Our Local Redneck Paper has Picked up Ann Coulter's Column

The BBQ Pit
21

I used to think she was a troll. But now I’m not so sure.

Background: Coulter uses a very shady tactic in her books. She will make an outrageously false statement in the text, and then introduce additional information in the notes at the end of the book that reduces the statement to misleading, but technically true.

Result: many people don’t read the endnotes, and walk away believing the text statement to be true. But the end note allows Coulter to escape responsibility for this.

Franken, in his book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, used this same tactic against her.

He described Coulter’s claim in one of her books that Norman Thomas, the socialist candidate for president in the 1930s, was the father of Evan Thomas of Newsweek. (Her point being to show long-term liberal influence in the media).

Franken declared that this statement was false. (Which it is). He thundered at length on how this constituted a ‘lie’ on Coulter’s part, that she had made it up just to discredit Evan Thomas.

Then, in an endnote, Franken noted that Norman Thomas was, in fact, the grandfather of Evan Thomas. It was obviously a mistake on Coulter’s part, and one that didn’t really undermine her point (i.e., an influential media person is related to a famous socialist). But using her tactics, Franken was able to call her a ‘liar’, adding in the endnote, “See how misleading that is?”

Coulter’s outraged response was not what I would have expected from someone who was simply trolling. A person who knew she was playing a part would have taken such tactics in stride.

Coulter might have started out trolling. But in the same way that movie stars start believing their own hype, I believe she may have started to take seriously the crap she writes.

22

I haven’t read your post (and have no interest in ever doing so) and maybe I’m taking it out of context but I guess your point is that you like to make judgements based on ignorance and toot your own horn at how great you are because you are (1) judging a book by it’s cover or (2) jumping on the bandwagon.

23

I read the link you cited. She was absolutely correct.

24

Yep. She’s right on in that column, and funny to boot.

25

FWIW, I agree with most of the column too – I think it’s ridiculous that dangerous prisoners should be guarded by anyone who’s not pretty damn tough.

But I don’t think that this invalidates the use of the rare female officers who qualify for such duty. It suggests that watering down the standards (which is indeed done, and very likely to placate feminists) is the source of the problem.

If Nicole Bass had been guarding Brian Nichols, I don’t think we’d be having this discussion.

(I also think it’s ridiculous that a suspect with Nichols’ history was left uncuffed, but that’s the fault of defense lawyers and the judges who give in to their pressure).

26

Actually, it’s kind of a clever column. Cites and everything.

Ann is over the top a lot of the time, but not all the time. Sort of Maureen Dowd, but better looking.

Still too skinny, though.

Regards,
Shodan

27

I don’t agree. “Absolutely correct” means that what she said was all correct. She is not all correct in this column - female police officers are not “girl cops”, female law enforcement officers are not more likely to shoot civilians when “perps won’t reveal where they bought a particularly darling pair of shoes”; Ann speculates that female officers’ “outfits were 43% more co-ordinated”; she has devised her own study that “involves asking a woman to open a jar of pickles.”

Ann makes good points, in that everyone doing a job needs to be physically, emotionally, and psychologically able to do the job they’ve been hired to do. She goes further, though, and mocks professional female law enforcement agents, for no apparent reason that I can see. Woman are, on average, smaller and weaker than men. That does not mean that we can’t do things; Ann would have better spent her time looking at whether or not standards really, like she implies but never comes out and says, are lowered to the point where female law enforcement agents can’t do the job they were hired to do, rather than taking cheap, dismissive shots at policewomen and “female professors at Harvard”. One study (John R. Lott, Jr.) does not a proven argument make.

But I guess reasoned, rational arguments don’t sell papers.

28

OK. Let’s get some mentally unstable ex-Yippie with no brain cells left and set him up as a nationally syndicated columnist who recommends vigilante violence against Bush-appointed judges and calls the GOP a mob of drooling piggy-eyed sociopathic sadists who ought to be subjected to mass electroshock treatment. 'Cause that, on the left, is about where Coulter is on the right.

Make people think? Coulter is all about making people stop thinking and just give in to rage.

29

Do you believe that any of the objections you’ve raised above alter the point she’s making?

Do you believe that Coulter’s intent was to convince her readers that female law enforcement officers are more likely to shoot civilians when perps won’t reveal where they bought a particularly darling pair of shoes?

Or can you draw a distinction between those sorts of claims and the kind of things that Coulter presumably DID want her readers to believe?

30

So do I. Good point.

H.P. Lovecraft used purple prose. Lovecraft is generally agree to be non-crap. Thus, some other word should be used to describe Coulter’s writing style. The most polit term I can think of is “verbal diarrhea. PAINFUL Diarrhea.”

31

It’s called comedy. Look it up in the dictionary if you must.

Sheesh. You could quote Leno or Letterman’s monologue and come up with more offensive stuff.

The same thing happens with Rush Limbaugh often. There are left wing web sites out there filled with quotes of him they find outragiously offensive. They’re mostly jokes. Some people just insist on only seeing the worst in things. shrug

32

Bricker, my argument was with Clothahump calling Coulter “absolutely correct”. He didn’t say she had valid arguments - he said she was “absolutely correct”. It might just be sophistry, but my argument stands. You might also note that I have said more than once here that Coulter does make some valid points, but instead of backing them up with facts, she’s content to use snide innuendo and one questionable source instead.

Debaser, comedy is supposed to be funny. Some people insist of seeing things as they are intended to be seen. You think Coulter didn’t know that her belittling female police officers would be offensive and get exactly the reaction it’s getting out of people like me? Cudos to you, Ann - your offensiveness is strong.

33

She is inciting hatred of people of certain creeds. Apparently, she called for the incarceration or execution of millions of Americans by labelling them treasonous.

34

The not-lie - a close relative of the negative pregnant.

35

Since this is the Pit, I am within bounds in asking you to please go fuck yourself?

36

Eve, for shame!
One uses a period to punctuate an embedded sentence. :smiley:

37

While I don’t read her column very often, this is interesting:

While it helps validate the conservative objections to lowering physical standards for women applicants, it also shows liberals being correct about the benefits of hiring black men on police forces. It is strange there is no mention of black women. I wonder if they are safer than white women.

It might be possible that both liberals and conservatives have valid views that are occasionally right.