GOP Hypocrites Toss Coulter Under the Bus
I know she wouldn’t do it for me. I hardly feel like doing it for her. But right is right and so is wrong, and I can’t keep silent when a fellow political pundit—albeit a slanderous, treasonous liar like Ann Coulter—gets Sister Souljahed by professional hypocrites John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.
This morning’s New York Times has the story:
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference before an overflow crowd on Friday, Ms. Coulter said, “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 I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
[…]Ms. 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.”
Memo to Ann: I know Ted Rall. Ted Rall is a friend of mine. I am Ted Rall. You will never be as funny as Ted Rall. So stop trying.
After liberal bloggers raised hell, strategists for three major GOP presidential candidates made a tactical decision to denounce her:
Of the major Republican candidates, only Mr. McCain did not attend, but he denounced her remarks on Saturday morning. “The comments were wildly inappropriate,” said his spokesman, Brian Jones.
Mr. Giuliani said, “The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate.”
Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: “It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.”
Where were Romney, McCain and Giuliani since 9/11? For the worse part of six years Coulter has “joked” about bombing The New York Times building, equated Democrats with Al Qaeda terrorists and suggested that liberals ought to be chucked into internment camps. Along with other “mainstream” Republicans, these three turds were happy to remain silent while Coulter played the part of the rabid attack dog of the right, an I.R.A. to their Sinn Fein.
Now that the political climate has changed, however, they’re throwing her under the bus. How convenient. How tacky.
Calling John Edwards (who, if the election were held today, I would support with my vote) a “faggot” isn’t that a big deal. Yes, it’s an ugly word. But so is “asshole”—and I’ve referred to Bush as such at public gatherings without facing a beatdown. (I’ve also deployed other epithets like “murderer” and “idiot.”) If Edwards were gay, I’d feel differently about it.
A right-wing reader wrote recently to ask why I suddenly seemed so moderate after years of being a rabid left-wing com-symp (I can’t remember the other stuff). I replied that I hadn’t changed—that the country had.
The same thing is true for Coulter. She hasn’t changed. She’s always been a lousy writer, a humorless wannabe satirist and a shrill attack poodle of the Republican right. Her erstwhile supporters are deserting her now that the polls have flipped—but I can’t forget all the applause she got before. Not to mention the front-page suckuppery in Time magazine and the rest of the “liberal” mainstream press.
8 Comments.
"Faggot" is a slur, and so triggers people's training about what is and isn't appropriate. If she just walked around NYC muttering "faggot" and "nigger" under her breath, you'd see the same reaction in the media. Politics really aren't involved.
I'm surprised (or not?) that there was no condemnation of the audience for applauding Coulter's comments — by the media or by the Democratic establishment. If this isn't the true Republican party, then why do their leaders keep paying her? Clearly the Republican party is run by hateful, bullying, paranoid sociopaths, and they *like* her and what she says.
What I'd like to know is, where were Giuliani, McCain etc. every other time Coulter has gone in front of an active camera and hurled this slur at someone who disagrees with her?
If you use a word like "faggot", "nigger" etc., it's an insult based on your devaluation of that (real or imagined) class of people. THAT is offensive.
Calling someone an "asshole" or "dickhead" is demeaning to whom? Really, it's more like a simile, isn't it?
On the other hand, along with the privilege of freedom of expression, goes the responsibility of bearing the consequences. You get to mostly say whatever you want, but you don't get to make other people respond the way you want or expect. (On the flip side of this, is of course that there is no constitutional protection from being offended!).
Her being a key speaker at CPAC speaks volumes about how the organizers AND attendees really feel about – well I guess everyone who's not them. No matter what gyrations McCain, Giuliani, and Romney may make trying distancing themselves, res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).
onetwothree is right, 'Faggot' is much the same as using "Nigger'. Both are offensive and hateful to a entire class of people a reminder of their less than human status in the eyes of the user. McCain, Giuliani and Rmomneys' carefully timed delay before denouncing Ann to see how the remark would go down speaks volumes about what they really believe.
I find equally reprehensible the liberals who imply Coulter is a trans-woman as a way of attacking her. As a trans woman I find them just as bigoted at hart as the Republicans.
Rall and Coulter sittin' in a tree.
Kay Eye Ess Ess Eye En Gee.
😛
I have no sympathy for Coulter. She exists because she's cute and sold herself to the insane-right crowd. There is no leftist in this country that matches the outright lunacy of Coulter's hatefulness. I have no sympathy for her.
So she whored herself out to make money and to be known, and now that her antics have revealed their double edge, she gets tossed aside. She gets what she deserves for being in bed with the devil. This says something about the abject loyalty the right wing demands of people, and then leaves them out to dry when they need a scapegoat.
Conservatives invented the scapegoat. I have no sympathy for this one, she brings out the worst attributes in my cynical mind and I hate her for it.
Coulter is under the mistaken impression that she's 'one of the boys,' but the right wing is indeed a boys club, and women are a minority, they're pets, like man-servants…or slaves, serving the Entitled. She served her master well, but she chose to do so.
If the America that allowed her lying antics to progress to this point can't recognize the abusive hypocrisy of the right wing, they deserve to be tossed under the bus too. And they have been. Iraq and Afghanistan will bleed us dry of world prominence. It's people like her, and her fan club, who have made me so cynical that I can say something like that.
I have no sympathy for Ann Coulter.
Teh now-famous quote is near the end of this video. Watch the rest too, it's good fun.