Posted on 06/15/2006 10:12:05 AM PDT by Kitten Festival
Let me ask you this: when, prior to last week, was the last time you heard of the Jersey Girls? I can’t give a definite answer, which in itself is telling. Not that I was paying any large amount of attention, but there was a lot of noise in between the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns, intense media play building up to the 2004 election, which they did their damndest to throw to Kerry, and then… nothing.
They’d shot their bolt, they had their fifteen minutes and more, and that was the end of it. Until last week when Ann Coulter, acting unilaterally, put them back on the front pages with an attack so obnoxious that it immediately (and unjustly – it was the Girls themselves, after all, who debased their victim status for political purposes) threw all sympathy in their direction. A free ticket to a second act. Not to mention providing Madame Hillary with an opportunity to pose as, of all things, the defender of civility.
Thanks a lot, Ann.
Conservatives used to be known for this kind of thing. Much of this was the media’s doing – at any conservative gathering, be it a gun show or a political convention, reporters will make a beeline for the guy in full camo gear or wearing two dozen anti-UN buttons. But conservatives played their part.
The classic figure here is Coulter’s idol, Joe McCarthy. Bellowing about Communists you couldn’t produce (and it cannot be repeated often enough that McCarthy bagged nobody – the Party infiltrators had been cleaned out by the time he showed up) was bad enough. Doing it in an ill-cut Chicago gangland suit with a five-o’clock shadow and fifth of Jim Beam under your belt simply turned it into a circus.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Bingo! And that is the heart of my objection to your comments: historically the Left has destroyed anyone who gets in the way, and this is all the more easily done when people who should know better rush to bolster and justify their hyperventilating.
We have made a great deal of progress since 1980 of shedding the extremist image the Left painted conservatives with between the HUAC hearings in the 1940's and the Nixon era.
Oh, Good Lord. Please stop talking about "history." It's very clear you either were born yesterday, are a black propagandist, or a dope. HUAC investigated and uncovered real spies. The only reason HUAC has gotten a black eye is because the repeated lies of Leftist propagandists--WHICH YOU ARE REPEATING--have been left unchallenged by conservatives. I absolutely defy you to produce one example of one historically disputed claim on which HUAC was mistaken and the Left was correct. ONE. Until you can, please stop holding forth on a topic about which you clearly not only know nothing, but are repeating malicious untruths.
Second, Nixon was not a conservative. Never was. Nixon started the EPA, revenue sharing, negative income tax, wage and price controls, and OSHA, just to name a few. The ideological right (which did NOT exist at the time of HUAC or McCarthy) carried water for him because--like G.W. Bush, who is also no conservative--he was on the right side of the great conflict of his time.
I much prefer the style of someone like Rush Limbaugh, who has been one of THE strongest, most popular conservative voices for a long time. Rush never descends into the gutter. He is hard-hitting and effective without being cruel and acidic.
Rush is the indispensable conservative, but you're wrong about his never "descending into the gutter," if that gutter is defined by is critics. Exactly the same things have been said about Rush over the course of his career, but luckily, people haven't fallen all over themselves to agree with his detractors. And whatever else, you will NOT catch Rush Limbaugh jumping on a band wagon to trash a conservative with less than satisfactory social skills making a valid point. He understands as well as anybody that the left throws their hateful spaghetti at all of us, and he is not going to give them any help in making it stick.
If you like Coulter, fine. I don't -- and am amused by the fact that some people seem hell-bent on forcing folks with my opinion of her to either join the club or go away and shut up.
Actually, I don't like Coulter all that much. I find her personal manner off-putting, don't think she's especially attractive--though this is clearly of overhwelming importance to her--and I think P.J. O'Rourke is much more intelligent and humorous satirist. That said, I take her side in the current debate for the same reason I would take McCarthy's, or HUAC's, or Nixons. All of these people were demonized by the Left, and all of them were right in their opposition to Communism, and, like Coulter, their character deficiencies were nowhere near as egregious as those of many Leftists who continue to be adored long after their treachery or treason have been revealed.
A person wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt has made a far more outrageous and offensive public political remark than anything Coulter has ever said or written. Let's bring that point up whenever some lib/lefty wants to talk about Ann, or Nixon, or McCarthy. The Left is going to do their usual job tearing us down. Stop helping them with their bloodwork.
I didn't say it was her ONLY reason, only that she does what she does to enrich herself. Are you going to tell me she sells books, goes on book tours, does speaking engagements, and all the rest to get poor?
BTW, there is nothing wrong with enriching one's self. You seem to think it's some kind of insult to say that someone does what they do to enrich themselves. As others here have pointed out, there are many ways to do so. Coulter has chosen to do so as a polemicist.
That was the explanation given to me at the time. Of course, all these years later I can't prove it, but what the heck. What is interesting is that you admit the site had gone down periodically back then, confirming at least that part of what I said.
The alternative site was formed for when the site went down.
That's what I said.
I only pointed it out because it shows how fast and loose you play with the truth. There were no wholesale re-registries.
I didn't say there were "wholesale re-registeries," only that sometimes when the site went down we sometimes had to re-register. At least that's how it worked for me.
And your argument from authority--because of a (claimed) early membership is hilarious.
I wasn't "arguing from authority" due to early membership, I was refuting Reactionary's silly "infiltrator" statement.
And you still never answered who caused the site to go to a registration system in the first place, oh, founding father (or mother).
I haven't got a clue, but then I didn't say I was a founder of the site, either, merely someone who began coming here early in its history. Oh, and by the way, early does not mean beginning.
Nicely said.
"I find her personal manner off-putting, don't think she's especially attractive--though this is clearly of overhwelming importance to her..."
Not true from my experience. But a minor point.
Much of what she does fashion-wise I think is a statement. It is meant as a stick in the eye to all those who think only liberals can try to be be hip, chic, glam...
Or wickedly (even nastily) funny.
And it clearly drives the liberals up the wall -- and, sadly, many here as well.
The media has no problems with putting conservatives on TV or in their magazines, as long as they portray themselves like Tucker Carlson, George Will or Ben Stein.
But they consider hipness their right.
Whatever else Coulter has done, she has shown that you can be hip, witty and attractive -- and still be conservative.
Don't think that doesn't have an effect. If it didn't, the left wouldn't be so jealous of their turf.
(And, of course, I'm sure you already are aware of this. PJ O'Rourke sort of led this movement, at least for males in some ways.)
Hurts the cause of whining RINOs.
"I didn't say it was her ONLY reason, only that she does what she does to enrich herself."
You: "Coulter is in the business of throwing red meat to the hard right for one purpose only: to enrich herself."
In your response to my statement above, you have demonstrated a common problem here on FR (and probably other web forums). People all-to-frequently do not respond to what is actually stated.
The above merely brackets a period of time between the 1940's and the 1970's, and notes how conservatives were painted by the Left as extremists during that period. Yet somehow you leaped from that simple bracket of time to your paragraphs which begin, "Oh, Good Lord," and "Second, Nixon was not a conservative."
It might help if you stow your impulse to insult and look at the actual statement. The HUAC hearings began in the 1940's, did they not? The Nixon era was a very difficult one for Republicans and conservatives, was it not? In the period of time bracketed by those events, conservatives were branded by the Left as extremists, were they not?
So what's your problem?
Not true from my experience. But a minor point.
I'll defer to your personal knowledge. For anyone who didn't already know it, the difference between O.J. Simpson's screen persona and his actual character should have demolished once and for all the notion that you can really tell anything about someone's true nature on the basis of the public image projected. She comes across this way to me, but it's not terribly important to the quality of her arguments, is it?
A minor point to you: I like Ben Stein and have usually (but not universally) enjoyed his diary in the American Spectator. But I don't think Ben really is a conservative. Republican: sure, conservative: often, but not reliably.
This is true. Thank you for correcting me. Let me rephrase to make it more accurate: Coulter is in the business of throwing red meat to the hard right for one purpose only primarily to enrich herself. There. Feel better?
I agree with you about Ben Stein. He is a fiscal conservative for sure. And he is certainly good on issues of defense and the WOT. The rest, who knows.
But I wouldn't call Tucker Carlson a true blue conservative either. And even Will is, well, you know.
My point was that the people our one party presents as conservatives are almost uniformly drab and decidedly unglamorous.
I believe AC set out to try to challenge that stereotype. And that, given the times we live in, has had a powerful effect.
All I know about him is that he's some little twit that dislikes Ann Coulter and Joe McCarthy.
"Coulter is in the business of throwing red meat to the hard right for one purpose only primarily to enrich herself. There. Feel better?"
No, because it is still a lie.
She threw red meat when it cost her money and employment.
But you seem like a real waste of time. And you have no regard for the truth.
So why bother with you?
Sorry, meant: My point was that the people our one party [media] presents as conservatives are almost uniformly drab and decidedly unglamorous.
Crazy Ann Coulter on Jay Leno
[FULL VIDEO of Ann on "Tonight Show" 6/14 -- now posted on YouTube!]
Posted by RonDog
On News/Activism 06/15/2006 9:01:14 AM PDT · 4 replies · 205+ views
youtube.com ^ | June 15, 2006 | MajorNike on YouTube [courtesy of AzNASCARfan]
It is not a lie. Once again, does she sell books and all the rest to get poor? Hmmmm? No. She does it to get her message out AND to make a living.
Once again, do not read into this that I am saying it is wrong to make money. I am only saying it is how she chooses to earn her living.
You say, "She threw red meat when it cost her money and employment." Fine. Didn't seem to keep her down for long, though, did it? We all have ups and downs in our lives and careers. So Coulter has had her share. Big deal. Welcome to the human race.
But you seem like a real waste of time. And you have no regard for the truth. So why bother with you?
The only reason I bothered with you, chum, other than for the fun of it, was so all those lurkers out there would know that not all conservatives like the red meat Coulter dishes out. So for me this has been anything but a waste of time.
Oh, and by the way, you keep throwing around this "no regard for the truth" nonsense. I think Coulter makes the truth about herself quite evident. She doesn't need you to do it for her.
Second, your statement places into juxtaposition HUAC at one end of a period and Nixon at the other, with the clear implication that conservatives (I guess, or maybe anticommunists, or just Americans) have something to be ashamed of because of what the Left said about those people; that we are finally emerging from that image; and we shouldn't allow ourselves to be exiled all over again because of the extremism of some conservatives.
That is what you wrote: not some abstract discursus on the Babylonian captivity of conservatives (during a period in which they did not, in fact, exist at all), but rather, a background statement leading to your conclusion that Ann Coulter and her ilk would be responsible for our returning to the political wilderness.
If your point was that the Left once said outrageous things about people who might someday become conservatives, which those emergent conservatives had no control over, and which events those emergent conservatives did not shape--if that was your post--then, I apologize, and I agree with you that what you said was indeed pointless. In that case, however, you'll need to apologize to everyone else for wasting their time.
I'm content to let people who actually read your post infer whether my interpretation is justified, and I'm content to see that you're running away from what is a clearly untenable and even silly argument.
But please do stop talking about the anticommunist period of American history, or I'll have to reconsider my magnanimity.
And look how she shut right up after Ann put her in her place. She'll know better next time.
Until last week when Ann Coulter, acting unilaterally, put them back on the front pages with an attack so obnoxious that it immediately (and unjustly - it was the Girls themselves, after all, who debased their victim status for political purposes) threw all sympathy in their direction. A free ticket to a second act.
I couldn't disagree more. Until last week, who had heard of the "liberal doctrine of infallibillity?" Now everyone has. And the libs aren't going to get away with it now that their game book is out in the open. Not to mention, the libs have been exposed once again for their intolerance. Not content to merely denounce Coulter (as conservatives do with lib flamethrowers), they've upped the ante by calling on her to "do us all a favor and kill herself," trying to get her book banned, and spewing all kinds of unrepeatable filth at her. People aren't stupid, they can see what the other side is putting forth, and not only in books, but on the floor of Congress! Read this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1648559/posts
I compliment you by saying your initial post was interesting and made me stop and think...and #196 is your response? Amazing.
Claiming you only intended to compare them as fellow polemicists, not as like-minded ideologues, is disingenuous, at best. Simply by invoking the names 'McCarthy' and 'Buchanan' in the same sentence, you're aiming for a smear by association.
Wrong on both counts. McCarthy, Buchanan, Nixon and others have been used by the Left for generations to convince less politically involved Americans that conservatives are something to fear. In my opinion, Coulter reinforces those stereotypes. If you (and others) don't understand this point, too bad.
As for Rush, you said, "no one, right or left, has ever accused him of gentility or civility when dealing with liberals." Neither did I. (His "feminazi" shtick is a case in point.) However, I prefer his style to hers. Where she comes off as caustic, angry, even bitter, he usually keeps a tone of good humor about him.
Oh, and by the way, I don't agree with this statement of yours whatsoever: "...the only way for a conservative to get the point across is the big blunt stick." How did Ronald Reagan manage to get elected twice and change American politics with his sweet, good-natured, humorous approach?
As the saying goes, politics ain't beanbag, but it also doesn't have to be slash and burn either.
I am so glad you posted that. This hack wouldn't know Joe McCarthy from Joe Stalin. Probably a graduate of the "publik skools."
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