No, she is not “just” putting on a performance. She believes in the substance of what she says, but the personal attacks and insults are all based on some grain of truth and then, intentionally, taken to a hyperbolic extreme. None of you seem to understand that. Maybe if she was left-wing you would.
I would really appreciate it if you would refrain from such egregious insults to horses, thankyouverymuch.
So, where exactly is the “seed of truth” in “All liberals are traitors”?
I quite understand, but any other phrase remotely applicable would insult dogs, or pigs, or orifices that I regard with reverence. Did the best I could.
As a (hopefully) amusing aside, someone once asked William F. Buckley why he appeared so often in Playboy, given his conservative sensibilities and Playboy’s liberal ones. He replied it was the only way he had of communicating with his son.
Faintly my ass. From her writing I’d expect her to have a pulsing aura around her like a freaking Diablo 2 paladin or something. :dubious:
You know very well, that if I answer that, the thread will quickly get derailed into an ultimately stupid right vs. left argument.
Let it instead be said that their is a grain (a “grain” mind you) of truth to that from a right-wing perspective.
A skewed, demented, head trauma victim right wing perspective.
I’d forgotten that. William F. never got the credit for humor he deserves.
Muad’Dib, I don’t think your characterization of Ann Coulter is accurate. The big idea that made her famous in the first place back when she was “serious” was that we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. What part of this did she actually believe? That we should do exactly that? That we should do it but just a few at a time? Maybe just a couple? Perhaps we should just kidnap a couple of Muslims and force them to attend a few revival meetings. There’s just no way to make this thought small enough to not be ridiculous and repulsive. Same with the personal attacks. Woman Democrats are ugly and smell bad? The only apparent “grain of truth” in that is that some are, and that doesn’t make sense as a joke or an argument unless you assume all Republicans are attractive (okay, even then it’s neither funny nor cogent, but bear with me). There’s a difference between hyperbole and slander. To say “liberals want to take away our guns” is hyperbole. It starts with a grain of truth, “many liberals want to restrict some 2nd Amendment freedoms” and expands it. It sees more of something than is there and exaggerates the effect. It is literally inaccurate, but legitimate hyperbole. But let’s take one of Ann’s favorite bits. Grain of truth: Max Cleland was badly injured in Vietnam. Ann’s version: Cleland blew himself up drunkenly playing with a grenade. This view does not expand what is there, nor exaggerate its effect (he’s a paraplegic in both cases). What it does is to introduce a damning fiction (“drunkenly playing with a grenade”) to besmirch the target. Not hyperbole. Slander. To call this type of construction humor is analogous to calling arson a practical joke.
I like to think I understand humor, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a decent grasp of rhetoric. At least enough to recognize that “Maybe if she was left wing you would” is twaddle not worth a response.
Last, “truth” doesn’t have a perspective. As someone said, everybody’s entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own set of facts.
Anyone want to start a band?
(visual aesthetic restrictions apply)
Let it *instead * be said that your insistence that there is even a “grain of truth” to that assertion *is * an ultimately stupid right vs. left argument. Don’t give yourself airs.
You imply that she said we should invade all Muslim countries, or invade countries just because they are Muslim. This isn’t the case. When she said the “invade them, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” quote she was referring to the countries responsible for 9/11. Also, in the following year, the first two points of Coulter’s plan are exactly what the US did. Invade Afganistan, kill all leaders of Al Queda and the Taliban.
The quote is still outragous, IMHO, because of the whole “convert them to Christianity” line. But, you shouldn’t need to make it seem worse than it is by mis-interpreting it.
Bravo, Elvis! You bring it up in the first place. Muad’Dib refuses to get in the mud with you and turn the thread into a trainwreck. Then, you manage to somehow blame him for starting the “ultimately stupid right vs. left argument” that you just started. Neat trick.
Umm…which countries were those again?
-Joe
Yes, they sure got all those Al Quaeda leaders like Mullah Omar and OBL.
Well, what about the quagga? Which has the added attraction of being extinct.
The thing is, Brian Gallagher is right. . .
Brian Gallagher, editor of USA TODAY’s editorial page, said of Coulter: “We had a disagreement over editing. We worked diligently to resolve the differences and couldn’t, so we decided to part ways.” He said the column had “basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable.”
Snippets of Coulter. My comments in bold.
Paragraph 1: he traditional greeting at the Democratic National Convention is, “Where do you teach?” On rare occasions, the greeting is modified to, “Where does your husband teach?” or “Where does your gay lover teach?” (Democrats could save a lot of money by holding the Democratic National Convention and the National Education Association Convention at the same time.)
Does this make any sense to anyone? “Where do you teach?” Is this some kind of slam? I have no idea what she’s getting at.
P2: The Democrats keep loudly proclaiming that Republicans represent only extremely white rich people, while the Democrats represent all Americans. (Bar bet: Among the four major candidates for president and vice president this year, who has the smallest net worth? Answer: George Bush.)
We’ve moved on from “where do you teach?” to the follow-up that the republicans don’t represent the rich because Bush has less money than Kerry? Besides being illogical, it doesn’t follow from P1
P3: If the Democrats are a fair cross-section of America, then I guess we can stop worrying about class size. As a friend of mine points out, if the Democratic delegates represent America, then the teacher-student ratio in this country is, at worst, one teacher for every three students. And since the teachers unions don’t include private or parochial school teachers, we’re looking at a teacher-student ratio of about one teacher for every one student.
Teacher-student ratio? Where did this come from. Just what is the logic in this statement: If the Democrats are a fair cross-section of America, then I guess we can stop worrying about class size. What the hell does that mean? Is it some kind of connection with P1?
P4: Democrats are representative of the nation only if the nation we’re talking about is Brazil. For Democrats, there is only the maid and millionaires. There are no Americans in the middle. To the extent Democrats are forced to recognize working-class white men, they call them “fascists.”
Utter nonsense. Really. It’s a non-sequitur followed by a lie.
P5: To thunderous applause here in the American Taliban, billionaire Teresa Heinz Kerry said she looks forward to a day when “women who have earned the right to be opinionated will be called smart and informed – just as men are.” It’s no wonder Democrats weren’t interested in liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from woman-hating Islamicist fanatics: They think real oppression of women consists of people calling Teresa “opinionated” right here in the USA.
**Completely different topic. American Taliban? No wonder Gallagher said, “basic weaknesses in clarity”. It’s not that it’s filled with insults to democrats. This pieces just jumps around topic to topic with no consistent theme or tone. It’s unfit for publication in a national newspaper, even the USA Today. It’s not op-ed because there is no consistent argument. It’s not a report or journalism because there’s no reporting on actual events. It’s just a by the book slam of the democrats that we’ve been hearing for years and sounds like it was written by a college freshman.
The rest of her essay just repeats all of these same problems. **
EddyTeddyFreddy How dare you? You don’t even have the courage to mock living animals. So, you insult a species that is no longer around to defend itself. Have you at last no decency?
Well, her brand of hyperbole is trite, childish and boring. If the tables were turned, and a left wing Ann Coulter wrote this exact article about the Republican Convention, we’d be Pitting the hell out of that, too. It’s lazy, lazy writing.
Hey, Annie, where were all the trial lawyers? I know the Democrats are totally dominated by those dastardly teachers, but I thought the trial lawyers were also out in force.
Satire? Jo momma! Swift is satire, Twain is satire, Buckley and O’Rourke qualify nicely. Coulter is sheer hatespeak, viciousness and vitriol masquerading as wit, Clarence Thomas in a dress pretending he can pass for Halle Berry.