The Significance of Ann Coulter

[demobabe]

Ann Coulter is not a joke. She is not perceptive. She offers no new insights, even from the Right. She is not irrelevant. She is not far out. She is not crazy. She is not brainless (indeed she may be very smart but that is hard to ascertain from a distance and through her public persona). She is not to be ignored. Nor is she to be shut up, as the Human Rights Campaign would like to do.

Ann Coulter is in fact very significant. Ann Coulter is the face of the modern Republican Party. Most readers of BuzzFlash are aware of her remark when she implied that John Edwards is gay. Whether or not he is should not be a matter for public discussion. (It is highly unlikely that he is, but hey, you never know.) But Ann Coulter wanted to make it so for two reasons. First, John Edwards has taken, in the contemporary Democratic Party sense, left-wing positions on most issues other than the future of Israel/Palestine. Second, John Edwards has a real chance to win the Democratic nomination, and with Barack Obama as his running mate would present a formidable obstacle to Republican retention of the White House short of a declaration of martial law by CheneyBush for some "national emergency" that would oh-so-conveniently occur say in mid-October 2008, and suspension of the election (a distinct possibility). So, what to do, for someone like Coulter?

Discuss the Bush record? Present a program for solving the nation's major problems? Get out of Iraq? Hardly. Change the subject, a favorite tactic of the modern Republican Party. Take control of the agenda, the favorite tactic of Karl Rove. Ignore Edwards on the issues, but get people talking about whether he is gay, where Coulter got her info, Coulter's outrageousness, and Ann Coulter herself. The HRC's call for a boycott and eventual ban plays right into her hands. The discussion additionally becomes "free speech", etc. So what should be done?

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/jonas/054

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. The REAL significance of Anne Coulter...

[bryant69]

2. I would advise also reading Glenn Greenwalds thoughts on Coulter

And what he says about how Gendered the Right Wing's discourse is. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/06/cult/index.html

The reason people like Rush Limbaugh not only were unbothered, but actually delighted and even tickled by, Abu Grahib is because that is the full-blooded manifestation of the impulses underlying this movement -- feelings of power and strength from the most depraved spectacles of force. The only real complaint from Bush followers about the Commander-in-Chief is that he has not given them enough Guantanamos and wars and aggression and barbaric slaughter and liberty infringement. Their hunger for those things is literally insatiable because they need fresh pretexts for feeling strong.

And that is where Ann Coulter comes in and plays such a vital -- really indispensible -- role. As a woman who purposely exudes the most exaggerated American feminine stereotypes (the long blond hair, the make-up, the emaciated body), her obsession with emasculating Democratic males -- which, at bottom, is really what she does more than anything else -- energizes and stimulates the right-wing "base" like nothing else can. Just witness the fervor with which they greet her, buy her books, mob her on college campuses. Can anyone deny that she is unleashing what lurks at the very depths of the right-wing psyche? What else explains not just her popularity, but the intense embrace of her by the "base"?

I totally agree with that last line too; once you move the discussion from the bullshit Ann Coulter speaks to her right to say it you muddy the waters and in a way get her off the hook.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Remind the folks in the middle that she's a publican

No kidding. AC turns off moderates, namely because she is so rude. Saddle her with the title "Spokesperson for the GOP" and we've picked up votes. The base will never vote for Dems, but the moderates will.

[rasputin1952]

4. Well, for starters, every time she says something outrageous...

she needs to be called on it, immediately. The guy in Canada interviewing her had her completely taken aback when he pointed out that Canada was not in VN. She actually looked frightened, like someone would not take her at face value.

So the first thing to do is make her quote her sources, she can't, they're all made up in her mind. She will be caught in lie after lie, on camera until she is shut down by her own hubris.

I used to advocate ignoring her, now I believe we should hold her accountable for every piece of disinformation that comes from that screech monkey's mouth. Sher walked off Hannity and Colmes when she got caught, and later said she is merely "entertainment"; well it used to be entertainment to watch tigers and lions rip people to shreds in the Coliseum. While I do not advocate evisceration of Coutler in the arena....she can be destroyed by her own vitriol whenever held to citing references.

[demobabe]

7. That's Rush's old ploy... call him "entertainment"

I call what they do "hate speech."

It's amazing the FCC lets them spread their obscenities during day hours.

[rasputin1952]

11. It is amazing they get any air time at all regardless of the hour...

I once heard Rush call for the assassination of Clinton in the same park where that one guy committed suicide...Where was the SS then????

[A HERETIC I AM]

9. Aw c'mon. Lions gotta eat too.

Of course, any self respecting lion would want a little more meat on the bone.

She could be fed to the lions with no self esteem.


BRILLIANT!

[rasputin1952]

12. Heh...she woldn't feed a lion cub....

no meat on those bones...:evilgrin:

[Seabiscuit]

13. "Canada was not in VN"??? What does that mean?

[rasputin1952]

14. During an interview on Canadian TV, Coulter stated that Canada

sent Brigades to VN at the behest of the Americans. The interviewer corrected her and said that there were some Canadian troops in VN, but they were few and volunteers to go w/US forces more as observers than anything else.

Coulter insisted that Canada sent Brigades under the Canadian Flag and with orders from the Canadian Gov't. When countered again, she looked shocked, as if "How can someone not believe anything I'm saying?" She ended that part of the interview with, "I'll check on that and get back with you."

She never did get back with the station, as later, the station provided proof that while there were a few Canadians in Nam, they were never Bde sized, nor were they there "divisions" as was said at one point.

This was all over Canada not sending troops to Iraq, BTW. She was trying to equate the Canadians w/the French. Now if she had mentioned WWII, where Canadians played a vital role in winning the war, she would have been on target.

[Seabiscuit]

17. Thank you. I assume you're referring to Vietnam. Never saw it referred to as "VN" before.

[Contrite]

5. She committed voter fraud

Three times!

What about THAT?

[rasputin1952]

15. Voter fraud is a serious crime, I cannot understand why she was not

charged w/voter fraud.

Every place I have lived, I have registered to vote as one of the first things I do. In most cases, there is a place to note if you were registered to vote in another state; I assume this is to notify the previous state to take you off the roll.

I don't know about anywhere else, but here in NE, 2 people were cited for voting in different districts on the same election day. Thye had two houses, but only the "primary" residence was allowed to be used for voter registration. They plead ignorance, the judge and Jury didn't buy it, the were sentenced to lose thier voter registration and 3 months in jail. (For the record, they were die-hard R's, thought bush heard directly from God).

[Gato Moteado]

6. it would be cool to watch her swing from a tree....

....time to go old school on nazis and their sympathizers in the good ole USA.

[sam sarrha]

8. so funny Ann calls Edwards gay when she is a he

[demobabe]

10. kick

:kick:

[heatstreak]

16. kick

[Lars39]

18. What should be done? Find a paper trail between Coulter & WH,

'cause there's one, sure as I'm sitting here.