Who are Ann Coulter's fans?

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=Algher]

I will happily sympathize with any Lefty upset by Coulter who can show (or even honestly claim) that they stood up against their fellow leftists for the SHIT that right wingers went through on college campuses back in the day. If not, then welcome to our world.
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The most controversial guy at my college, the one who was a reviled campus figure for his comments about race, the one who publically made fun of Anita Hill, was and is one of my good friends. I don’t remember anyone ever calling him a Nazi. It may have happened on occasion but was certainly not a recurring theme of attacks on him. The main recurring theme was that he was being an asshole. Which, in all honesty, he was. As he himself might admit if you pressed him on it. He’s a pretty weird guy.

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Me! I read her books at the airport in other cities. I don’t ever see them on display in SF so she’s become part of my travel routine. The looks people give me are priceless. You have to hold your chin and nod thoughtfully while reading it. I want her to come to my birthday party.

I don’t see what the huge deal is. She’s a real life troll. If you get pissed off or irritated then YOU end up being the loser. I should also mention I am a fan of the shirtless toothless guy on the corner that says my dog is his husband. Its comparable.

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[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
In other words, one might say that she took the rhetoric of a college hothead (and colleges are a pretty natural place for hotheadedness, although that doesn’t mean that it’s OK for people to have been asses to you) and turned it into a mainstream bestseller.
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This is pretty much the point I’ve been wanting to make. A prominent opinion leader for a politcal philosophy should not engage in the same rhetoric as college students. I was a moderate-to-lefty student on a mostly conservative campus. I was told more than once that I was going to hell. Meh. I was probably a bit of a prick at the time myself, and I’m sure I said some bizarro shit. We were kids. I, for one, got better. We should not judge mainstrem political discourse by the yardstick of what seems reasonable to adolescents.

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[QUOTE=Sarahfeena]
I assume you have read Treason. I haven’t, so I’m speculating here. What I take it that Ann is saying is that, in her opinion, liberal opinions are treasonous, not that liberals have actually committed treasonous acts that they could literally be prosecuted and hung for.
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Don’t speculate, read. Then tell me if you support her position in Treason.

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[QUOTE=Polycarp]
Don’t speculate, read. Then tell me if you support her position in Treason.
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Look, I never said that I support her postition, and I don’t care enough about her to read it. I am not interested in her opinions, and overall she doesn’t impress me. ALL I said was that I found SOME of the quotes in her latest book…which is an all-quotes book…to be funny. On that basis alone, I was deluged with questions, basically asking me how I could defend her, when I never intended to in the first place.

I never brought up Treason. I was asked how I would feel if someone called all conservatives child molesters, as an analogy, apparently, to what she said in that book. Not having read the book, I had to trust that what the poster represented as her opinion is regarding liberals and treason. Given the little I knew, I believe that the analogy is a flawed one, and tried to point that out. I was happy to give another example of something very insulting that could be and is said about conservatives that I thought would be a better analogy.

***I in no way support Ann Coulter or anyone else calling liberals treasonous. ** *

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[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
I didn’t go to your college. If I had, I certainly would not have called you a nazi. And I’d like to think (although I can’t swear to this) that I would have publically and visibly objected when other people called you a nazi. Assuming you were not, in fact, advocating the burning of books and locking gays up in concentration camps..
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Nope - I promise! I did hold some now-regrettable opinions regarding homosexuality, but I never expressed them in any formal setting. I actually went out of my way to engage that particular group on campus as my attitude shifted during my tenure as a student.

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
In any case, I will restate my point. Ann Coulter was not the first person to use hateful rhetoric. However, she was the first that I know of to write a book which became a popular bestseller, leading to her becoming at least a quasi-respected commentator, which clearly and unambiguously directed hateful rhetoric towards an entire mainstream political movement. In other words, one might say that she took the rhetoric of a college hothead (and colleges are a pretty natural place for hotheadedness, although that doesn’t mean that it’s OK for people to have been asses to you) and turned it into a mainstream bestseller..
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Hmm - she attacks Liberals in her book (I think - I also have not read it, and will not). What about attacks on the Christian Right? Would you consider them to be a mainstream political movement? How about gun owners & the NRA? Pro-Lifers? Each of these groups is often reviled with a fair amount of vitriol by the Left. Whether or not a full-blown best-seller has been written - I don’t know (honestly - I just don’t track those lists).

[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
“The left” has The Daily Show and Colbert, which are probably in the same order of magnitude of popularity of Coulter and Limbaugh. (Anyone know?). But the important distinction, which I’ve been hammering on over and over again, is that John Stewart doesn’t insult republicans in general. He is pretty damn merciless towards Bush and Bush’s cronies, but he doesn’t call republicans as a whole nazis, or claim they hate the poor, or anything of that sort. He just. Doesn’t. Do. It.
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I was not accusing Stewart of Colbert of that - apologies if that was insinuated. I was more interested in the general spectrum of entertainment wrapped up in political clothes.

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Bottom line: Coulter is funny. She is the best political opinion writer out there. Even Chris Matthews, who is miles to the left of her, gives her her writing props. And if she weren’t so smart, such a good writer, and so funny, she wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—selling all those books.

Though many of you will not be able to see her as anything but the devil in Prada mini skirts, for those of you whose indoctrination is less than 100% complete and have yet to undergo the requisite funnybonedectomy, I offer two quick examples from her latest column. Enjoy.

Incisive. Biting. Adroit use of sarcasm. Funny. Sorry guys, that’s good writing.

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Eh, it seems funny to you because she’s insulting liberals. Similarly, a lot of liberals find Michael Moore and Al Franken funny because they insult conservatives (to which many conservatives react with screams of hysterical outrage that make the liberal Coulter-haters look serenely indifferent).

Real funny is when an author can make a joke (and a point) that’s more than just a smear or an insult.

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[QUOTE=Kimstu]
Eh, it seems funny to you because she’s insulting liberals. Similarly, a lot of liberals find Michael Moore and Al Franken funny because they insult conservatives (to which many conservatives react with screams of hysterical outrage that make the liberal Coulter-haters look serenely indifferent).

Real funny is when an author can make a joke (and a point) that’s more than just a smear or an insult.
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Uh, she’s done precisley that in the passages I quoted. If you were unable to digest them, I understand.

And by the way, I thiink Al Franken can be very funny when he wants to be. Even when he uses conservatives to do it.

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No, she hasn’t. If you’re unable to perceive that, I understand.

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[QUOTE=Kimstu]
No, she hasn’t. If you’re unable to perceive that, I understand.
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:rolleyes: So, you are unable to see a point being made in what I supplied from her? Tsk, tsk… But okay…

[picks up phone] Hello, shipping? The Kimstu Model is at 100%. You can ship her off to Berkeley now. Don’t forget the the ankle tribal tatoo and matted hair.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
Bottom line: Coulter is funny.
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That’s all that matters to you? To paraphrase someone else in this thread, if the grand wizard of the KKK was a generally funny person who had really good comedic timing and quick wit (and it’s conceivable that that could be the case), and a bunch of people in a thread were complaining about his diatribes, you would say “bottom line: he is funny”?

I wish people would stop comparing Al Franken and Ann Coulter

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Okay, now that was funny. :slight_smile:

Oh, I don’t think they’re alike in most respects: I agree with you that Franken (and even Moore) is much more fact-based than Coulter, who pretty much just makes up whatever shit she wants to say. But I don’t think either of them is really any better at political-humor essay writing than Coulter is, and I think most people who laugh at the books of any of the three of them are doing so just because they enjoy seeing the other side insulted.

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[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
That’s all that matters to you? To paraphrase someone else in this thread, if the grand wizard of the KKK was a generally funny person who had really good comedic timing and quick wit (and it’s conceivable that that could be the case), and a bunch of people in a thread were complaining about his diatribes, you would say “bottom line: he is funny”?
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No. But what does that have to do with anything? She is NOT the grand wizard, so whatever she says is not colored by that hypothetical. He, on the other hand, would be an avowed racist (or a more popular and successful Rovery Byrd), so everyhting he said that might possibly be construed as racist would very likely be racist. Surely this isn’t nesw to you.

Since Coulter is not the grand wizard, her words are not automatically viewed as if she were. What she actually is is that she’s smart (Cornell, cum laude, 1984) and well-educated (Michigan Law School; Editor, Michigan Law Review). She is a great writer. Disagree with her politics or not, she is. The same way for me that Franken is a very funny guy. He can make a point I do not agree with, but I’ll admit it if it’s done well.

Hope that helps.

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Ann Coulter is the residue from a tarantula’s Pap smear.

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[QUOTE=Kimstu]
I think most people who laugh at the books of any of the three of them are doing so just because they enjoy seeing the other side insulted.
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Do you realize how incredibly condescending and patronizing that is? I mean, here I thought I enjoyed Al Franken because he is witty and intelligent and knowledgeable and doesn’t take himself too seriously… and it turns out I’m just partisan.

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[QUOTE=magellan01]
No. But what does that have to do with anything? She is NOT the grand wizard, so whatever she says is not colored by that hypothetical. He, on the other hand, would be an avowed racist (or a more popular and successful Rovery Byrd), so everyhting he said that might possibly be construed as racist would very likely be racist. Surely this isn’t nesw to you.

Since Coulter is not the grand wizard, her words are not automatically viewed as if she were. What she actually is is that she’s smart (Cornell, cum laude, 1984) and well-educated (Michigan Law School; Editor, Michigan Law Review). She is a great writer. Disagree with her politics or not, she is. The same way for me that Franken is a very funny guy. He can make a point I do not agree with, but I’ll admit it if it’s done well.

Hope that helps.
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You seem to have missed the point I’ve been trying to make in this thread. Ann Coulter isn’t a KKK grand wizard, sure, but I’m actively accusing her of Bad Things. She is spiteful and hateful and libelous, and I believe her writings have in and of themselves weakened the level of national discourse.

It is, of course, preposterous to think that all liberals hate America. But if enough people say it, and if it’s an idea that’s tossed around and repeated enough, then people start to believe it. And are we better off living in a country where 50% of the country thinks the other 50% actually hates the country?
I may be going a bit off the deep end in overstating the importance of this issue, but I think that Ann Coulter HAS MADE THIS A WORSE COUNTRY. Not because she’s expressing ideas that I disagree with and think are wrong, but because she is expressing ideas that are hateful and divisive. And she is doing so with a level of pure undiluted singleminded vitriol that is fairly unique in a public figure of her stature and quasi-respectability.
Sure, she can string a phrase together in a vaguely entertaining way from time to time. Although as Kimstu points out, it’s very hard for us to evaluate the literary or humor qualities of something totally divorced from their political content. BUT, I believe that her crimes against society are so overwhelming and egregious that they render any redeeming humorous quality of her words irrelevant and moot.

I wish there were a left wing equivalent to her that I could natter on about in a “oh, sure, he goes a bit too far, but you have to admit that he’s clever and funny some times” way, just to put the shoe on the other foot. (And before you say anything, Michael Moore isn’t even close.)

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Does anyone else think it is highly ironic that Ann Coulter, one of the stupidest people I have ever listened to, entitled her latest book, If Democrats had Brains, They’d Be Republicans."

Because you know, Republicans are famous for such brilliant ideas such as:

  • let’s go to war in Iraq to stabilize the Middle East
  • let’s deny that global warming exists in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary
  • lowering taxes on the rich actually raises government revenues
  • universal health care will ruin the greatest health care system in the world (even though we are ranked #37)
  • let’s appoint political hacks to run the Department of Justice – that won’t ruin anyone’s faith in the fairness of the system
  • let’s build a spaced-based nuclear defense system that costs billions of dollars and doesn’t work to deal with a non-existent threat

Clearly, Republicans are the party of intellectuals. :rolleyes:

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I’ll grant you that she can be pretty funny, and she can string a few sentences together pretty well to make an easy read.

Still a cunt, though.

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[QUOTE=Frostillicus]
Because you know, Republicans are famous for such brilliant ideas such as:

  • let’s go to war in Iraq to stabilize the Middle East
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The Republicans weren’t the only ones to have this idea. True, they acted on it. And have executed it so poorly as to defy description, but the idea you state is not purely a Republican one.

I don’t know who you’re referring to. Most Republicans I know don’t deny the numbers that point to us being in a period of warming. What they do question is 1) how much man has contributed to the natural cycles and 2) how much impact we can have on reversing the trend.

That seems to be true. And doesn’t appear tobe solely a Republican idea, as when JFK lowered the top rates from around 90% and voila, the country soon had greater tax revenues.

See here And here:

- universal health care will ruin the greatest health care system in the world (even though we are ranked #37)

It all depends on what metric you use, doesn’t it? Still, those with means from around the world flock to the U.S. for treatment.

Yeah, no other party would ever give the nod to political hacks, especially those of their own stripe. :rolleyes:

Well if we can get it to work, that non-existent threat may remain a non-existent threat, wouldn’t it. And wouldn’t that be a good thing. And, here’s a newsflash, there are groups around the world that wish to do us great harm. They may not be able to send rockets here now, but that can change in the future. So maybe would should start building the system then, right? After the first one or two hit? You’re a genius!

Compared to the thiinking you’ve demonstrated here, that might very well be the case.

And, no, I am not a Republican.