Really?

Could have fooled me that Moyers -- who once ran the Lyndon Baines Johnson "administration's" plumbers gang that both served as the inspiration for the "Nixon plumbers" and made the latter seem by comparison to be more like a girl scout outfit -- was ever, then and/or now, other than a bloody ruthless activist Goebbelsian totalitarian.

[Keith]

it occurs to me that we have had a long conversation about Ann Coulter....and are in complete violation of FR's Ann Coulter rule...who is going to step up and make this thread legal?