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Ann Coulter Hurts the Cause
The American Thinker ^ | 6 15 06 | J.R. Dunn

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 ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: anncoulter; annhaters; coulter; hasntreadthebookyet; jealous; jrdumb; jrdunn; ronaldreagan; rushlimbaugh; squishymiddle
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To: Ichneumon
Oh please.

What? You gonna vote for Howard Dean because I called you folks Conservopussies?

Sack up, will ya?

Ann Coulter has simply sounded the alarm that the gloves are off. If you don't want to be in the fight, get in back with the women and children and keep quiet.

Anyone we would lose through Coulter's language, probably think Lincoln Chaffee is the ideal man.
241 posted on 06/15/2006 5:51:38 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: Pukin Dog
Greetings Puking Dog:

I am coining a new catchword based on this article.

"Conservopussy" - A Conservative who is afraid to attack Liberals on the basis that Liberals might find something in the attack to complain about.

My nomination for post of the year.

Thanks,
OLA

242 posted on 06/15/2006 5:52:03 PM PDT by OneLoyalAmerican (Even if your mother says she loves you, check it out.)
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Comment #243 Removed by Moderator

To: Jorge
Jorge, are you aware that in the Dictionary, 'enjoy' means: to benefit from..

Don't blame Coulter if you didn't catch her meaning. You want to be niggardly with those kinds of assumptions.

244 posted on 06/15/2006 5:54:02 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: Jorge

I don't know about "undoing." Another way to look at it is that she just ran her course. Reaching the end of a natural media life cycle.

Note also, the number of readers it takes to reach #1 on the bestseller lists is relatively small in modern media terms. Figure low six figures. So that's about 1/50th of the people who watch morning network television shows. Less than the number of people who watch re-runs of the Simpson's.


245 posted on 06/15/2006 5:54:13 PM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: Kitten Festival; All
Not to mention providing Madame Hillary with an opportunity to pose as, of all things, the defender of civility.

J.R. Dunn
Ann Coulter Hurts the Cause
June 15th, 2006

Worse, telling hillary to 'have a chat with her husband' about the Broaddrick rape, as Ann did, perpetuates the myth of missus clinton's 'victimhood' (even as it all but renders inert Coulter's courageous act of focusing the world's attention on the rape).

This is precisely what we do NOT want to do: Victimhood is what makes missus clinton electable.

Coulter should have focused instead on missus clinton's culpability in the rapes and predations.

see:

HILLARY + THE CLINTON RAPE OF JUANITA BROADDRICK:
WAS ANN COULTER TOO TIMID?


I'LL SEE ANN COULTER'S 'BILL CLINTON RAPE CHARGE' AND RAISE HER 'ONE HILLARY CLINTON'

Sorry to say, Ann Coulter's tactical thinking is as questionable as her taste.


246 posted on 06/15/2006 5:55:39 PM PDT by Mia T (Stop Clintons' Undermining Machinations (The acronym is the message.))
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To: Wolfstar

You wrote, "...Says all I need to know about you."

Sour grapes, sport. Next time, don't enter a battle of wits unarmed.


247 posted on 06/15/2006 5:57:39 PM PDT by Rembrandt_fan
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To: Pukin Dog
From reading a fair portion of this thread, I'm rather surprised at the number of people that claim to be conservative, and yet feel the need to distance themselves from one of the few people on the right that actually has a spine.

Ann Coulter's words are strong. She makes her points, sometimes with a dry sarcasm or bluntness that others don't like. But she's one of the few that will stand up to the left without retreating into the PC mode that is so common among a good portion of Republicans these days. And frankly, her writings are mild compared to my thoughts concerning liberals these days.

I really don't care if some dislike her style, but trying to force distance between conservatism and Ann Coulter is a decidedly cowardly political move. PC is a compromise that is too large to accept. We need 10 more Ann Coulters IMHO.

248 posted on 06/15/2006 5:59:46 PM PDT by meyer (A vote for amnesty is a vote against America.)
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To: meyer

She's writing about politics. The idea behind American politics isn't about weeding out the wishy-washy or the non-true believers. The one over-riding concept is to get as many votes as you possibly can so your guy/gal wins the election.

If Coulter is held up as a test to weed out the fence sitters or alienates moderates then she's doing conservatives harm by sending votes to the other side.


249 posted on 06/15/2006 6:05:30 PM PDT by durasell (!)
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To: meyer
There was a time, around 1978-79 where almost half of all people who called themselves Conservatives, were certain that a Ronald Wilson Reagan was a crazy man. Democrats were hoping beyond hope that this crazy-wacko-ultra-rightwinger would win the Republican nomination, because he was just too off the charts to beat that sweet little peanut farmer from Georgia.

I rest my case.
250 posted on 06/15/2006 6:05:38 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: Pukin Dog

Just out of curiousity...

When you were a naval aviator, did you find jokes about "fraggings" (or whatever the naval equivalent would be) to be funny?


251 posted on 06/15/2006 6:06:57 PM PDT by BeHoldAPaleHorse ( ~()):~)>)
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To: Pukin Dog
Jorge, are you aware that in the Dictionary, 'enjoy' means: to benefit from.. Don't blame Coulter if you didn't catch her meaning. You want to be niggardly with those kinds of assumptions.

Do you actually think the public feels obligated to consider some subtle secondary definition of the word "enjoy" in order to justify Ann Coulter's statement?

You're kidding right?

Let's get real here.

When you make a public statement, you should think ahead as to what the general public interpretation of it will be.

It's really futile to now say you meant "enjoy" in a way hardly anyone uses it. Not to mention stupid.

252 posted on 06/15/2006 6:08:33 PM PDT by Jorge
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To: Reactionary

Such as the boys at NRO. They are green with envy at the attention that Coulter is getting.


253 posted on 06/15/2006 6:12:57 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Funny, no.

Meaningless, yes.

Throughout military history, there have been decisions made by leaders that wasted human lives. People like McNamara, Pat Schroeder and others come to mind. 99.9% of the time, people talking about Fraggings were less than serious. Those who were not, rarely survived the first expression of such a desire.

Context is everything when discussing that kind of subject. I think your question is best posed to a peer of Coulter.
254 posted on 06/15/2006 6:13:06 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: Kitten Festival
I agree with Dunn. Here's what I posted on another thread earlier this week:

I am sorry, folks. I agree with Coulter's substance 85% of the time, but I can't agree that there is a net gain in the way she deliberately taunts to draw leftist fire to demonstrate how easy it is to make them violate their own principles.

Take her Jersey Girls statement in the book. I was in a bookstore yesterday and read it in context, and Matt Lauer did a serviceable job blowing it out of proportion. Coulter's remark about the JG's 'enjoying' their husbands deaths was part of a much larger point. She spent several pages discussing the kid glove treatment of the likes of 9/11 widow Kristin Breitweiser -- who blamed Bush Administration figures for the deaths of that day repeatedly to the exclusion of the terrorists -- as opposed to Debra Burlingame, who also organized surviving family members for media fights, but was marginalized and insulted by the New York Times editorial page when she fiercely fought against the placing of a pan-cultural Blame America First museum on the Ground Zero grave of her husband.

There is no doubt that Coulter has a valid point: There is a liberal tendency to send authentically tragic but self-serving, intellectually dishonest spokespersons like Breitweiser, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg out before cameras and microphones, hoping they will inspire in fence-sitting observers their same distrust of everyone and everything right of center. But Dorothy Rabinowitz, an excellent Wall Street Journal writer who [in years previous] broke the major print media embargo on Juanita Broaddrick's allegation of rape against Bill Clinton, wrote a lengthy treatise on the Jersey Girls that made the same point, but didn't come close to suggesting that they were somehow delighted they had traded their spouses for celebrity.

Rabinowitz, however, wasn't invited on Today or put on the cover of Time. Why not? IMHO, because the left-leaners who run those outlets didn't see any benefit in promoting someone whose opposing view did nothing but make sense. No, they needed someone who would be seen not as a counterbalance, but as an wild-eyed, scattershot display of the reasons why nobody but they in the MSM should be taken seriously. Enter Ann.

Haven't some of you Coulter Cheerleaders wondered why she gets more ink and face time than conservative females like Mona Charen, a pre-Reagan revolution columnist whose book Useful Idiots was everything Treason should have been, or Laura Ingraham, former CBS News reporter and nationally syndicated talk show host? I believe it is because Coulter can be counted on to deliver a foot in the mouth spew that makes the less attentive say, "If you have to be that cruel/silly/tactless to be a conservative, I don't want to be one."

I speak from experience regarding that idea. Before the age of Rush, the only guys I read, heard or saw representing conservatism on a regular basis were the caustic columnist Jeffrey White, John Lofton, and Wally George/Morton Downey Jr. (same act, different coasts). Eventually, the more I learned, the more rightward I drifted -- no thanks to those guys.


Just to show I am an equal opportunity critic, here's what I posted on the Raw Story forum about a Kerry spokesman calling Karl Rove "porcine";

Well, isn't this amusing? All the people who are slamming Ann Coulter for her rude remarks about a few 9/11 widows (not ALL, as some Democrats and editorialists would have you believe) have revealed themselves to be just as rude...and foolish.

Coulter is dead right about the so-called Jersey Girls, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, et al and the way they were promoted in the MSM as bulletproof critics of the right. But Coulter seems to think that she shouldn't just state facts; she also needs to piss off as many opponents as possible. To many of us who concur in principle with Coulter's opinions, her brashness is counterproductive, because what what remains after hearing or reading Coulter is her fury, and not her substance. Fury may sell books for Ann; it doesn't do much for those of us in her wake, who must qualify our agreement with her underlying points by saying we won't go as far as she does.

So now David Wade, Kerry flack, couldn't counter Rove's remarks about Democrats cutting and running without getting in a dig at his weight. Jeez Louise, Rove "porcine?" One wonders what a guy who works for the junior senator in Massachusetts thinks of the Commonwealth's senior senator, Ted Kennedy, whose physical largesse is only exceeded by his monetary largesse.

Don't you see what's happened here? Look at the headline of this piece. What's the point? That non-veteran Rove has no business calling out the likes of medal-winners Murtha and Kerry? Nope, it's that Mr. Kerry spokesmouth called Karl Rove a porker (not to mention the sour grape-flavored "cellmates" remark). By inflaming his rhetoric too much, the main point has been lost.

Some of you applaud this, and seem to think that this is the path to victory for the Democrats; that personal insults and profane rants create the passion necessary to get the vote out. Think again. As Ann Coulter knows, that's a great strategy for topping the NYT bestseller list. As Karl Rove knows, it's a lousy strategy for winning elections.

L.N. Smithee | Homepage | 06.14.06 - 7:24 am | #


For that comment, I was called a "paid c*nt" by the next liberal poster. I am flattered he thinks I am a professional writer.
255 posted on 06/15/2006 6:14:41 PM PDT by L.N. Smithee (New popular baby names for daughters of liberals: Fallujah, Haditha, Murtha)
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To: Kitten Festival

Causing more harm than good? NO WAY! The writter did not see her on the Tonight Show last night. Mostly cheers - and her book is #1 on the New York Times.

Liberals are so focused on her comments on the Jersey Girls (which is a tiny portion of one chapter) that they are completly ignoring the title and premise of the book, in that they are GODLESS, and that Liberalizm is their religion. By not condeming the title, I assume they must believe it true.


256 posted on 06/15/2006 6:15:34 PM PDT by NavyCanDo
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To: Wolfstar

Competition. Competitive spirit.

It oozes from your posts.

That's cool.

You be all you can be.


257 posted on 06/15/2006 6:15:48 PM PDT by samtheman
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To: Reactionary
Oh my nabed by the speeling polise

How about she looks like a strumpet
258 posted on 06/15/2006 6:16:29 PM PDT by MilspecRob (Most people don't act stupid, they really are.)
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To: Jorge
You are calling it STUPID to expect literacy from people?
I'm sure you want to retract, right? Subtle secondary definitions are STILL definitions. Don't blame Coulter for your lack of knowledge. If the definition is real, and the word is real, then YOU should get real.

General public interpretation, my ass.

If the General public thinks Conservatives are knuckle dragging idiots, should we just go with that?

Coulter's statement needs no justification, because it is a true statement. You don't have to like her style.
259 posted on 06/15/2006 6:17:25 PM PDT by Pukin Dog (Sans Reproache)
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To: MilspecRob

How about she looks like a strumpet




I took strumpet lessons when I was young...


260 posted on 06/15/2006 6:17:32 PM PDT by durasell (!)
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