Count me out
by David Benzion · 03/02/2007 5:25 pmI’ve never been a particular fan of Ann Coulter… but I haven’t been particularly moved by wailing and gnashing of teeth of those on the left who loath her either.
Until now.
Here’s what Coulter said at the Conservative Political Action Conference just moments ago:
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot’ – so… Kind of at an impasse. Can’t really talk about Edwards, so I think I’ll just conclude here and take your questions.”
Calling anyone a “faggot” has got nothing at all to do with my commitment to limited-government conservativism.
It certainly isn’t the type of rhetoric we need to have injected into our presidential campaigns.
Oh, and aside from morality and basic human decency–it just isn’t very smart politics either.
My sister-in-law–a wonderful person and fair-minded Austin liberal–recently shared a great insight with me, making the point that our individual politics have been largely shaped by who the biggest *ssh**es we knew in college were.
I went to a left-wing hippie school, where the biggest *ssh**es were politically-correct leftists; thus, I’m conservative.
She went to a big state university, where the biggest *ssh**es were frat boys, sorority girls and jocks; thus, she’s a liberal.
I think she’s dead-on. And I can tell you this–the average non-partisan American voter, watching Ann Coulter tell a laughing audience of conservative activists that John Edwards is a “faggot” is going to say to themselves, “You know, those conservatives are really a bunch of *ssh**es.”
And I can’t say that I’d blame them.
Well, you can count me out.
Coulter was wrong and should apologize.
And for candidate Mitt Romney, who introduced Coulter, just three words of advice.
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I’m with you Benzion. In general, I think there’s too much whining about anyone who uses strong words in public debate, but there are lines. Not that any word or speech should be banned, just that there is (in my mind)a mimimal level of class required of anyone who would be taken seriously. She just failed to meet even that low bar.
Let’s see how anyone tries to defend those statements.
I agree about Colter, though your ‘theory’ is not air tight.
She’s still hot….
is she trying to be funny again? If so, she should STFU and go eat a sammich.
Her part of the skit with Rush on the 1/2 Hour News Hour was painfully unfunny.
3. Iron
Sorry, Iron. Bag o’ bones, bag o’ bones. (Oops, Benzion will be coming after me next.)
#2 Tito– I’ll agree, it’s not an “airtight” theory… but it does have significant explanatory power.
Coulter is “Godless” IMO.
/spit
I also have to agree with David. Talking that way IMO just lowers the person down to the opponent’s level, wallowing in the mud.
So Ann spoke her mind to a group of fellow conservatives. She is known to not mince words, and always is cutting edge. Should she apologize? OH good grief, can’t John Edwards handle being called that once by a beautiful blonde. Maybe she could ask to use his hair spray? Ann did not make a movie or write a book suggesting how to kill him, which has been done about President Bush. Ann did’nt have sex with him while others waited in the rose garden. She just used a politically incorrect term to a room full of people she considered to be friendly to her views.
Benzion…you were a left-center till you started working for Richards as his producer. After a while you started to use logic in your politics, hearing the callers, hearing Richards, and hanging around the old 950 AM crew. It changed your prospective. As for Coulter. I like her. I thinks she adds fire to already heated topics. She takes no prisoners. Offends all those that choose to be offended. And makes no bones about. Rock on Ann…
So just send her to rehab.
#3 yes she is..if only Laura Ingraham would wear the same outfits.
Left wingers offend with impunity.
So what if Ann throws a little dart at another left wing liberal-do as I say, not as I do DemoKrap.
If the repubs had a pair of gonads like she does, they may not have gotten their butts kicked in the last election.
Instead they followed the lead of Dr FrankenBush, governed like libbie demmies and got what they deserved.
Tancredo/Savage in 2008.
Eh, that’s Ann Coulter’s schtick. She’s a brash, offensive, “preaching to the choir” type of pundit who uses hyperbole to push peoples’ buttons. This latest episode isn’t really that shocking or offensive compared to her earlier statements.
Coulter represents today’s republican party. The republican party has shifted from true conservatism (small govt, low taxes) to hate-mongering, verbal gaybashing, obsession with meaningless social issues (flag burning, prayer in school).
CPAC knew exactly what they were doing when they invited her to speak. She fires up the crowd and gets people talking. She doesn’t offer any substance to back-up her point of view but she doesn’t need to…after all she is blond and has nice legs.
The more she speaks the more likely the moderates come back to our team. Hopefully she will speak at the 2008 republican convention and do for our nominee what pat buchanan did for President Clinton in 1992.
Your kidding right?
Sure Ann’s brutal, more so in her later years, John E raised the Cheney Daughter and his (Cheneys) Wifes book passages (which were not what he said they were) to try to win a VP slot. Edwards wife even told him to shut up.
He’s hardly a harmless victim and a worthy human being just fit to walk around much less run for office, he’s not real loved by Carolinians anymore
I’m sure with the same reluctant indignation you will now condemn
John Kerry and Teresa, Ted Kennedy, Whoopi, Julia Stiles, Nancy Pelosi, Richard Daley, Jennifer Anniston, James Webb, Janet Schakowski, Ted Danson, insert 5,000 rappers and movies stars names here, 90% of the Democrat legislatures currently serving, and so on and so forth.
One Ann, 16,532 entertainers and politicians on the left.
Notice that Howard Dean did not REFUTE the charge?
Dem, Ann Coulter just says out loud what most of us think about the looney left. She just doesnt have that little switch in her head that says “dont say that, only think it”
Also, take Perot out of the 92′ election and we would have had papa Bush again. Not sure that would have been any better. Nice try though.
Gregg - Take Nadar out of the 2000 election and we would have had a President Gore.
I think the liberals are laughing their asses off at us, policing our own speech this way.
I’m a bit confused, Den4life. if Conservatives have only recently turned to ‘Hate’ mongering, then why have they been accussed if it for the last 19 years since Der Rushmeister came on the National scene? ( remember, Racist, Sexist and poofterphobe!!. As for me, I have some great Gay friends and I don’t mind being called a bloody foreigner.
Read her book “Treason” which accuratly chronicles the left’s 40+ year attack on the USA. Notice that after “Treason”, which showed that McCarthy was right about communist infiltrators, the left stopped the McCarthyism epithet. Why? Because there is now a bestselling record which shows that McCarthy was right. Correct, also. If she didn’t mint money everytime she opens her mouth like this, we could draft her for house district 22. She won’t take the pay cut. Coulter rocks.
Hey Dimmie Republicans are hate mongers huh? So
y-izzit that just about every Dhimmi that I spoken to tells me they HATE Bush? When I aske them why I get such particualars as
Bush is an < :*(^$%#
or
Bush is an @#!$FT^&*?>
or Bush is an ?.”P+_0_7
Intersting don’t ya think.
Sorry, I for got to address the main issue. Ann tends to be a little manic at times. There is, however, a difference between being, In-your-face and Straight talk. ( no pun intended ) Hey Eric, you forgot yo say that Edwards southern accent sound completely over done. (Fake)
The main point is that if it isn’t based in truth, it isn’t funny. Edwards may be ripe for hair jokes, but not his sexuality. Her comedy just missed the mark completely.
But, a one-time gaffe shouldn’t make her a pariah. She told a joke that falls flat, and should apologize for it. Then say something else about him that is funny.
Problem w/Coulter, Rush, Hannity and “that crowd” is that they’ve lost site of the mission. The mission is to win. Right now the GOP is like a very dysfunctional family. We all know what the Dem’s are. And thats not good. But they’ll take over our gov’t in 2008 if we don’t get our screwed up GOP house in order.
Coulter, Hannity, Rush and crowd find that task very distasteful and really don’t want to be burdened w/that dirty job. That is a huge failure on their part. I’m very disappointed in them. We really need them to go after the scoundrels in the GOP hierarchy. There’s not much time. DD
http://streetlevel.townhall.com
Winning ain’t worth a tinkers damn if the Republicans keep returning the same old moderate to Liberal Republicans that are in office now.
This is a hard situation for me. While it is definitely true that electing the far less than conservative Republicans we’ve gotten recently sucks, so does infighting.
I’ve recently become aware of another antagonistic relationship; one that exists on a smaller and more personal level than the current Republican situation. In both situations though, any mutual benefit that might be realized by cooperation between the different factions/people is eclipsed by squabbling over smaller issues.
I’m not trying to go all “why can’t we all just get along” or anything. People argue. People fight. It’s a fact of life. I just hate to see compatible ideologies and goals suffer in the larger sense due to conflict in a smaller sense.
/vaguely off-topic comment
Hey, Squawk, you aimin’ for C.O.W.? That was sweet.
Dude, what the heck are you doing up? I’ve just gotten back from a concert, what is your excuse?
#28: Comment of (the) Week = COW. That’s just Friggin’ Brilliant.
EDITORIAL FIAT: From now on, all “Comment of (the) Week” posts must now include a picture of at least one (1) cow.
So let it be written, so let it be done.
I got yer cow. And she’s looking mighty fine.
Or maybe this one.
#32
That’s funny! ( But maybe someone needs to tell you the difference between a cow and a bull.)
#33 pOp
Aw, it’s just artistic license. Besides, I’ve been down in the Montrose area tonight…….
Some of y’all seem to be overly sensitive about the “faggot” word. Why? It’s just another politically incorrect word.
And if you parse Ann’s words, she didn’t actually call him a faggot, but she sure did insinuate it…
I guess my post was too politically incorrect for this group…
Hey #35…what post?…they delete you? must have been a stinger of a post, bro…
#36, it is possible it was a bot that took exception to the usage of “faggot”. I don’t know…
AH HA!!!! IT was the usage of a politically incorrect term that is used in this article. My second post explaining my original bumped post was deleted, so I will not use the politically incorrect term that is used repeatedly in this news article.
After all, we MUST be PC around here… :R
To All,
Standing for one’s principles shows character. So does behaving like a gentleman or lady. It is ok to aggressively point out the flaws in a particular philosophy, but taking it to a personal level shows a lack of character and more importantly LEADERSHIP !!
Politics is a sales job! One is trying to sell a philosophy, as well as, faith in a person to be able to lead in a rational and just manner. Try to think about what type of sales pitch works the best with you, especially when you are not inclined to buy the “product”.
The bile spewed by the likes of some on both ends of the fringe may appeal to their bases, but it is the middle that has to be won over. Neither base controls enough votes on their own to win without relying on the middle. Anyone thinking otherwise is engaging in some world class denial.
It is fair to say that both sides engage in a fair amount of personal attacks. It is natural and human to want to hit back immediately when attacked, but what we do in the schoolyard and what we do as adults might differ slightly. Not stooping to the lower level of an opponent does not show weakness, but rather strength.
Simple
#35, Mike Smith. Correct, she did not call him the f word, though that implication was left. This presumes she was correctly quoted in the first place. Compared to the venom spewed by the lefties this is scarcely a blip on the screen.
I suppose I should explain my posts…
#35 did not show up for over 30 minutes, so I posted #36. Then #37 posted a question about post #36, so I answered with post #38 which did not show up immediately, so I posted #39. Then all of my posts showed up.
Unfortunately, LST does not have an edit function, so there ya are…
So LST has caved to the PC crowd. What’s next?
Gimme a break with the feigned indignancy already.
The only thing wronmg with Ann Coulter is she isn’t running for President!!!
She would have my vote; I’m over the double standard the rest of you sheeple choose to adhere to.
COULTERR FOR PRESIDENT in ‘08!!!!!!!!
#40-What principle was she standing up for when she made the comment?
Actually according to Wikipedia faggot means:
# Faggot (epithet), a pejorative term for a gay or effeminate man.
Edwards is effeminate. Period end of story.
COULTER for PRESIDENT in 2008 and 2012.
Most real people think snake oil lawyers are are fags anywhere.
Is it just me or are there too many sentive closet dudes in the Republican Party.
Remember ex Congressman Tom Foley was not guilty of just sending text messages to pages. He was a PERVERT [also known as "faggot"].
Ann Coulter says naturally what most [none?] of party activists have the cajones to say because they are all afraidy cat of the “faggots’
Ann Coulter got Gonads. VIVA Ann Coulter !
Actually if Ann had called Edwards a “Flaming Faggot” she would have had a natural out.
She could then have said that she called Edwards a lit cigarette that needed to be butted.
Coulter is a total babe. It’s up to Edwards to prove he’s not a faggot. For your weekend viewing pleasure:
New OReilly exposing the Chron from 3/2/07 show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ3kv19oP9s
OReilly exposing the Chronicle from 2/08/07 show:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZeYsN8Tp8M
She should have dropped a real F-Bomb on him! I understand that’s how true manners-oriented conservatives express themselves to their perceived enemies these days.
Let us see how fast the RNC runs her doorstep with support for a Presidential Campaign.
It would be interesting to see how many voters her “zingers” actually could attract.
Gosh Squak, that was smooth.
Personally, I want my language back!
I want to be gay without having to be a homosexual.
Ann has been irritating for a while now, likely due to the fact that she has ratchetted-up the abusive rhetoric. No one mentions that she has been assaulted and denied her right to speak at various speaking venues.
The Leftists are winning because they control the media, the terms, and we are trying to reach the “useful idiots” - where several generations of Americans have now been indoctrinated and brainwashed by those who wish to destroy independent though, individual rights, and capitalism.
It’s not the word faggot - it’s the lack of class. You don’t have to be mean and vile to be strong. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan giving a speech and saying someone was a “faggot”? (Wm F Buckley once called Norman Mailer a fag and threatened to punch him during a debate, but Buckley was so ashamed he would later not even talk about it; Coulter, on the other hand, has no shame.) Is this what my GOP heroes have become? Anorexic bomb throwers who think they are funny when they’re not?
It would be far more impressive if she came up with a zinger criticism of his politics. To name call is what we accuse the left of doing when they don’t have an argument.
For you folks who think she and/or Laura I are the best looking things on two legs: Geez, fellas, raise your standards.
And this from a guy who read, and thoroughly enjoyed, both Slander and Treason. And I’ll read Godless and her other books, too. But even responsible people can go to far. She’ll always have the Libs asgainst her, but there are a lot of conservatives like me who won’t back her up on this one.
Again, conservative does not equal gratuitously mean and nasty.
#51 Kevin Whited
Loyalty is like rubber: one can stretch it so far and then - it snaps.
Doofus,
Coulter was commenting on *REHAB*
Go see if you can find a sense of humor on ebay.
#6 Yes, it does a good job of explaining many of us.
#12 Now, now, Ms. Ingrahm is a practicing Catholic, let her be.
Either Edwards is a faggot or he is not a faggot. I hope he is not, because being a sex perverted faggot is a despicable and disgusting thing to be..
SAY THIS PRAYER: Dear Jesus, I am a sinner and am headed to eternal hell because of my sins. I believe you died on the cross to take away my sins and to take me to heaven. Jesus, I ask you now to come into my heart and take away my sins and give me eternal life.
In case you’ve forgotten…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AE847UXu3Q
Royko
#54
Thanks. I was kinda proud of that too.
/Call 911 I just broke my shoulder patting myself on the back.
Yep I want my language back too.
I got a trucker friend that had to change his first name. Man did he catch he77. His name was Gaylen, went by the short version of “Gay”.
This old boy was 6′3″s of mad 280lb old school flatop redheaded Irishman that did not take to the constant jokes. Truckers can be unmerciful once they discover how to dig on someone. He finally surrendered after several butt whippings both given/received and changed his nick to his last name MacKenzie or Mac.
Course we razzed him about that too. Everything from hamburger jokes to inside jokes about Mack Trucks. He drove a Peterbuilt. I told him that I thought he oughta be a “bread man”. When asked why I told him he had nice buns. Good thing I could out run him.
Coulter, the bag-o-bones, is not good looking at all. The hair is distractingly long, and, one wonders if the bedspread matches the dust ruffle.
From todays Chron;
Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”
Simple
Coulter is not trying to be Reagon, she is being her and if you think for one second she is attempting to convert a lib you are nuts.
Sorry Benzion, gotta go with the crowd on this one. Coulter rocks!
Coulter appeals to the lowest common denominator. I have read numerous article pointing out the inaccuracies in her books and it is like the authors are shooting fish in a barrel. One hundred years ago she would have been selling snake oil in a traveling medicine show. You would also think with the money she has made that she could afford to eat.
C’mon Gaddy, why can’t we have our own Bill Maher.
#63 that is awesome!
I think of Ann Coulter as the conservative’s Molly Ivins. Both are very clever writers who skewer the other side with their insighful barbs and usually make me laugh. I enjoy reading what they have to say and then, of course, making-up my own mind. Sure, they’ve both been known to hit below the belt but who can really blame them when there are so many politicians who need a quick knee-to-the-groin once in awhile?!? I mean, sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do!
#68 ShinerBlonde. Amen
Comparing Ann Coulter to Molly Ivins is like comparing a Chevy to a Ferrari.
gadboy,
Ivins obviously was the Chevy “clunker,” obsessed with shrubs.
#30 Amen.
#70 Gadfly, You’re real close, but Ann Coulter = Lamborghini, Molly Ivins = 1959 Rambler Nash, flat head six, with O/D! 4 speed on the column,…YES!
ShinerBlonde,
That’s about right. I think Coulter was more prone to going “over the line” (particularly in this latest episode) but ultimately both Ivins and Coulter are from the same offensive, preaching-to-the-choir mold.
I think Coulter could have chosen a better forum to display her negative tendencies, but CPAC knows what they’re getting into when they have her speak. She even backed Bill Maher’s comments for goodness sake — NOTHING is beyond the pale for her. Condemning her is like condemning George Carlin.
Is Ann Coulter really a woman?
a little late to post, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to point out the clowns who condemn Ann Coulter for implying that John Edwards is a faggot and then call her things like:
“Coulter, the bag-o-bones”
“Anorexic bomb throwers”
“Coulter is “Godless”
“Bag o’ bones, bag o’ bones”
Thanks to all that support Ann, we need more people like her.
To all that condemn her;
go sit in a corner and suck your thumb.
rj
I find ludicrous the gnashing of teeth on Ann’s admittedly crude, rude and offensive remark and her response of intending no offense to homosexuals with the inapt comparison to foremr-Senator Goodhair. More power to her if she can get under the left’s skin like this:
“Her shameless display of bigotry is so outrageous you actually have to see for yourself:
This is just a taste of the filth that the right-wing machine is gearing up to throw at us.”
My comment to that offended soul is to get ready for the real onslaught!
As an acquaitence of hers since she and a friend of min e chaired the Federalist organization at Michigan in the mid-1980s, Ann has been the way she is forever, just without the platform her books and commentary and Drudge association now afford her. If you can’t say “ni**er” of “fa**ot” or whatever (and I bow to the **s with great regret, as the words have a time and place, and Ann may well have had the right to have used it in the CPAC roast of likely preseidential contenders. Like the “scrotum” in the children’s book that hit the Chomical Sunday and the NYT more than two weeks ago, the place is not only to shock and offend, but to trigger debate. If a little-girl character needs adult information she is entitled to such to “de-code” something she hears (and I understand from two local children’s librarians who have actually read the entire work, that in book’s overall context, the meaning is not only clear but profound to the theme of the work). As I understand from telecast of CPAC, Ann’s remarks were no more offensive than many of the other “ribald” critiques of the Dems. Again, as a gadfly to the perpetually offended minorities (gender, orientation, race, ethnic, left-handed, follicly challenged or whatever), more power and wider platform for Ann and her ilk!
I close with the comment that Arianna Huffington on the Left is far more obnoxious than she (or Ann) ever were on the Right.
77 Paul
To each his own. I prefer someone who takes on the opposition with substantive argument, rather than name calling. (For the most part, her arguments are substantive, but she draws the press when she resorts to gratiuitous insults.)
I will not dispute that the Left has more obnoxious types, both in terms of number and content. But it’s not just the “perpetually offended minorities” who find her provocation to be unnecessary, it’s a lot of conservatives, including one of the sponsores of the event:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Z030507=ann-coulter-at-cpac.html
She does not have the universal approval of the Right on this one.
What puzzles me, however, is why CPAC, knowing Coulter’s potential for this kind of excess, would risk just this sort of thing happening to distract from the message of the conference and the candidates.
I, for one am fed-up with the sanctimonious centrist “conservatives” crying about Coulters comment.
For one to not realize that Ann Coulter, and CPAC, knew full well the backlash, moaning and gnashing of teeth, expressed by so called conservatives and some liberals is no more than being foolish.
Liberals are making less of this than conservatives doing the hand wringing over the message being distracted.
absolutely delusional.
rj
79. rj
It’s not just “centrist” conservatives. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Some people don’t require any standards of their “spokespersons.” some people do.
There are plenty of stories showing that not all those who found Coulter’s marks, um, questionable are lukewarm conservatives (unless one considers the likes of Michelle Malkin to be lukewarm):
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2007/03/cpac-is-shocked-shocked-by-ann-coulters.html
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006976.htm
# 77 “If you can’t say “ni**er” of “fa**ot” or whatever…as the words have a time and place”
Yeah I am sure you have the balls to call a black man a “ni**er” to his face or a gay man a “fa**ot” to his face.
Hay #59 check out anns remarks on hannity and combs after faggot bit.Seems you and her and your right wing bible thumpers really like the gays,she does`t metion it being perverted or disgusting or anything.You guys have no problem with the gays except you don`t want them to marry.How do you like her now,or is lieing for jesus ok?