Posted on 03/07/2007 6:28:29 AM PST by MadIvan
In the run-up to the fateful election of 2008, conservatives face a clear-cut choice: we can rebuild our movement as a broad-ranging, mainstream coalition and restore our governing majority, or else settle for a semi-permanent role as angry, doom-speaking complainers on the fringes of American politics and culture.
We can either invite doubters and moderates to join with us in new efforts to affirm American values, or we can push them away because they fail to measure up to our own standards of indignation and ideological purity.
In short, we must choose between addition and subtraction: either building our cause by adding to our numbers or destroying it by discouraging all but the fiercest ideologues.
No political party or faction has ever thrived based on purges and insults and internal warfare, but too many activists on the right seem determined to reduce the conservative cause to self-righteous irrelevance.
The most recent outrage involving Ann Coulter provides a revealing example of the self-destructive tendencies of some dedicated partisans on the right. Addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., the best-selling author and glamorous Time magazine cover girl declared: “I was going to have a few comments about the other Democratic candidate for President, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot’ so I’m kind of at an impasse. I can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Some members of the audience gasped as she deployed the forbidden slur, but many others laughed and applauded. Naturally, Democratic Chair Howard Dean and many others pounced on the incident as another example of conservative viciousness and bigotry, demanding that all Republican Presidential candidates dissociate themselves from Coulter’s comments.
This challenge creates a miserable dilemma for every GOP contender. If the candidate ignores the controversy, he looks gutless and paralyzed in the face of obviously inappropriate and over-the-top insults. If he condemns Coulter, he looks like he’s wimping out to the liberal establishment and offends right-wing true believers who feel instinctively protective of Ann the Outrageous. Any comment by a presidential candidate also refocuses the national conversation on the absurd and unacceptable suggestion that John Edwards is secretly gay.
To paraphrase the old line attributed to Talleyrand: this smear amounts to worse than a crime, it is a blunder. John Edwards deserves contempt and derision on many counts, and I go after him (regularly) on my radio show for his extreme left wing positions on foreign policy and health care, his shameless opportunism, even his long history as a fabulously wealthy and floridly hypocritical ambulance-chasing attorney. Ann Coulter could have found plenty to say about the former North Carolina Senator without invoking the dreaded f-word (all right, the other dreaded f-word).
In fact, Edwards has been a visibly loyal husband to Elizabeth, his wife of more than 29 years, who’s currently battling breast cancer. Together, they’ve brought five children into the world, including a son who died in a tragic traffic accident at age 16. Drawing attention to Edwards’ personal life and away from his policies only helps Edwards and harms conservatives.
In other words, the lame attempt to question the Senator’s sexual orientation is precisely the wrong attack, and Coulter herself is most certainly the wrong attacker. If this issue continues to attract attention, indignant liberals will no doubt point out that the devoted family man from North Carolina exemplifies traditional values far more notably than the mini-skirted, never-married provocateur from the right.
Personally, I like and admire Ann Coulter, and I’ve always defended her in the past – even when liberals gleefully quoted out-of-context from her recent bestseller “Godless” to make it sound as if she suggested that 9/11 widows wanted their own husbands to die and celebrated their fiery deaths. Her caustic humor often upstages her serious and substantive political points, as did the notorious headline “They Shot the Wrong Lincoln” appended to her column attacking her fellow Republican, Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee. That one opinion piece didn’t doom Chafee’s re-election bid, but movement conservatives like Coulter and many others expressed the desire for his defeat—a loss that insured the Democrats’ one-vote margin in the Senate.
Reasonable people can disagree about the wisdom of concentrating fire on a fellow Republican (even a liberal GOP’er like Linc Chafee) but there can be no argument about the purely destructive impact of Coulter’s sneering slur against Edwards. How could such a nasty shot possibly assist the conservative cause? Which potential Republican supporters would feel motivated or mobilized by her casual use of the term “faggot”? How could a smart woman expect anything other than a disgusted and negative response for her implication that a long-married father of five deserved outing as a homosexual?
The Coulter commentary (and the subsequent applause) reinforced the public image of conservatives as unreasonably hostile to gay people in general, not just opposed to the dubious particulars of the so-called “gay rights” agenda. In fact, exit polls showed that self-identified gay people made up 4% of the total electorate in the incomparably close election of 2000, and nearly one third of those homosexual voters cast their ballots for George W. Bush. In other words, more than a million gay citizens voted for Bush-Cheney, in a race that ultimately turned on a mere 527 votes in Florida, and a national margin in the popular vote of just 537,000 for Gore.
What sense does it make for a featured speaker at a conservative conference to deliver gratuitous insult and offense to that stalwart minority of homosexuals who still choose to cast their lot with Republicans, despite the party’s impassioned (and appropriate) opposition to gay marriage?
By the same token, how does it help for one of the nation’s highest profile conservative talk hosts to use his broadcast on the Martin Luther King holiday to insult the fallen hero as unworthy of federal commemoration? Yes, the overwhelming majority of African-Americans votes incurably Democratic, but in 2004, Bush still drew well over a million-and-a-half black votes. It doesn’t help these courageous dissenters from politically correct orthodoxy if loud voices on the right make them wonder whether Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean are right about the racism of Republicans.
Finally, the most serious challenge of all involves the rapidly growing and increasingly prosperous Latino communities. Were it not for his competitive showing among Hispanics (with some 35% of their votes in 2000, and above 40% in 2004), Bush wouldn’t even have come close to victory, either time.
Meanwhile, elements of the President’s party seem perversely determined to make sure that no future Republican repeats this success with the nation’s fastest growing minority group. Imagine how naturalized Hispanic citizens, or even native-born Latinos might feel, at the suggestion that their cousins amount to an “invading army” bent on destroying America, or the common equation of terrorists (who have all been legal U.S. entrants by the way) and those who enter the country to care for our children and mow our lawns. Anti-immigrant rhetoric (which increasingly dispenses with any distinction between legal and illegal arrivals) provoked a disastrous shift of Latino voters away from the GOP in 2006. If Republicans continue to draw just 20% of Hispanic votes they will never regain control of Congress and stand scant chance of retaining the White House. Nativist posturing (like Congressman Tom Tancredo’s obnoxious slogan, “America Is Full”) may play well with some elements of the conservative base but it could easily doom Republicans to permanent minority status.
Obviously, the future of the conservative movement and of the Republic itself requires GOP recruitment of more Latinos, Blacks and gays, and anything that stands in the way of such participation fatally undermines the party’s future.
The situation hardly requires retreat and retrenchment on key issues of principle in the vague hope of winning more minority support.
Republicans don’t need to drop our implacable opposition to gay marriage in order reach out to gays.
We don’t need to reverse our criticism of race-based quotas in order to bring more black involvement in the party.
And we certainly don’t need to endorse automatic amnesty or “open borders” as a way to connect with Latino voters – but we might want to avoid widespread public advertising for games like “Find the Illegal Immigrant” (devised by a College Republicans chapter in New York City) or giving undeserved respect to crackpot fringe groups like the scandal-tainted “Minute Man Civil Defense Corps.”.
On all the important issues, it’s not substance that needs to change, it’s style.
Republicans need to return to the open, expansive conservatism of Ronald Reagan: more concerned with bringing in newcomers than driving out dissenters, more committed to winning elections than to scoring points in arguments, more determined to steer the government in the right direction than to sit at the sidelines carping about inevitable decline. We should make skeptics feel welcome as Republicans and urge them to fight the issues inside the party where they can have the most impact.
Every major event, every potential speaker, every resolution, every specific approach, deserves evaluation in terms of effectiveness in party building—winning new adherents to the cause.
We should ask a crucial question before we speak or act: will this draw people to conservative ideas and ideals, or will it serve to turn them off and push them away?
It’s not a matter of pandering; it’s an expression of practical politics. At this crucial juncture, conservatives need to recall the obvious point that you strengthen your cause most effectively when you’re appealing, not appalling.
What are you, the rainman?
I'd have to agree with the premises of your questions to answer them the way you want. I'd have thought by now it would have understood I'm not going to play by rules you wrote.
You can call me anything you'd like. I'd have to have some sort of regard for your opinion for it to matter to me.
As it is, I'm thoroughly convinced yours is an inferior intellect.
I'm sorry, are you actually comparing immigration reform and airport security to exercising enough restraint to not call someone a faggot in front of a microphone?
So who is to say what positions or even words can be allowed to be spoken by conservatives -- even conservative pundits who are making a joke?
Show me on this thread where I or anybody else called for anyone to be censored or for Ann Coulter to stop speaking.
Let's check your posting history here, and see if you shouldn't be banned from FR, drummed out of the conservative movement and shunned by conservatives everywhere.
Yes, truly I'm terrified. Physician heal thyself. You treat me like I'm deciding what can and can't be said (horse hockey, I am saying what I think will help our movement) and then you promptly decide what standard I have to meet in order to say something.
Check into my posting history all you want. Bring whatever you want to the mods and try to get me banned and never realize you're being a spectacular hypocrite. Then ask yourself how many news stories have been done about my FR posts. (Here's a hint: It's the number between 1 and -1.)
BTW, I noticed that you didn't have anything to say about Reagan...and I'm not even remotely surprised.
Look into the rate of clinical depression among those who are terminal and suffering from pain, and you'll change your mind.
Very much my own position. What I find objectionable is the attempt to "shame" those that don't celebrate corrosive and nasty behavior.
There's no doubt, oral sex is very popular. It's just that I wash my hands after urination for a reason...oral sex kind of defeats that purpose, and I see nothing wrong with not ignoring those particular facts.
Why? I thought calling people names proved intellectual superiority?
What in my previous two posts didn't you understand? Move on.
You might want to find another pastime besides thinking...you're not very good at it.
I like what you are trying to do and you make good points.
HOWEVER, 1) Ann was there for entertainment, which she did, and 2) Personlly, I would pick #5. Kick him in the crotch and throw him in a dicth.
Your surrender is accepted.
You, sir, are wise and your post gave me a good laugh...but don't let the Secret Service see it! :-)
Fortunately, your assessment of me as a poor thinker is just as accurate as your assessment that I am a coward because I support advancing conservative ideas.
Yup. I suspect Mrs. Medved doesn't clean her own house.
So, you're wrong, and I'm right.
I hope you feel better now. I'm sure you have better things to do on a Friday night than argue about Ann with other Freepers. I know I do.
"Show me on this thread where I or anybody else called for anyone to be censored or for Ann Coulter to stop speaking."
Did you even read the article, or were you in such a hurry to express your highly refined moral outrage that you just skipped it?
You and others claimed to be agreeing with Medved. Here is what was the point of his typically nervous Nelly, panzy-fied soporific piece:
"Every major event, every potential speaker, every resolution, every specific approach, deserves evaluation in terms of effectiveness in party building—winning new adherents to the cause.
We should ask a crucial question before we speak or act: will this draw people to conservative ideas and ideals, or will it serve to turn them off and push them away?"
Sounds like Medved is calling for Coulter to be dis-invited from any place where she may reflect poorly upon the sacred conservative movement. (Which Medved seems to feel should be dedicated to amnesty and gay-marriage, for starters.)
Well that would be anywhere Coulter appears. So he is effectively calling for her to be silenced. And you are in agreement with him. (If you read the piece.)
And guess what? CPAC is not a GOP event. It is a private event. It is attended by the most conservative of the conservatives. It is attended by a lot of College Republicans, who are sick and tired of the defeatist pieties of people like Michael Medved. And who can enjoy a little humor along the way.
Guess what else? Taping at CPAC is prohibited. Whoever taped Coulter's joke (and her backstage meeting with Romney) probably had an agenda to start with. They were probably in the employ of Mr. Soros who has been targeting Ms. Coulter for years.
This is barely one step up from somehow tape-recording Coulter talking to some friends at dinner or out on the street, and then running to MSNBC and the rest of the media with the saucy things she said.
And will you please stop it with the Reagan comparisons.
For crying out loud, Reagan caught holy hell for a lot of the things he said. Including his jokes, such as "the bombing begins in five minutes."
He was called all the things that Coulter is called today, and then some. Probably even by people like you.
And, for the hundredth time, Coulter is no Reagan. (Though he was a fan of hers.) She is not the President of the United States. She is not even a politician.
She is just a pundit who happens to be the biggest conservative draw across the nation, including CPAC, year in and year out. She makes politically incorrect jokes. She has done so for going on ten years at CPAC. They know it, the world knows it. Apparently you haven't quite heard that yet.
And, despite her impious humore, Ann Coulter has somehow brought more people, young, old, gay, and black and any other stripe into the conservative movemen than any other person active today -- with the possible exception of Rush Limbaugh. (Who himself has said and even done some questionable things.)
I have never run into anybody who told be they became a conservative because of listening to Michael Medved. Or even Mr. Silverback.
Get the hell over your damn self.
"Guess what else? Taping at CPAC is prohibited."
And before I get jumped on, the one exception is C-SPAN, who has never in the ten years she has appeared at CPAC, carried any of Ms. Coulter's speeches.
How many times do I have to tell you?
You're not a coward for advancing conservative ideas; you're a coward for trying to trying to browbeat conservatives into letting you out of opposing liberals.
I think Coulter made a stupid mistake in using an inappropriate schoolyard taunt. I don't care if she was alluding to some Hollywood moron's comments (and wedging that allusion in awkwardly). Conservatives can draw down plenty of lightning from the media in a way that illuminates their positions and makes people face hard truths. This slip of her lip only gave the media an excuse to ignore anything of substance.
She is often insightful but is often a loose cannon.
Call 'im a faggot. And since he's some kinda perfesser feller, he probly is.
Now, if someone you generally like should say "faggot" should you:
A. Never speak to him again
B. Make him grovel apologetically then never speak to him again.
C. Never speak to him again and make sure nobody else speaks to him again.
D. Understand that calling someone a faggot is by far the worst thing anyone can ever do -- even worse than wishing terrorists killed the vice president or sending an innocent man to jail, and never speak to that person again.
Medved is calm, reasonable and (usually) polite (I do recall a spat he had with Michell Malkin when they were both relative unknowns in Seattle that was different). He doesn't usually make comments like this unless it really bothers him.
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