manhattan, you’re asserting that your imagined version of what Gonzalez should have said is what he *really * meant. Is that psychic, or just psychotic? Were you “just joshing”, or are you really stupid enough to think that convinces anyone but yourself?
Daniel
Sigh. I was being droll. Kaylasdad99 got it.
What I “wished” he said is the corrected quote. It’s what he actually said.
You suck at teh internets.
Hah hah–but you got pwned by my mad ninjaleet skillz!
Daniel
Thanks, Daniel - amazing how well an experienced pol can spin his own words when given time to think of how to do it, huh?
But what he really meant, what the administration’s real attitude is? We’ll see if it’s changed, won’t we? We do have his Torture Is Good memos to start with, and the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo horrors that followed it. Those don’t get apologist posts because they can’t be apologized for.
I know how to spell “the,” though. Not everyone can say the same, apparently.
What on earth are you talking about? Do you have a reliable source to show that the original quote is verbatim what Gonzales said? I think the guy is an amoral fucker, too, but I want to think that based on his actual words, not on poor paraphrases of them.
Consider carefully who’s spinning what here.
Look, a three-headed monkey!
Daniel
I apologize for my poor paraphrasing in my first post of this thread. I constructed the quote from my memory of a story in last week’s Los Angeles Times. I don’t have a copy of the story on hand, but it was my understanding of the gist of what Mr. Gonzalez said in his testimony, as reported in the paper. I should have been more clear on that when I said it was “attributed” to him.
100% with you so far, Max.
To be completely fair, I count three of the board’s leading conservative debaters who have in fact done just that: condemned her, without any weasel words.
And I’m immensely grateful for their honesty in doing so.
She has a First Amendment right to express her opinions, to be sure. But she may not violate laws on libel and slander. In view of the fact that I’m on record as a liberal, I would love to have the funds to retain someone like Bricker to institute suit against her, based on her statements in Treason, for libel and defamation of character. Unless she can prove that I in fact actively committed the acts defined as treason in the Constitution, she’s libelled me – and Daniel, and Max and Stoid and rjung and hundreds of thousands of others. And she should not profit from it.
(Interested in a class-action contingency-fee lawsuit, Rick, at 30% of the award? I’ll bet you we can get a few thousand people who are on record as being liberals and who would welcome the chance to sue Ann Coulter. Even if you only get a $1 per violation token award, it could work out to a hefty bit of change for you! Just one thing: as part of any settlement, she has to publish, at her own expense, in at least 100 media to be selected by us and include World Net Daily, a formal recantation and apology for her libel.)
However, la Coulter is not odious in her own right so much as she is symptomatic of the over-the-top-ness of political arguments lately. I’ve said several times that I believe Mr. Bush to be of good intentions, doing the right thing by his own lights. That I think that his intentions and means are morally wrong, divisive, destructive of American freedoms, and several other things, are by the boards – he doesn’t. He thinks he’s doing the right thing by America. The same holds for Mr. Cheney, and probably for Mr. Gonzales. Likewise, Sens. Kerry, Kennedy, Clinton, etc., are in fact committed to doing the right thing by their lights, and it would be nice to see a conservative say so, with whatever personal reservations about their own views of the senators’ positions they feel compelled to add.
We’ve always had vocal idiots on the fringes of politics. But I don’t ever before remember giving them center stage to do their comedy routines at the cost of civil discourse.
I don’t fault you for it–I frankly fault myself for not double-checking on it, as I do when someone attributes over-the-top statements to liberals. I shoulda recognized it as a paraphrase.
I mostly fault Elvis for belligerently arguing the issue long past the point where it was clear that manhattan had scored a point.
This thread is complaining about a hateful, venom-spewing, slanderous politico. In the course of trashing her, I’d rather not become her.
Daniel
For those interested, it’s worth quoting from Time’s “100 Most Influential People” entry on Ann:
Actually, that raises an interesting question of what the presence of extreme voices does to the less extreme discourse.
For instance, take someone like Fred Phelps. To the credit of conservative Americans everywhere, no one seems to take him seriously. But I wonder if people who are somewhat homophobic look at him, say “ahh, now THAT guys is homophobic”, and then are more comfortable with their own homophobia as they have clear proof that they aren’t all THAT homophobic, compared to old Fred…
It’s an interesting issue, although not one that could easily be resolved without some very cleverly constructed sociological experiments. But I digress…
As am I.
I’m pretty sure she has not even come close to violating those laws. If I correctly recall my study of journalism law from high school (go Homestead Epitaph!!!), the burden of guilt is on the accuser to prove libel/slander, and it must be demonstrated that:
(a) the statement was false,
and
(b) the statement caused damage
(a) might be doable, but it’s really hard for me to see how we could argue in court that actual provable damage was done to us by the publication of her book.
If she wrote a book called “Polycarp is a traitor” specifically about you, and then after it was published you lost your job and people spit on you on the street, and your homeowners’ association kicked you out, THEN you have a case.
Besides, we REALLY don’t want to give her that much publicity.
Have you SEEN who got elected?
I kid, I kid! Sorta.
Daniel
Having just renounced my Republicanism and all things Republican, I would like to comment in the abstract.
Coulter takes bad qualities or behaviors she sees in individuals and applies these qualities as attributes of liberalism.
A bigot takes qualites he finds in a person and attributes them to race/creed, or what have you.
A bigot also recognizes negative attributes in a selective fashion. A thrifty person is perceived as greedy if he is jewish and just prudent if he is not. The quality is interpreted by the person in questions race/creed.
Now, I am not sure how this changes if a person is bigoted against a beleif system as Coulter is. Is the distinction meaningful and Coulter not a bigot because her prejudice applies to the political system and not race/creed?
I don’t think so. It’s a distinction without meaning. Coulter is bigoted regardless of what the target of her bigotry is.
By the same token one must be careful how one views or interprets Coulter.
Do you remember the old commercial where the kid is sitting in the boat with his Grandpa?
“What’s Prejudice?” asks the kid.
“Why do you want to know?” replies Gramps.
“Tommy says I’m prejudice.”
“Who’s Tommy” asks gramps.
“Tommy’s my jewish friend,” reveals the kid."
“Well then you are prejudiced, because you see Tommy as your Jewish friend, and not your friend.”
Well, the same thing applies here. If you see Coulter as a symptom of Republicanism, or you think Coulter’s actions reflect on a quality inherent to Republicans, or you see it as unique to Republicans…
Then you too, are prejudiced, just like Coulter. Only you don’t make millions of dollars being prejudiced the way she does.
The proper way to view Coulter, I believe, is as a pundit. Her tactics are depressingly common and mundane, and her process has nothing to do with her affiliation.
Sorry, but that is complete bullshit. I think many ‘liberals’ don’t realize the level of derision aimed at ‘conservatives’. That, even though they have been exposed to it repeatedly. It’s amazing how adept the brain is at filtering out unwanted opinions. That capacity is necessary for social coherency, as well as social progress. I do the same thing thing; I’ve noticed it many times when I’ve re-read threads under the influence of very mind-altering chemicals. Not really in the case of politics*, but that is true for many other subjects that I have had personal experience with.
*adjusts tin-foil hat … party adherence is irrelevant, we are being duped.
Perhaps you could give us some examples, then.
Coulter makes the same mistake on the Right, that some like Franken and Moore do on the Left/Progressive side. Namely, she won’t stick to arguments. Instead, she attacks people rather than just ideas. She is so involved in her own ideaology that she essentially accuses those who disagree with her of beign evil rather than having a different perspective. The Left should hope for more people like her since she lowers the intellectual merit of her issues, and marginalizes the middle against her side.
That isn’t the impression of Al Franken I’ve gotten from reading his book (Lies) and occasionally listening to his radio show. Do you have examples?
For example Franken calling Limbaugh a big, fat, idiot. Indeed, he may be, but to put it in those terms degrades the arguments in the same way that Coulter calling those who disagree with suppression of civil rights in the name of fighting terrorism to be traitors.
Well, not quite in the same way. In the first case, Mr. Franken is insulting Mr. Limbaugh individually. In the other, Ms. Coulter is not only insulting, but libelling every single one of her opponents (treason is a serious crime; being a big fat idiot isn’t).