No, they discredit themselves.
And if they accept her, uncritically, then they aren’t legitimate to my eyes.
I don’t consider Ann Coulter’s latest diatribe offensive in the same way I don’t consider Iran’s “Holocaust Cartoon Contest” offensive. I have no respect for either of them and all I hear is “blah blah blah.” I understand how others are offended.
Well, she’s certainly got people talking.
But one thing bothers me: how is describing someone as a raghead worse than describing someone as a redneck? Or a cowboy?
Valid point. She discredits groups that were previously accepting of her. Groups that CONTINUE to uncritically support her discredit themselves.
Thanks Bricker, you have again affirmed my belief that you are one of the more intellectually honest political ‘opponents’ that I debate with on the Dope.
Coulter issued a threat wrapped in racial/ethnic slurs. How is that even “roughly” the same as saying that New Orleans should stay a chocolate city?
Indeed, it is different. It would be similar if Nagin had said, “Honkey wanna take over New Orleans? That’s what we got our guns for!” If Nagin said that the one thing he regretted most was the time he had a clear shot at Bush and didn’t take it, it’d be similar to Ann’s comments.
There is no principle of the universe that says there have to be equally popular equally vile people in any two political parties. At some point, there will doubtless be a commentator more poisonous than the rest who is liberal. Right now, that’s not the case.
Daniel
That’s just as well, actually. Click www.glennbeck.com if you must, though.
Doesn’t every man? 
So would you care to redirect this pitting toward the buyers rather than a particular seller?
Nagin’s speech looked to me more like clumsy pandering to his own stereotype of what should be his natural political base in the city - the stereotype that poor blacks are racist and will respond to racist whitey-bashing with their votes. As mayor, he knows he can’t do shit without some cooperation from the city’s rich power structure in all of its whiteness, making me think it was simply calculated rather than sincere. That is by no means a defense, of course.
No, but he, and I only wish I were joking, says that homosexuality is a communist plot and that he wants to kill Michael Moore.
He’s lovely, in a piranha with ich sort of way.
It was, however, one of those apologies that isn’t really an apology.
Not, “I’m sorry for what I said,” but “I’m sorry that you misinterpreted me.”
It’s disparaging their religion. Along the lines of calling Catholics Papists.
You’ll have to start by explaining to me how “raghead” is remotely the same as “cowboy.”
Shrug. So he’s a dick. He’s still not a dick using racist terms in a call-to-violence context. (And yes, I understand that she’s ostensibly only calling for killing terrorists. It’s still extremely loathesome to do so in the way that she does, by characterizing the terrorists along broad racial and religious characteristics).
Daniel
Elvis, I don’t see the necessity for pitting Coulter-loving conservatives instead of Coulter herself. It’s not as though Coulter deserves no blame for what she says, even if some conservatives also deserve blame for supporting her.
Intrinsically, it isn’t, in the sense that the phrase “a member of an ethnic group who wear pieces of cloth on the head as protection from the sun” isn’t intrinsically any more offensive than the phrase “a member of a socioeconomic group who get sunburned necks from outdoor physical labor” or “a professional equestrian cattle herder”.
But offensiveness is not defined solely by the literal meaning of the terms involved. Simply in terms of accepted usage, it is more offensive to call somebody a “raghead” than a “cowboy”. Just as it’s more offensive to call somebody a “Yid” (literally meaning only a “speaker of Yiddish”) than to call somebody “Pennsylvania Dutch” (literally meaning only a Pennsylvania speaker of a German (“Deutsch”) dialect).
It was, however, one of those retractions that really is a retraction:
In any case, we’ve never seen even that level of “apologizing” from Coulter for her own outrageously offensive remarks, so we’re still a long way from being able to compare her to somebody like Nagin.
Because, in short, they’re why Coulter exists. She long ago identified a market and set out to fill it, in the great capitalist entrepreneurial tradition, and has been well-rewarded for it. It isn’t her fault that the market exists, it’s the fault of those who comprise the market.
We’ve already mentioned several other similar entrepreneurs looking to take over some of her market share, and they’re of course equally deserving of condemnation, but if they all suddenly disappeared would hard-righty loony conservative hate speech disappear as well? I don’t think you think so. If there’s a demand, someone will step in to supply it. The criticism should therefore be of those who *create * the demand.
Hate the game, not the player.
Well, by the same token, there’s a demand for the illegal commodity of proxy murder, but I think I’m still entitled to criticize professional hit men as well as those who hire them.
Of course you are. But not equally, and certainly not primarily.
Where’s the condemnation, btw, of the not-insane, not-so-hate-ridden faction of conservatives that find the rabid dogs politically useful, and therefore tolerate (and perhaps even encourage) them?
One cannot become a prominent crackpot, even a disingenuous one, without an audience for one’s crackpottery. Every group of disaffected, disconnected malcontents finds their Lyndon LaRouche sooner or later. I think it’s pretty clear that Coulter doesn’t care whether or not the shit she spews makes logical sense or is an accurate reflection of her own beliefs; she’s discovered that there’s big money in serving up xenophobic venom for the consumption of the right’s drooling knuckledraggers.
The disgusting thing about the Coulter phenomenon is not Coulter herself, or what she writes or says. It’s basic supply and demand: she simply fills a need. If she didn’t provide it, somebody else would do it, and indeed, they do. Limbaugh’s probably too much of an institution, and has become comfortable in his niche; Savage has pinned down a farther extreme, and is seeing people turn away as a result. Hannity looks good on TV but has been too much of a lightweight to penetrate other media. O’Reilly might be the best comparison to Coulter, as far as somebody who has discovered fame and fortune by doing nothing but pushing people’s most primitive buttons. The point is, as long as there is a demand for this sort of material, someone like Coulter will arise to deliver it.
No, the truly disgusting thing is that such a large segment of the modern conservative moment would have such a demand.
The left has its own crackpots, of course, but they tend to stay on the sidelines, and aren’t taken seriously by anyone beyond their core followers. It’s intensely disturbing that the Republicans would continue to give such an unapologetic shit-stirrer such a prominent place at the media table.
I’ve said before that our political system works best when it’s balanced, when two or more philosophies or interests are represented by principled parties at the debate table. The left is correct about some things; the right is correct about some things. (Insofar as left and right have any concrete meaning.) I don’t want “my” side to have untrammeled power any more than I want the “opposition” to have it, because that way lies corruption. We all need to keep one another in check.
That the Republicans have managed to take control of virtually all levels of federal governance, and continue to entertain the ravings of Coulter and her ilk, regardless of whether their endless regurgitations are honest opinion or cheap pandering, is simply appalling. It says a lot more about the Republican party than it does about Coulter, frankly, that this is true. It’s long past time to clean house — but it’s the right’s responsibility to do so.
Oh, and Shodan, that’s a new low, even for you.
Of course, the supply-and-demand argument was already made while I was composing that long post, but even so, I think it warrants repeating.