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Shorthand can be dangerous. You want to call Bill Clinton an adulterous man fine. But so is Henry Hyde and Newt Gingrich. You want to call Ted Kennedy a drunk, but then so was Joe McCarthy.

Shorthand insults do not elevate the discussion. I oppose policies, not personalities. Unless one believes that Jimmy Carter should be running things due to his strong personal character, I really think we need to get off the politics of personal destruction, because we are going to get some really lame Carter like people running the world.

How about socialism is wrong. Affirmative action is wrong. Even if I have smoked a joint, cheated, swore or did anything else improper, it does not change the fact that socialism is wrong. If you have lived as pure as the driven snow, but still advocate bad policy, you are still wrong.

That is my point I guess. Coulter goes for the zingers instinctually and it can become a battle of name calling. Those who want no change win in that battle. If people remember first that you called Kennedy an adulterous drunk, and remember no more, you have lost. If they know first that Kennedy is screwing up our educational system and trying to fiddle with health care, you win in the long run.

You want to call Ted Kennedy a drunk, but then so was Joe McCarthy.

But Fat Ted is also a homicidal coward. He is a good swimmer, though.

Sullivan says these are "flights of fancy," which in my book means he strongly implies that they are untrue. Maureen Dowd typically indulges in flights of fancy. She sits in her office and simply imagining what the "Bushies" are doing and saying in the White House. Dowd invents conversations, invents thoughts, invents all sorts of things that have no connection with factual reality. That's what I call "flights of fancy."

Kennedy is a well-known drunk and a well-known adulterer. He made no great effort to hide either of these weaknesses. He even went so far as effectually to murder one of the young women he had an affair with and try to cover it up. Clinton did have a Christmas tree in the White House during his first term that was decorated with bongs--and also with condoms. Not a flight of fancy but a reported--though of course not widely reported--fact.

That is my point I guess. Coulter goes for the zingers instinctually and it can become a battle of name calling. Those who want no change win in that battle. If people remember first that you called Kennedy an adulterous drunk, and remember no more, you have lost. If they know first that Kennedy is screwing up our educational system and trying to fiddle with health care, you win in the long run.

Well, I actually don't have a problem with Kennedy being described as an adulterous drunk, it's just that it's already been done years before by PJ O'Rourke in a fashion that is actually well written and hilariously funny, unlike Coulter.

Shorthand insults do not elevate the discussion. I oppose policies, not personalities. Unless one believes that Jimmy Carter should be running things due to his strong personal character, I really think we need to get off the politics of personal destruction, because we are going to get some really lame Carter like people running the world.

I think you have a good point. How often do we complain about liberals tossing around adjectives like racist, homophobic, bigoted, class-biased, moron while at the same time cheering when people like Coulter go and do the same with words like treason, liar, moron.

Sullivan goes too far (and he really isn't one to complain when it comes to his rhetoric against people who refuse to say that unnatural behavior is OK) in denouncing Coulter.

There is definitely a place for Coulter in the right's public face but to say that she convinces people is just not true. I have given her book Slander to relatively nonpolitical conservatives who didn't like it because of all the invective she's always using.

Sometimes, I get the impression that she writes as hyperbolically as she does as part of an act. That said, she is a great TV presense because she usually tones down her words and is a quick wit. Ann Coulter is a good defender of conservative causes but she's never said anything original that I've seen. There's a lot better analysts on this forum, IMHO.

How about socialism is wrong. Affirmative action is wrong. Even if I have smoked a joint, cheated, swore or did anything else improper, it does not change the fact that socialism is wrong. If you have lived as pure as the driven snow, but still advocate bad policy, you are still wrong.

Well said.

If they know first that Kennedy is screwing up our educational system and trying to fiddle with health care, you win in the long run.

They'll find out about that from the liberal media just after they find out that Bill and Hillary's pal Margaret Milner-Richardson was auditing their political enemies during the Clinton administration.

Which is to say - never.

Boy, you sure talk a lot of Clinton on this forum.