Ann Coulter Declares Roy Moore "Man of the Year"

Uttering the standard liberal cliché a few years ago, Richard Reeves described "representatives of the new South" as "Republicans of old Puritan definition, righteous folk afraid that someone, somewhere, is having fun." (I'll skip the context of Reeves' insight, except to note that apparently aging liberals view sodomy with the chubby intern in the back office as "having fun.")

Like all beliefs universally held by liberals, Reeves's aphorism is the precise opposite of the truth.

It's the blue states that are constantly sending lawyers to the red states to bother everyone. Americans in the red states look at a place like New York City—where, this year, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade featured a gay transvestite as Mrs. Claus—and say, Well, I guess some people like it, but it's not for me.

Meanwhile, liberals in New York and Washington are consumed with what people are doing in Alabama and Nebraska. Nadine Strossen and Barry Lynn cannot sleep at night knowing that someone, somewhere, is gazing upon something that could be construed as a religious symbol.

It's never Jerry Falwell flying to Manhattan to review high school graduation speeches, or James Dobson making sure New York City schools give as much time to God as to Mother Earth, or Pat Robertson demanding a crèche next to the schools' Kwanzaa displays. (Is it just me, or is Kwanzaa becoming way too commercialized?)

But when four schools in southern Ohio have Ten Commandments displays, sirens go off in Nadine Strossen's Upper West Side apartment. It will surprise no one to learn that the ACLU promptly sued and the schools are now Ten Commandments-free.

From the Chelsea section of Manhattan, the gay executive director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero, tossed and turned all night thinking about the Ten Commandments display on the Elkhart, Ind., Municipal Building, which had been there, without incident, since 1958. The ACLU sued and the monument was hauled off.

In Ohio, Richland County Common Pleas Judge James DeWeese had a framed poster of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. The ACLU sued and the Ten Commandments came down. Compare that to the late New York judge Elliott Wilk, who famously displayed a portrait of Communist revolutionary Che Guevara on his office wall. (Che, Castro, Hussein—evidently the only bearded revolutionary these people don't like is Jesus Christ.) And yet, no one from Ohio ever sued Wilk.

The ACLU got word of a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in Plattsmouth, Neb. (pop. 7,000), and immediately swooped in to demand that the offensive symbol be removed. Not being from New York, the people of Plattsmouth didn't want to litigate. Soon cranes were in the park ripping out a monument that had sat there, not bothering anyone, for 40 years.

ACLU busybodies sued Johnson County, Iowa, demanding that it remove a Ten Commandments monument that had been in a public courtyard since 1964. Within a year, the 2,500-pound granite monument was gone.

Barry Lynn's "Americans United For Separation of Church and State" sued little Chester County, Pa., demanding that it remove a Ten Commandments plaque that has hung on the courthouse wall since 1920.

The alleged legal basis for removing all of these Ten Commandments monuments is the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment. That clause provides: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." The vigilant observer will note instantly that none of the monuments cases involve Congress, a law, or an establishment of religion.

Monuments are not "laws," the Plattsmouth, Neb., court-house is not "Congress," and the Ten Commandments are not a religion. To the contrary, all three major religions believe in Moses and the Ten Commandments. Liberals might as well say the Establishment Clause prohibits Republicans from breathing as that it prohibits a Ten Commandments display. But over the past few years, courts have ordered the removal of dozens of Ten Commandments displays.

Only the attack on Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore's Ten Commandments got national attention. And it was a newsworthy event: When liberals attacked, Moore didn't fold.

The ACLU began its onslaught against then-Etowah County Circuit Court Judge Moore in 1995, when an ACLU lawyer, apparently depressed that he was not chosen to play Mrs. Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that year, wrote a letter to all the state judges in Alabama protesting their practice of having a prayer in the courtroom every few weeks. (Obviously you can't have prayer in court: It might distract all the people holding their hand over a Bible and swearing before God Almighty to tell the truth.)

Everything had been going just fine in Alabama—no defendant had ever complained about the practice—but upon receiving a testy letter from the ACLU, all the other Alabama judges immediately ceased and desisted from the foul practice of allowing prayer in court. Judge Moore did not.

For resisting the ACLU's bullying, Moore became High Value Target No. 1. Soon the ACLU and their ilk were filing lawsuits and anonymous ethics complaints against Moore. The ACLU, along with the Southern Poverty Law Center, sued Moore for having a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom. (Poverty had been nearly eliminated in the South until a poor person happened to gaze upon Moore's Ten Commandments—and then it was back to square one.)

Another judge found that the Ten Commandments plaque violated the 1st Amendment. Apparently, in a little-noticed development, Judge Moore had become "Congress," his Ten Commandments plaque was a "law," and the plaque established a national religion. The Taliban had better legal justification to blow up centuries-old Buddha statues in Afghanistan.

The then-governor of Alabama, Fob James, responded to the inane ruling by saying he'd send in the Alabama National Guard if anyone tried to take down Moore's Ten Commandments.

That's all it took. The Alabama Supreme Court backed off from a confrontation with the governor by dismissing the ACLU's suit on technical grounds.

James went on to reelection as governor, and Moore won election as chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Liberals reacted to the overwhelming popularity of the state officials who resisted the ACLU by accusing them of stirring up the Ten Commandments dispute as a publicity stunt. The president of the Alabama ACLU said "the whole thing is political" and the officials were using it as an election issue. The ACLU sued, and for not surrendering immediately, Moore and James were media-whores.

Inasmuch as the Ten Commandments turned out to be extremely popular nationwide, claiming Moore was a publicity hound became the left's rallying cry. As Time magazine described Judge Moore's wily ploy: "Sessions of Congress open with prayer, the attorney general holds prayer meetings each morning in his office, the Supreme Court routinely asks that 'God save the United States and this honorable court.' All that seems required for such conduct to persist unchallenged is not to call attention to it." (Emphasis added.)

Just don't call attention to it? That strategy didn't work out so well for Johnson County, Iowa; Plattsmouth, Neb.; Elkhart, Ind.; and dozens of other towns, schools and courthouses across the nation that have been forced over the last few years to remove their Ten Commandments displays.

Yet according to Time, Judge Moore has been on a "crusade" since—in Time's own words—"he defended his right to display" the Ten Commandments. Thus, the magazine continued, "it should have surprised no one" when Moore installed the Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse lobby and "forced a showdown by refusing to remove it."

In other words, he defended himself from one ACLU lawsuit and then—as if that weren't enough—he did not instantly surrender when the ACLU filed a second lawsuit! That guy sure knows how to get publicity.

Indeed, Moore maintained his disagreement with the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution as creating a universal ban on God right up until he was out of a job.

A lot of conservatives said Moore was wrong to refuse to comply with the court's idiotic ruling. Conservatives keep trying to play fair in the faint hope that, someday, liberals will play fair too. Note to conservatives: That will never happen.

The conservative argument for enforcing inane court rulings is that the only other option is anarchy. But we are already living in anarchy. It's a one-sided, Alice-in-Wonderland anarchy in which liberals always win and conservatives always lose—and then cheerfully enforce their own defeats. Oh, you see an abortion clause in there? Okay, I don't see it, but we'll enforce it. Sodomy, too, you say? Okay, it's legal. Gay marriage? Just give us a minute to change the law. No prayer in schools? It's out. Go-go dancing is speech, but protest at abortion clinics isn't? Okie-doky. No Ten Commandments in the courthouse? Somebody get the number of a monument removal service.

What passes for "constitutional law" can be fairly summarized as: heads we win, tails you lose. The only limit on liberal insanity in this country is how many issues they can get before a court.

If a federal judge can issue an opinion premised on the finding that Chief Justice Moore is "Congress," why can't Moore, in his capacity as "Congress," tell the judge he's impeached? But we can't do that, conservatives say, because that's not really what the liberals mean. And if we don't give liberals everything they want, when they want it, it will lead to anarchy.

Apparently the only thing standing between a government of laws and total anarchy is the fact that conservatives are good losers. If we don't obey manifestly absurd court rulings, the argument goes, then liberals won't obey court rulings when they lose.

Point two: They already refuse to accept laws they don't like. They do it all the time—race-discrimination bans, bilingual education bans, marijuana bans. If you don't let them win every game, they walk off with the football.

Liberals disagreed with the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore and consequently refuse to allow the President to appoint judges. (And consider that the media consortium recount has now proved that under any recount ordered by any court or requested by any party in Bush v. Gore, Bush would still have won Florida.) Texas Democrats fled rather than accept lawful re-districting. Frank Lautenberg entered the New Jersey Senate race after the deadline when it became clear the Democrats' lawful candidate was going to lose. Clinton openly perjured himself, hid evidence and suborned the perjury of others rather than obey court rulings. So we had better take down those Ten Commandments pronto—otherwise liberals won't respect the rule of law!

The perfect example of liberal fair play comes from Chief Justice Moore's own case.

The great conservative attorney general of Alabama, Bill Pryor, openly disagreed with the court's ruling in the Ten Commandments case. But he said, as attorney general, he would have to enforce it. His nomination to a federal appellate court is still being blocked by Senate Democrats—because, they say, he won't enforce laws he disagrees with. No way will they let Pryor through. So that's worked out well.

But someday, perhaps, liberal hearts will be warmed by conservative magnanimity and they will start playing fair, too. We've been waiting for that result for 40 years.

Of course, it's easy for me to say conservatives should start ignoring the unending barrage of inane court rulings: I am not a government official, so I don't have to do it. I don't even have to talk to liberals and I know how tiresome that can be.

But if I were a man rather than part of the frivolous, nonproductive chattering class, Roy Moore is the man I'd like to be. He lost his judgeship because he did what was right. He took an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to uphold whatever blather a liberal judge manages to put on paper. He followed the real law, not liberals' make-believe law. He put principle above his personal interest or comfort. He was actually brave—and this is the only newspaper in the country that will say so. The Ten Commandments monument was removed, but this time, not without a fight.

Ann Coulter is Legal Affairs Correspondent for HUMAN EVENTS and author of Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.

Ann Coulter is a gem.

Ann

The Dems all hate her every move,
They’d like to see her dead.
For on their Marxist plans for us,
Some light this lady’s shed.
I watch her every chance I get,
And listen to her views.
The Lib’ral press can’t stand her,
The Dems control the news.
Bill and Hill both hate her guts,
We all know they have reason.
Dems can’t stand Ann Coulter’s book,
Exposing them for TREASON.

Conspiracy Guy 12/30/3

I usually agree with Ann, but in this case her hero worship is ill-placed. Moore's outrageous actions and statements won't help anybody - and they've already hurt a lot of folks. All I see in his efforts is a rude little boy yelling " Look at me ! Look at me ! Look.... " ad nauseum.

Please provide some examples of Judge Moore's outrageous actions and statements.

How about his using the placement of the Ten Commandments monument in a courthouse to gain name recognition and further your political carreer? Now that Moore has widespread name recognition look for him to run for Govenor of Alabama next go around. Politico's don't come more shallow than Roy Moore. Ask someone who lives in Alabama.

I really causes me concern that some on this site, that call themselves conservative, where so ready to condemn Judge Moore for a misdomenor while excusing the Alabama State and US Supreme Courts for their felonies against the Constitution and the American people.

I had a somewhat long discussion in private Freep mail with an increasingly angry judge that laid out his military service, flew his flag of patriotism high, touted his bravery, and yet huffed that Moore should bow to illegal laws that our founding father's urged us to ignore merely because it is the law. Our Founding Fathers urged us to civil disobediance against un-Constitutional laws passed by a deliberate and studied judicial mis-interpretation of that document.

Somewhere along the line the Judge lost his guts. Judge Moore did not, so I am with Ann Coulter in naming Judge Moore, "Man of the Year", perhaps century.

Why don't you wait until he actually starts a campaign before imputing all kinds of ulterior motives to him? Make no mistake about it, it's just as easy for other Freepers to deconstruct everything **you** say here in the same way.

I always enjoy Anne's writing, but this time I feel she has outdone herself. Pro or con Roy Moore, she illustrates in many ways the pulse of what has occurred in this nation regarding the courts, the double standards of liberals, and the degradation of local communitied being able to make laws and jurisdictions for themselves.

Please provide some examples of Judge Moore's outrageous actions and statements.

Here are a few of the more egregious.

1) Declaring that the Alabama constitution "required" him to "acknowledge God". There is absolutely nothing in the constitution that could be so construed. The framers of the Alabama constitution invoked God's favor and guidance in their work, but laid no requirement for government officials to "acknowledge God".

2) Declaring after his hearing that the Alabama attorney general "three times" asked him "to deny God". The attorney general, a devout Christian himself, never asked him to do any such thing.

3) Declaring that his monument was "from God", and thus belonged in the rotunda, and that any other "was not from God" and thus had no place.

The first two statements are blatant lies - the last an example of the incredible self-pride that was his downfall.

If your examples were not taken out of context then you make a good point against Judge Moore. However I have heard many speeches and interviews with the man and have never gotten any impression of conceit, arrogance and selfish ambition. I suspect that were I to read a full transcript of the examples you gave, it would leave me with quite a different impression.

Please provide some examples of Judge Moore's outrageous actions and statements.

Moore claimed that he would have an announcement that would be dramatic and change the course of the country. Days later, his announcement turned out to be that he was proposing a piece of legislation.

There are psychiatric terms for people with such crazy delusions of grandeur but I think it is enough to call him a nutcase.

Ole Roy was doing fine right up until he refused the orders of the Federal Court. At that point he left the powers that be with little choice but to act. And it was better handled by AL than by the FBI. The fight was honorable, but he lost. Pick yourself up and move on to fight another day... or if you're Judge Roy ... sit down and whine that you shouldn't have lost ...

I still think it was a calculated move to catapult him into a Gov/Senate seat ...

What passes for "constitutional law" can be fairly summarized as: heads we win, tails you lose. The only limit on liberal insanity in this country is how many issues they can get before a court.

Exactly. Conservatives think court orders have to be obeyed, even when the orders have no basis in law or constitution. That is rule of will, not rule of law.

"There are psychiatric terms for people with such crazy delusions of grandeur but I think it is enough to call him a nutcase."

Yeah, Moore is a far-right nutcase ideologue, and the ACLU represents the Paul Reveres of Freedom without an agenda.

When the liberal courts demand that some of you political pragmatists to get off the fence to pick up the soap off the floor in some "neutral" locker room, after removing your coke-bottle thick glasses I assume one bar won't quite be enough.

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