Ann Coulter doesn't know history, makes stupid analogy

[Johonny]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/20090219/cm_ucac/whywedontcelebratehistoriansday;_ylt=AsLTmLTU6t3t.SLR3h9pjLP9wxIF

So congratulations, George Bush! Whenever history professors rank you as one of the "worst" presidents, it's a good bet you were one of America's greatest... Putting preposterously overrated presidents like John F. Kennedy or FDR in the same category as Reagan or Washington is like a teenage girl ranking the Jonas Brothers with the Rolling Stones and the Beatles as the three greatest bands of all time.

Actually it's nothing like that. She does know most of us Americans weren't alive when the Rolling Stones recorded their first Album, just like they weren't alive for JFK or FDR. So the analogy doesn't work at all. I mean the JFK presidency is in the same historical era AS THE ROLLING STONES AND THE BEATLES. But you know who is in the same historical era as the Jonas Brothers. Who would be a good analogy... How about Bush. Yes the same Bush, Ann has told everyone is great for 8 years now! As great as that Washington and Eisenhower guy. Bush the Jonas Brothers of presidents. Just wait til the memory of time fades and the last crazy Bush fans like Coulter are dead. You'll be digging his policies out of the bin next to the Dave Clark 5.

[grannie4peace]

1. you know what? FUCK ann coulter!

[av8rdave]

2. Ouch! Thanks for the repulsive mental image!

[grannie4peace]

9. i know - maybe tar & feather ann coulter !

[MineralMan]

3. Uh....I think I'll pass if you don't mind...

[Nickster]

4. That would be the correct answer.

[noonwitch]

17. Ignore Ann Coulter

If enough people ignore her, she will be banished to FNN and the Washington Times, because no one wants to read the crap she writes or spouts except her fans.

[last_texas_dem]

18. No one should even *think* of such a thing!

Just say no to potential Ann Coulter offspring!

[11 Bravo]

24. I've never fucked a razor blade, but I bet it would sting!

Of course, afterward, the blade would still have a utilitarian purpose. Coulter ... not so much.

[panader0]

5. The the Dave Clark Five ALONE!!

[sufrommich]

6. "Ann Coulter doesn't know history, makes stupid analogy"

Pretty much sums up her whole career.

[grannie4peace]

10. rotfl

[jobycom]

7. She's just bizarre and completely delusional.

Reagan in the same breath as Washington? FDR overrated? I can entertain an argument for Kennedy being overrated, in that he never achieved a lot of what he wanted--although his achievements still make him far better than Reagan ever dreamed of being--but FDR?

If that's her argument, that's even more proof that Bush will go down as horrific. The only president I can think of with ratings as low as W's was Truman, and I still think he was overrated. Even so, Truman had a number of accomplishments one could point to as at least successes. Bush has nothing. I guess from past Coulter arguments she'll try to claim that he was successful against terrorism (ignoring the over 4000 Americans killed essentially by terrorist methods in Iran during his administration as well as the 3000 in New York, giving him easily the worst record against terrorism of any president--even worse than Reagan).

She's the perfect example of someone who believes in their own infallibility to the point where they can't see reality when it hits her. I think they call that hubris.

[Johonny]

15. Her logic is hard to follow

Historians rate Bush too low because they are idiots. But they have slowly raised Ike and Reagan's ratings because they slowly have learn to appreciate their presidencies. But then again they always overrate FDR and JFK because they're idiots. If you think they're stupid and the poll is biased due to politics then don't you logically have to distrust all their opinions? I mean a smart person would. For Ann the historians are both stupid and smart, biased and begrudgingly fair. Which presidents do we know were they smart and fair on. Well the ones with an R on the name of course.

[jobycom]

26. Not to mention, it's disingenuous. Historians have always rated Reagan too highly.

In about twenty years when we move past the influence of the Reaganites who bombard any negative story about Reagan until publishers or producers are forced to drop the story, his reputation will plummet. He ran the most corrupt administration this nation has ever seen, had more investigations, indictments, and convictions of administration officials of any president, and barely escaped impeachment and possible treason charges. He left the economy in a shambles, government broke and busted, the middle class barely alive, the streets flooded with homeless, banks on the verge of collapse, race relations at an all-time post-Civil Rights low, terrorism well-funded and filled with recruits ready for suicide missions to avenge his arbitrary and bloody foreign policies, and international respect at its lowest.

About all they've got without blatantly lying is that he was president when the Soviet Union fell, but the more the historians get a glimpse of the old Soviet documents, the more we realize he probably did more to preserve the USSR than to collapse it, since it was on death's door since the late 70s, and Reagan wanted them around to create an enemy he could exploit to justify his love of big guns and bombs. Reagan consistently inflated their nuclear capabilites, which were in fact fading fast. Gorbachev finally told him around 86 that he'd have to "find a new enemy, we're done."

Stupid, racist, pathetic filth of a man. No wonder Coulter and the Republicans worship it.

[Johonny]

31. I find Reagan has become Christ like to Republicans

Just as Christianity is a religion about Christ rather than a religion founded by Christ, the Cult of Reagan is now more movement about Reagan rather than following his conservative example. This has lead to the humorous situation here in California where the California Republican party members have to remind their Reaganites calling foul for raising taxes that Reagan raised taxes several times. They don't get what Reagan actually did doesn't matter to these people.

I think Reagan will always score ok on these polls. He did well in several categories and actual results aren't so heavily weighed. Reagan managed to work well internationally, had an ok relationship with congress... There will always be some pollsters more interested in the political relations than the actual results of these relations. This is why Reagan will always beat Bush. It's not clear Bush did anything well. How'd he get elected? Oh wait he wasn't.

[jobycom]

34. A lot of those categories where people score him highly are myth, too.

Reagan was horrible at international relations. At least as bad as Bush. He was hated, and even 9-11 was reportedly about Reagan, according to one of the "bin Laden" tapes which said they had been planning to strike America because of our bombing of Beirut. The Pan Am flight blown out of the sky over Lockerbie was a result of our bombing of Tripoli. I traveled briefly in Europe while Reagan was president, and everywhere I heard about how hated Reagan was.

And I know what you mean about Reagan's name surpassing Reagan's reality. He is almost religious to a lot of them. The closest I can think of for Democrats is JFK, but even so, Democrats don't have the same worship quality. They see JFK's faults, they don't rewrite his history.

My own theory is that they worship Reagan so strongly because they know he was a failure. They are trying hard to convince themselves that despite Iran-Contra, stolen debate notes, failed foreign policy that led to terrorist attacks and to most of the problems we face today, a failed economic theory, etcetera, they were right about him. They have to lie so stronglyabout him to convince themselves that they themselves aren't complete failures, that there is a reason other than ignorance and denial to cling to their failed ideals. By redeeming Reagan, they redeem themselves.

And wait for it. The same will be done to Bush. In twenty years, you will be trying to remind people how bad Bush was while they are saying that some current Republican failure wasn't as good as Bush. Coulter is already doing that, others will follow. One day the Republicans will paint him as their Harry Truman, and the media will follow, and the public will view him that way.

[Zomby Woof]

27. Truman ranks as one of the best

Korea is the only reason he had low approvals when he left office. What's sad is that the settlement Eisenhower achieved was exactly what Truman sought - and he would have been ranked over the coals had that been done during his term. As it was, Eisenhower was lucky - Stalin's death and his succession by Malenkov, who put up a softer line towards the west (which is why he didn't last long), helped speed up the truce. People were eager to have it done, and accepted under Eisenhower what they might not have under Truman.

But just for 1945-46 alone, Truman ranks as one of the most significant presidents. He staved off what could have been a resumption of the Depression (due to war production being abruptly cut off), and turned a post-war recession into what became up until that time the biggest peacetime economic expansion in our history. The UN, NATO, Marshall Plan, aid to Greece and Turkey, the GI Bill, the NSA, recognition of Israel, the Atomic Energy Commission (securing nuclear weapons and power from military control), peacetime conversion of Japan's economy and structure of government, the Berlin Airlift, and integration of the Armed Forces AND Civil Service, were all accomplished within weeks, months, and even the first year of taking office. Even if he failed to accomplish much of his ambitious progressive agenda - national healthcare, increased public housing, increased education funding, etc, he tried his damndest against an obstructionist GOP Congress (take note, President Obama). He had some blots, to be sure - the nationalization of the steel industry to help avert a strike caused a constitutional crisis, and earlier in his administration he had caused a stir by threatening to draft railroad workers who were disrupting the economy with a strike (due to the recession). And... although the creation of the CIA was well-intentioned, its abuses would be more of a problem with later presidents than it was with him. Still, his record as a whole, warts and all, was impressive. Just consider what had been dumped on his plate upon Roosevelt's death - and he had absolutely NO briefings or help during his short time as VP. He had more to contend with than any president taking office since Lincoln, and even arguably FDR. Obama is certainly the most challenged president taking office since Truman, or so it seems at this point.

One final note - find a copy of Truman's Farewell Address, and be amazed at how prescient he was in predicting the eventual end of the Cold War. Not just what, but how. History has surely vindicated him.

[jobycom]

29. Maybe so.

That's not my era. I tend to think of him as a good president whose reputation has grown into myth. I see him as someone who inherited not only the problems but also the solutions, or the ideas of others, and who made the most of it. He could have made bad decisions, of course, but he could have made other choices that would have turned out well, also. Circumstances were dictating that something had to be done, and he was given options he hadn't even had time to develop on his own (he was basically following what we had learned after WWI).

But he did make good decisions, mostly, and a lot was accomplished, and he did use a lot of skill dealing with Congress.

You may be right, maybe I'm underestimating him. I've never been sold on his decisions with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and maybe that's tainted my image of him. That, and all the MASH episodes I watched, although that was really more about Viet Nam, and Korea was just the setting they used to make their point.

Thanks, yours was a great post. :)

[bushmeister0]

8. The op title is like saying: "The sky is blue, the sun is out during the day time."

And what makes you think she's ever going to die? Beelzebub, her dark master, has assured her imortalility.

Liberals are the only ones too wimpy to keep living!

[ThomWV]

11. Kennedy never heard of the Beatles or the Rolling Stones he was dead ...

He died 3 months before the Beatles ever set foot in the United States. If anything Kennedy was the exact end of the era that proceeded the demise of the particular form of popular music (old rock and roll, soul, and what remained of both rockabilly and the big band era) which was Beatlemania and all that followed.

[Johonny]

13. Yes he was older than the rockers that followed his term

But he clearly defined that era. Just because he did not listen to them does not mean they aren't of the same era. I'm pretty sure Reagan never popped in a Run DMC CD but they both belong to the era of the 80s. Saying the Beatles are to JFK as the Jonas brothers are to Sarah Palin I believe is a proper analogy.

[Parche]

12. Hey.... Midlo loves the Jonas Brothers

:rofl: :rofl: :hi:

[EFerrari]

14. Bush IS the Jonas Brothers of Presidents! LOL!

[spin]

16. Who the hell are the Jonas Brothers? (n/t)

[leftynyc]

19. It warms my heart

that even with every right wing website bulk buying her book, it still couldn't reach #1 on the NY Times list. Even her side is getting sick of her.

[grannie4peace]

20. refreshing!

[rrneck]

21. Ann Coulter - the circus geek of American politics. nt

[Johonny]

22. Is there someone that writes Op Eds from that side that isn't.

Even George Will makes up Global Warming denial Op Eds all the time. From Cultural elitist to fat guy everyman they all got some scheme going. It really is a geek show.

[ColbertWatcher]

23. Again? (Or should that be STILL?) n/t

[Bucky]

25. "preposterously overrated presidents like John F. Kennedy or FDR"

This is great. It's only been nearly 50 years since Kennedy. Hardly enough time it takes to the say kind of historical perspective that we have on, say, great presidents like Bush who, although not gone quite 50 days, already shines with the luminance of the gods. As for that FDR chap--pfff, he's but a passing fad, like federalism, the Jonas Brothers, or that habeas corpus thing.

[MajorChode]

28. Kinda like when the moran said Joe McCarthy was really a great guy

Consider the source

[Johonny]

32. I heard he was the kind of guy you could have a beer with

and then another and another and another and another...

[MajorChode]

33. He was a bigger drunk than Goldwater...

and that's saying something.

[Harry Monroe]

30. My statewide newspaper still carries this bitch every Friday

On the editorial page, I get to look at that transvestite's face before going on to another column. I'm sick of her.