I caught a few minutes of Mike Pintek's show on KDKA yesterday. I was lucky enough (I suppose) to snag a few minutes of his interview with Ann Coulter.
Why would anyone take Ann Coulter seriously these days? Let's examine some of the ways she's invalidated herself.
Slash-and-burn columnist Ann Coulter shocked a cable TV talk-show audience Monday when she declared that Jews need to be "perfected" by becoming Christians, and that America would be better off if everyone were Christian.
I think the government should be spying on all Arabs, engaging in torture as a televised spectator sport, dropping daisy cutters wantonly throughout the Middle East and sending liberals to Guantanamo.
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
THAT'S who Mike Pintek invited onto his air yesterday. I'll ask it again: In light of the above, why would anyone take her seriously?
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
It all has to do with which policies were "grandfathered in" and which comply with ACA regulations. From NBC again:
Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”
That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.
Mike and Ann were discussing how Obama "lied" by withholding this information until now.
And from the august halls of academia comes a report that Fordham University effectively barred conservative columnist Ann Coulter from speaking on campus but welcomed Princeton bioethics professor Peter Singer, who “has long lamented the societal stigma against having sex with animals,” The Daily Caller reports. In Fordham’s defense, Georgetown University Jesuit and senior government professor James Schall says the church isn’t afraid of any idea — so long as it has a fair chance to explain its own position. Evidently Ms. Coulter’s conservatism must be pretty scary stuff for those deep-thinking Jesuits at Fordham.
Ah, the need to fact check the braintrust is ever present. Let's begin.
Looks their one and only source for this blurb is the Daily Caller article mentioned. Had they done their homework and dug into the, you know, facts, they'd have found that the premise of first half of that first sentence is simply untrue.
Fordham University did not "bar" (effectively or otherwise) Coulter from speaking. Indeed Fordham never invited her. The university's College Republicans did.
And they're the ones who disinvited her.
And CR President Theodore Conrad said he reached this decision before University President Father Joseph McShane issued this statement - a statement that began with:
The College Republicans, a student club at Fordham University, has invited Ann Coulter to speak on campus on November 29. The event is funded through student activity fees and is not open to the public nor the media. Student groups are allowed, and encouraged, to invite speakers who represent diverse, and sometimes unpopular, points of view, in keeping with the canons of academic freedom. Accordingly, the University will not block the College Republicans from hosting their speaker of choice on campus. [emphasis added.]
The reason why the Conrad disinvited Coulter? From the Fordham Observer:
The decision was arrived at by Conrad early this morning, well before Father Joseph M. McShane, S.J. and president of Fordham, sent an email upholding her scheduled appearance.
“I do take responsibility in not doing the proper research,” Conrad said. “We did not properly vet a potential speaker for Fordham University.”
“The things that she said are not things our club stands for or anything at Fordham stands for and I feel we would be doing a lot of people a diservice in bringing a speaker like that to Fordham. The bad outweighs the good in this.”
Turns out that doing the proper research can lead to embarrassment - first for the Fordham CR and then for Scaife's braintrust.
But that's all beside the point, to be honest. The braintrust was looking to establish a false comparison: (Conservative Coulter gets bounced by the same university that invites infanticide/bestiality fan Peter Singer!)
Except that what the wingnuts accuse Singer of, he's not guilty of. Here's Kathryn Jean Lopez of the National Review Online:
Once an Ivy League professor is known to be a proponent of infanticide, perhaps nothing he says or writes should thereafter raise eyebrows. Still, Peter Singer’s latest writing is worth noting — if only so someone at Princeton University takes notice.
In the online magazine nerve.com, Peter Singer writes an opinion piece, “Heavy Petting” — part a review of Dearest Pet: On Bestiality by Midas Dekker, “a Dutch biologist and popular naturalist,” but really more of a statement about the last sexual taboo — sex with animals.
And then:
Much of Singer’s review is simply not fit to be reprinted on NRO, but rest assured that he gets graphically specific at times, trying to demonstrate just how widespread the sex-with-animals scene is — and has long been.
And while Singer explains that a human male who has sex with hens ultimately kills the hen, he wonders if it is any “worse than what egg producers do to their hens all the time.”
Of course she wants you to think that Singer's in favor of both. But let's look at what he actually says. Here's that opinion piece she mentions. It's a 12 year old piece discussing the taboo against bestiality and its limits - no where is he advocating such conduct. For example on that hen sex, he wrote:
Almost a century ago, when Freud had just published his groundbreaking Three Essays on Sexuality, the Viennese writer Otto Soyka published a fiery little volume called Beyond the Boundary of Morals. Never widely known, and now entirely forgotten, it was a polemic directed against the prohibition of "unnatural" sex like bestiality, homosexuality, fetishism and other non-reproductive acts. Soyka saw these prohibitions as futile and misguided attempts to limit the inexhaustible variety of human sexual desire. Only bestiality, he argued, should be illegal, and even then, only in so far as it shows cruelty towards an animal. Soyka's suggestion indicates one good reason why some of the acts described in Dekkers book are clearly wrong, and should remain crimes. Some men use hens as a sexual object, inserting their penis into the cloaca, an all-purpose channel for wastes and for the passage of the egg. This is usually fatal to the hen, and in some cases she will be deliberately decapitated just before ejaculation in order to intensify the convulsions of its sphincter. This is cruelty, clear and simple. (But is it worse for the hen than living for a year or more crowded with four or five other hens in barren wire cage so small that they can never stretch their wings, and then being stuffed into crates to be taken to the slaughterhouse, strung upside down on a conveyor belt and killed? If not, then it is no worse than what egg producers do to their hens all the time.) [Emphasis added.]
Q. You have been quoted as saying: "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all." Is that quote accurate?
A. It is accurate, but can be misleading if read without an understanding of what I mean by the term “person” (which is discussed in Practical Ethics, from which that quotation is taken). I use the term "person" to refer to a being who is capable of anticipating the future, of having wants and desires for the future. As I have said in answer to the previous question, I think that it is generally a greater wrong to kill such a being than it is to kill a being that has no sense of existing over time. Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time. So killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living. That doesn’t mean that it is not almost always a terrible thing to do. It is, but that is because most infants are loved and cherished by their parents, and to kill an infant is usually to do a great wrong to its parents.
Sometimes, perhaps because the baby has a serious disability, parents think it better that their newborn infant should die. Many doctors will accept their wishes, to the extent of not giving the baby life-supporting medical treatment. That will often ensure that the baby dies. My view is different from this, only to the extent that if a decision is taken, by the parents and doctors, that it is better that a baby should die, I believe it should be possible to carry out that decision, not only by withholding or withdrawing life-support – which can lead to the baby dying slowly from dehydration or from an infection - but also by taking active steps to end the baby’s life swiftly and humanely.
Q. What about a normal baby? Doesn’t your theory of personhood imply that parents can kill a healthy, normal baby that they do not want, because it has no sense of the future?
A. Most parents, fortunately, love their children and would be horrified by the idea of killing it. And that’s a good thing, of course. We want to encourage parents to care for their children, and help them to do so. Moreover, although a normal newborn baby has no sense of the future, and therefore is not a person, that does not mean that it is all right to kill such a baby. It only means that the wrong done to the infant is not as great as the wrong that would be done to a person who was killed. But in our society there are many couples who would be very happy to love and care for that child. Hence even if the parents do not want their own child, it would be wrong to kill it. [Emphases added.]
Tell me again how he favors infanticide?
Coulter embarrassed herself by calling the president a "retard." Agree or disagree with Singer's nuanced argument, but putting them on the same intellectual plane is simply absurd.
And not checking the facts in order to make that false comparison is ridiculous.
Today is June 4 and today is the day, in 1919, that the 19th Amendment was passed by Congress (ratification would take place on August 20, 1920). The 19th is the Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote.
Something, by the way, that the horrid Ann Coulter thinks is a bad idea. From the Guardian:
Who exactly has the vote who shouldn't have? "Women," she says, laughing. "It's true. It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted."
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
Fortunately today is also the birthday of the glorious Cecilia Bartoli. Who is she? Just watch. She's the one in front in the pink dress:
The piece is K 165 of Mozart, the "Exsultate, jubilate" and here's the score, if you wanted to follow along. Or just the text if you can't read music.
While it's far more likely that the Universe just is - that there's no design or balance to it and that happiness (to quote, yet again, Bertrand Russell) begins when facing the fact that the world is horrible - it's good to know that not all of it is horrid Ann Coulter.
Some of it is glorious Cecilia Bartoli singing glorious Mozart.
Tony Norman's got a good column posted today (go read it). It's about Congressman Peter King's upcoming hearings on Radical Islam and there's some broad brush satire of anti-Islamic rhetoric in it.
Satire - look it up.
But I wanted to see how, as satire, it stood up to the real anti-Islamic rhetoric floating in the toilet bowl that's the right wing media.
First, here's Tony:
With their hard-to-pronounce names, aversion to pork ("the other white meat") and inscrutable "foreign" ways, the Muslim presence on these shores makes a mockery of one of our most sacred mantras:
"I pledge allegiance to the flag / of the United States of America / and to the republic for which it stands / one nation / under [a Judeo-Christian] God / indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
How can we be "indivisible" when so many so-called Americans of the Islamic persuasion go out of their way to be different?
Not bad. Just tongue in cheek enough to know he's kidding.
If it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, it’s just another day in the life of a true believer in violent jihad.
Yes: Violent jihad. Two words the current occupant of the White House won’t say together and about which he remains in stubborn denial.
Violent jihad. A fundamental tenet of legions and legions of Muslims worldwide — and untold numbers of homegrown and immigrant practitioners of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage here on American soil.
I would say, you could say that 80-85 percent of mosques in this country are controlled by Islamic fundamentalists. Those who are in control. The average Muslim, no, they are loyal, but they don't work, they don't come forward, they don't tell the police … .
That last one's a two-fer as it comes from the World Net Daily.
As good a writer as he is, if the above quotations show anything they show that Tony's satire of teh crazie pales in comparison to the real crazie.
Well Ann Coulter graces the pages of Richard Mellon Scaife's rag once again. And in doing so participates in yet another right wing smear.
Here's Ann:
When, as dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan disagreed with the Bill Clinton policy of "Don't ask, don't tell" for gays in the military, she open-mindedly banned military recruiters from the law school, denouncing Clinton's policy as "discriminatory," "deeply wrong," "unwise and unjust."
Not true, of course. But before I get to that I do want to point out a subtle sleight of hand. She opens her piece with this:
In The New York Times' profile on the family of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, her aunt was quoted as saying: "There was thinking, always thinking" at the family's dinner table. "Nothing was sacrosanct."
Really? Nothing was sacrosanct?
So what should we believe when we read this a few paragraphs down?
As Kagan herself described it, on the Upper West Side of New York where she grew up, "Nobody ever admitted to voting Republican." So, I guess you could say being a Democrat was "sacrosanct."
You might think that that quotation is from the Times profile, right?
Wrong.
This is from the Times profile:
(Ms. Kagan and her brothers declined to be interviewed for this article and have not spoken publicly since her nomination.)
In the summer of 1980, Elena Kagan worked for Liz Holtzman, a Democrat running for U.S. Senate in New York. That fall, after Holtzman was defeated and President Ronald Reagan was elected, Elena wrote in The Daily Princetonian, "Where I grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side, nobody ever admitted to voting Republican." She added that the "real Democrats" she had known were "motivated by the ideal of an affirmative and compassionate government. Perhaps because of this background, I absorbed such liberal principles early."
For nearly a quarter-century, Harvard Law School refused to help the nation’s military recruit its students, because the armed services discriminated against openly gay soldiers. But in 2002, the school relented to pressure from the Bush administration and agreed to allow recruiters on campus.
When Elena Kagan became dean of the law school the next year, she faced a moral dilemma over whether to continue that policy.
She said she abhorred the military’s refusal to allow openly gay men and lesbians to serve. And she was distressed that Harvard had been forced to make an exception to its policy of not providing assistance to employers that discriminated in hiring.
But barring the recruiters would come with a price, costing the university hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money.
And:
Because of the military’s policy against openly gay soldiers, the law school in 1979 barred military recruiters from using its Office of Career Services, the central clearinghouse through which employers from all over the world seek to recruit top-notch law students.
But in the mid-1990s, Congress approved several versions of the Solomon Amendment — named for Representative Gerald B. H. Solomon, a conservative Republican from upstate New York — denying federal funds to schools that barred military recruiters.
The amendment forced many law schools to carve out a military exception to their recruitment policies, which said they would not help employers that discriminated in their hiring practices.
Harvard reached its own accommodation in 1996. While the school did not allow military recruiters to use its main placement office, it did allow them on campus through the Harvard Law School Veterans Association, a student group. The recruiters met with students in the same classrooms, just under different sponsorship.
Christopher Cox, then a Republican congressman from California who supported the move, said at the time that it was a scandal that Harvard and other schools banished military recruiters “while cashing Uncle Sam’s checks for billions of taxpayer dollars.”
The change meant that Harvard faced a loss of $328 million in federal funds, or about 15 percent of its operating budget, almost none of which went to the law school. At that point, in 2002, the law school, under Dean Robert Clark, relented and permitted the military recruiters in its placement office.
And:
Ms. Kagan did join more than half the faculty in January 2004 in signing an amicus brief when a coalition of law schools challenged Solomon in an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia.
In November 2004, the appeals court ruled, 2 to 1, that Solomon was unconstitutional, saying it required law schools “to express a message that is incompatible with their educational objectives.”
The day after the ruling, Ms. Kagan — and several other law school deans — barred military recruiters from their campuses. In Harvard’s case, the recruiters were barred only from the main career office, while Ms. Kagan continued to allow them access to students through the student veterans’ group.
But the ban lasted only for the spring semester in 2005. The Pentagon told the university over the summer that it would withhold “all possible funds” if the law school continued to bar recruiters from the main placement office. So, after consulting with other university officials, Ms. Kagan said, she lifted the ban.
But wait, didn't Ann say that Kagan banned the military from the law school?
Yep.
And is that true?
Nope.
I guess since Ann is a "perfected Jew" and Elana Kagan, (being Jewish) is thus an imperfect Christian, it's OK for Ann to bear false witness about her.
Before I say anything else let me say that what Helen Thomas said was 40 different ways of stupid and I can't disagree with anyone who thinks it was offensive, insulting, (fill in the blank).
But this posting isn't about Helen Thomas. It's about the hypocrisy of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
From today's Midweek Briefing:
Veteran UPI reporter and Hearst News columnist Helen Thomas, soon to turn 90, has "retired" after her incendiary remarks that Israeli Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go home" to Germany, Poland and the United States. No word on Mrs. Thomas' start date with Hamas.
I find this funny because w-a-a-a-a-a-y back in 2007 there was another columnist who:
when asked whether the country would be better off if we all were Christian, answered "yea."
when asked whether "we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then" answered with another "yea."
said that we (meaning Christians) "just want Jews to be perfected" and that a Christian is a "perfected" Jew.
Meet Ann Coulter, a columnist published by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (as recently as June 4, 2010). No word on when Coulter will join the Inquisition. Or the Crusades to free the Holy Land from the infidel.
Ann Coulter fell for a fake April Fools' Day article by Car and Driver that claimed President Obama ordered GM and Chrysler to cease their participation in NASCAR because it is an "unnecessary expenditure."
I am giggling as I type this out. Really really giggling.
Here is the column at Human Events. As of this writing (11:30am on April 2) the gaffe is still there:
If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure," isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan "jihads" also an "unnecessary expenditure"?
Car and Driver later pulled the fake story (which estimated savings of $250 million between the manufacturers) and apologized for "going too far" while noting the magazine " has a proud tradition of irreverent editorial and we amplify that each year with our April Fool's Day joke."
Leave it to a guy to talk about the controversies involved in Ann Coulter's new book and book tour and leave out the most important one: Ann slams Michelle Obama's fashion sense in it:
Coulter wrote, "Her obvious imitation of Jackie O's style - the flipped-under hair, the sleeveless A-line dresses, the short strands of fake pearls - would have been laughable if done by anyone other than a media-designated saint."
OK, I'm kidding of course that this is important. Lord knows we had enough scrutiny of Hillary's pantsuits and cleavage and Palin's wardrobe during the election. But, I do find it amusing that someone who has made a virtual fetish* out of little black cocktail dresses would presume to have any complaint about anyone else's wardrobe.
And, no, I'm not knocking little black dresses. But Annie's reliance on them and the contrast of her very black clothes coupled with her very fair hair and skin has always made me see her as a Robert Longo painting come-to-life which would put Little Annie, style-wise, firmly back in the last century -- along with Jackie O -- not to mention that her own attire is so often "sleeveless A-line dresses."
Media Matters has examined a copy of Ann Coulter's new book, Guilty, and presents a sampling of the book's numerous falsehoods. These falsehoods include her defense of claims made against Sen. John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; her assertion that "Fox News has never been caught promoting a fraud"; and her claim that President-elect Barack Obama was referring to Gov. Sarah Palin when he said "you know, you can put lipstick on a pig; it's still a pig."
An example:
On Page 15, Coulter writes, "Fox News has never been caught promoting a fraud -- unlike CBS (Bush National Guard story), ABC (tobacco industry report), NBC (exploding GM trucks), CNN (Tailwind), and MSNBC (Keith Olbermann)." In fact, as Media Matters has documented, on several occasions since 2004, Fox News has issued a retraction and apology for airing a news report that repeated false information, one of which led Fox News' Vice President for News John Moody to reportedly warn staff in January 2007 that "seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC."
On the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade repeated as fact an online parody news report of a school prank that included fabricated quotes attributed to the superintendent. Doocy issued an on-air retraction and apology during the May 16, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends First, but the superintendent brought suit against the Fox News Channel, Doocy, and Kilmeade. In a June 3, 2008, decision dismissing the lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge D. Brock Hornby wrote:
The facts in this case -- a morning cable news show derisively reporting events and statements obtained unwittingly from an online parody -- should provide grist for journalism classes teaching research and professionalism standards in the Internet age. But First Amendment principles developed long before the Internet still provide protection to the gullible news program hosts against this public official's claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Poetic justice would subject the defendants to the same ridicule that they accorded the plaintiff. But in real life, the aggrieved school superintendent must be satisfied with their later retraction and a professional reputation sullied less than theirs.
The lawsuit was filed by Leon Levesque, a school superintendent in Lewiston, Maine. According to The Associated Press, "[t]he case was an outgrowth of an April 2007 prank in which a middle school student tossed a slab of leftover Easter ham onto a table surrounded by Somali Muslim youngsters, knowing the Muslims would be offended." Freelance writer Nicholas Plagman later published a fabricated news report about the incident at Associated Content in which he attributed numerous made-up quotes to Levesque, including one in which Levesque was alleged to have said: "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy." On the April 24, 2007, edition of Fox & Friends, Doocy and Kilmeade reported on Plagman's story as though it were fact and repeated several of the made-up quotes attributed to Levesque. In discussing the parody report, Doocy repeatedly asserted: "We are not making this up." Indeed, when Kilmeade asserted: "You know, I hope we're not being duped," Doocy replied, "We're not being duped. I've looked it up on a couple of different websites up there."
Ann Coulter was scheduled to appear on the "Today" show Tuesday morning to promote her new book, "Guilty." But it's now been canceled, according to her website.
Coulter wrote: "TODAY SHOW AND TODAY SHOW FOURTH HOUR: CANCELLED!"
"I guess this ends the 'they just want to get ratings' argument about liberal media bias," Coulter wrote underneath.
But one network insider claims it was the book's theme -- a brutal examination of liberal bias in the new era -- that got executives to dis-invite the controversialist.
"We are just not interested in anyone so highly critical of President-elect Obama, right now," a TODAY insider reveals. "It's such a downer. It's just not the time, and it's not what our audience wants, either."
For the book, Coulter reportedly received the most-lucrative advance ever paid to a conservative author.
The TODAY show eagerly invited the author months ago, for her first network interview on GUILTY.
The exclusive was to air during the show's 7 AM hour. The cut came Monday afternoon.
Jack Kelly, conservative columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tried to convince the other conservatives who read his column that Senator John McCain most definitely is not Satan's first cousin. Only time will tell whether he succeeded.
This week, he's taking another tack. This time he's criticising those conservatives who call McCain a RINO (aka "Republican In Name Only"). Our friend Jack:
The epithet is ridiculous, because it assumes that being conservative and being Republican are identical. Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower were good Republicans, but they weren't conservatives. Nor were Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Bob Dole or George H. W. Bush.
A political party is a conspiracy to obtain power, nothing more. In democratic politics there is nothing wrong with that, because the conspiracies are peaceful, open and -- in a two-party system -- moderating. For Republicans to be successful, they must embrace moderates as well as conservatives. This means moderates get to lead from time to time.
Hold on to your hats here, my friends, I think J-Kel makes some good points.
Unfortunately, however convincing I might think Kelly is, James Dobson will probably remain unconvinced. From the AP:
James Dobson, one of the nation's most prominent evangelical Christian leaders, backed Mike Huckabee's presidential bid Thursday night, giving the former Arkansas governor a long-sought endorsement as the Republican field narrowed to a two-man race.
In a statement first obtained by The Associated Press, Dobson reiterated his declaration on Super Tuesday that he could not in good conscience vote for John McCain, the front-runner, because of concerns over the Arizona senator's conservative credentials.
And a few paragraphs later:
Dobson criticized McCain for his support of embryonic stem cell research, his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and for his temper and use of foul language. He said he'd sit out the presidential election if McCain were the nominee.
Temper and foul language? Well there's this from July of 2006.
A conservative website has launched a full-frontal attack on Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who the story says has an "irrational, explosive" temper, citing two former Republican senators and GOP aides.
At least two Democratic aides have told RAW STORY McCain has shown a similar temperament. Multiple sources have also said that McCain has a practice of leaking stories on those he doesn't get along with -- and is believed by several reporters and Senate aides to have been behind a series of leaks in the Jack Abramoff scandal. McCain's office has vehemently denied the claims.
And:
According to Newsmax, "McCain's outbursts often erupted when other members rebuffed his requests for support during his bid in 2000 for the Republican nomination for president. A former Senate staffer recalled what happened when McCain asked for support from a fellow Republican senator on the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee."
"The senator explained that he had already committed to support George Bush," a former Senate staffer told the site. "McCain said ‘f— you' and never spoke to him again."
Ok, then. Back to Jack:
But the dyspeptic denizens of the Right believe in addition by subtraction. To make the GOP stronger, moderates must be calumnized and driven from it. Polemicist Ann Coulter is so angry with Mr. McCain's occasional embrace of Democratic ideas that she says she'll campaign for Democrats if Mr. McCain wins the nomination.
Ms. Coulter says this sort of thing whenever she feels she's not getting enough attention. Her position is extreme, even among the extremists. But many, brimming with self righteousness, declare they'll stay home if Mr. McCain, or Mr. Romney, or Mr. Huckabee wins the nomination. These guys (and gals) are the true RINOs.
Extreme among the extremists, Ann Coulter is still at it. Here she is from a few days ago:
On the litmus test issues of our time, only partially excluding Iraq, McCain is a liberal.
-- He excoriated Samuel Alito as too "conservative."
-- He promoted amnesty for 20 million illegal immigrants.
-- He abridged citizens' free speech (in favor of the media) with McCain-Feingold.
-- He hysterically opposes waterboarding terrorists and wants to shut down Guantanamo.
Can I take a breath now?
-- He denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
-- He opposes ANWR and supports the global warming cult, even posturing with fellow mountebank Arnold Schwarzenegger in front of solar panels.
The only site that would have been more appropriate for Schwarzenegger in endorsing McCain would have been in front of an abortion clinic.
Unfortunately for Jack Kelly, my guess is that St. Ann-of-the-Bulging-Laryngeal-Prominence has a larger reading audience than the P-G's former National Security correspondent.
Things must be real panicy over in Wingnuttia these days.
According to talkingpointsmemo, in a state-by-state round up of the upcoming Republican primaries, Senator John McCain looks to be in a good position. In fact they say:
The bottom line: John McCain has it made.
And this morning, they posted:
On the Republican side the picture is coming pretty quickly into focus: John McCain looks poised to crush Mitt Romney on Tuesday. If you look at the results of the Gallup daily tracking poll, virtually all of Giuliani's support nationally has gone to McCain, pushing him up into the mid-forties. Put that apparent break-out together with the fact that the Republican side is dominated by winner-take-all primaries, and it seems more than likely McCain will take Tuesday in a blow out. Probably enough to effectively end the Republican race. [emphasis added.]
So when the "more conservative-er than thou" crowd is unhappy with McCain's Con-credentials, it's up to our Jack Kelly to try to calm things down. Here he is from today's column:
The race for the GOP nomination for president is all but over, save for the weeping and gnashing of teeth among conservatives.
I don't think Arizona Sen. John McCain would be a good president. He lacks the temperament for it, he has virtually no managerial experience and the economy is, as George Will put it, "a subject with which Mr. McCain is neither conversant, nor eager to become so."
But there is a big difference between being a mediocre president -- as one could argue George W. Bush has been -- and being an awful one.
First off, let me congratulate Jack Kelly for putting in print something we've been waiting to hear him say for a long time: George W. Bush has been a mediocre president. But is it possible that he's saying that McCain would be a worse president than dubya? Or is he making a comparison between a McCain presidency and an Obama or Clinton presidency?
This part is unclear to me. Perhaps his editors should have asked him to tighten that one up a bit.
In any event, he makes his case for and against McCain. First the pro:
For this conservative, the paramount issue is winning the war on terror, because if we lose, nothing else will matter very much. Arguably, Mr. McCain is better suited than anyone else to lead us to victory.
The next most important issue to me is to appoint to the federal bench judges who will follow the Constitution. Mr. McCain supported the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, but some are trying to manufacture doubt about whom he'd appoint. There's no doubt about what kind of judges Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would choose.
Then the con:
Mr. McCain was wrong to oppose the Bush tax cuts, and his refusal to admit his mistake fuels MDS (McCain Derangement Syndrome).
In between he outlined the dangers facing the citizens of the Red States:
While it is true no Republican can be elected president without the support of the conservative base, it is also true that no Republican can be elected with the support only of the conservative base. When moderates are no longer comfortable in the Republican Party, Democrats will win all the elections.
That being said, I thought it would be fun to see just what they in fact are saying about McCain.
John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most "electable" Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn't lie all the time while claiming to engage in Straight Talk.
Of course, I might lie constantly too, if I were seeking the Republican presidential nomination after enthusiastically promoting amnesty for illegal aliens, Social Security credit for illegal aliens, criminal trials for terrorists, stem-cell research on human embryos, crackpot global warming legislation and free speech-crushing campaign-finance laws.
I might lie too, if I had opposed the Bush tax cuts, a marriage amendment to the Constitution, waterboarding terrorists and drilling in Alaska.
And I might lie if I had called the ads of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "dishonest and dishonorable."
Astonishing. For the record Bob Dole was born in the summer of 1923. So that means that in 1996 (when he ran for President) he turned 73. John McCain was born in late-summer of 1936. So in 2008 he'll turn 72. Kinda kills Coulter's age joke, doesn't it?
Or maybe I'm just lacking a sense of humor.
Here's Rush Limbaugh on John McCain. The headline of the transcript goes like this:
It's Plain to See: McCain Chooses to Surround Himself with Liberals
Followed by a picture of McCain Governor Schwarzenegger and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. At Schwarzenegger's endorsement of McCain, the Governator touted McCain's ability to reach out across the aisle. This rubbed the Rush the wrong way:
Well, that's really helpful. He reaches across the aisle well. (sigh) That means he reaches out to Democrats -- and of course Schwarzenegger probably could write the book on that.
But one other thing that I would like to ask those of you who are military -- and you know of my profound, deep respect and awe for you in the decades of support on this program, but I would like to ask you about McCain's support for closing Club Gitmo. Senator McCain wants to shut down Guantanamo Bay because of abuses that the Europeans are accusing us of committing, and so he wants to appease the Europeans and whoever the hell else around the world who thinks that we are committing torture. These are the people with whom we are at war. We have gleaned operational intelligence from people at Guantanamo. Waterboarding gave us everything we needed to know about the 9/11 mastermind and hijackings and the strategery and the operations of it. Waterboarding, not torture. The attorney general was put on the spot yesterday in hearings and he told the guys at the committee, screw you -- he didn't use those words. He didn't back down. Waterboarding is not torture. I'm not going to tie my government's hands. He said, (paraphrasing) "I would love to institute my personal preferences on these kind of things, gentlemen, but I am the attorney general of the United States, and my first duty is the defense and protection of the Constitution here. I am not going to just by fiat tie my country's hands dealing with this enemy."
Senator McCain wants to do that. He wants to bring these prisoners of war into the United States, give them constitutional rights and lawyers, and basically fight the war in the court system. So on the one hand Senator McCain sounds all gung-ho, I'm for the surge and this sort of thing, but if you look at some of the other things that he's trying to do, like cut down on the interrogations that take place. I mean, isn't that part of the war, the internal security of the country? We were attacked here on 9/11, after all. I don't think we need to close Club Gitmo. Senator McCain says that if we waterboard these clowns we're no better than our enemy. What do the troops think of that? I'm just throwing some questions out there, not trying to agitate, not trying to stir the pot. That happens naturally. Don't have to try. Just throwing some questions out there.
John McCain said at the GOP debate two days ago: “I’ll rely on people to judge me by the company that I keep.” The company John McCain keeps:
Russ Feingold. Teddy Kennedy. Lindsay Grahamnesty. Juan “Mexico First/Free Flow” Hernandez. Jerry “Spanish first” Perenchio. Geraldo Rivera. La Raza. Charles Keating. John Kerry. The New York Times.
Ouch. John Kerry, the New York Times AND John Keating.
Here's Hugh Hewett at Townhall.com. He just quoted McCain's opposition to drilling in ANWR:
As far as ANWR is concerned, I don’t want to drill in the Grand Canyon, and I don’t want to drill in the Everglades. This is one of the most pristine and beautiful parts of the world.
There in a sentence is another example of the dynamic that drives conservatives away from John McCain. Not only do the vast majority of Republicans support exploration in ANWR, they also deeply resent the idea that such a position is on a par with a proposal to strip mine Yellowstone. But here is John McCain comparing exploration in ANWR to drilling in the Everglades or the Grand Ganyon. It isn't just that McCain's position is opposite that of the Republican party. It is also that he uses the harshest rhetoric of the left to convey that disagreement
I was gonna write about the SCHIP veto override, then I saw this at mediamatters.org.
For those who need a good reminder, some time ago, Ms Coulter, speaking for all Christians, said this to Donny Deutsch on CNBC:
[W]e just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.
You can read the rest of the interview here. There's more in the interview about how interracial couples in New York City...well you have to read it for all it's painstaking genetic subtlety:
COULTER:...You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it's like they have a chip on their shoulder. They're just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And --
DEUTSCH: I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don't see any more or less chips there either way. That's erroneous.
COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you're lying.
DEUTSCH: Oh, because of some Seinfeld episode? OK.
For those keeping score at home, the Seinfeld episode she's referring to is, I believe, called "The Wizard" and it was first broadcast in late February, 1998. That's almost a decade ago. Nice that she's up on popular culture.
Anyway, she was on the radio recently with Michael Medved, who is both conservative and Jewish (and obviously not "perfected"). She tried to explain herself by saying:
And by the way, of course a Christian wants everyone to be a Christian. I assume all vegans think the world would be better if everyone were a vegan. And the global warming wackos would like everyone to believe in their crackpot global warming theory. And nonsmokers would like everyone not to smoke. I don't even go around passing laws, like Michael Bloomberg.
I just love the part about the "crackpot global warming theory." Anyway later on she said this about Judaism:
But Judaism, as I explained -- Christians accept the Old Testament. Jews don't accept the New Testament, so, you know, as long as we're playing this new sport of "he who is offended first wins," if anyone's going to be offended by anyone else's religion, the Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don't see me sniffling and crying.
Sniffling and crying (about any subject) might make her human.
In his column today, Tony Norman takes on Ann Coulter's most recent bit of rhetorical wankery. For those living under a rock she said on CNBC "We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."
So she's speaking for all Christians now? And what about all those centuries of perfecting?
Ah, yes, the history of "perfected Jews" and others in the heart of the Christian world has been so inspiring over the centuries, hasn't it?
Take the Crusades for example -- please. Those bloody religious campaigns in the Holy Land provided a marvelous outlet for "perfecting" the Mohammedans and the children of Abraham.
The aforementioned Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain and cardinal of the Catholic Church, "perfected" Jews so much that they left the country by the thousands in 1492.
History is one long march of "perfecting" unbelievers. In fact, it's a perfect storm of perfection: Catholics perfecting Protestants. Puritans perfecting witches. Protestants perfecting Quakers and other religious minorities. The crew of the Good Ship Jesus perfecting African "pagans" by carrying them to America in chains where they would experience soul-crushing servitude for an unimaginable 300 years.
Some other choice quotations from Saint Ann of the Laryngeal Prominence:
Being nice to people is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity (as opposed to other religions whose tenets are more along the lines of 'kill everyone who doesn't smell bad and doesn't answer to the name Mohammed'). - from a column dated 03/04/04
The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet — it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars — that's the Biblical view. - from a column dated 10/12/00
I would have written this yesterday, but I didn't think of it until I saw that Sue over at Pghlesbian.com posted it. So, of course, it would have been MY original idea hadn't someone else thought of, and posted it, first.
Sue spotted this "affirmation of Falwell" by the lovely Ann Coulter where the prominently Ann Coulter writes:
Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell.
Ok, then. Now that that's been established, let's take a further, deeper look into the annals of Falwell's rhetorical history (anyone catching the pun, go buy yourself a pop-tart). Luckily Martin Lewis over at the Huffingtonpost has compiled a list of neat things Falwell said. And thanks to Ann, we now know she agrees with them. All of them:
God is a Republican.
Jesus was the First American.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a phony.
The Bible is the inerrant...word of the living God. It is absolutely infallible, without error in all matters pertaining to faith and practice, as well as in areas such as geography, science, history...
The (gay-oriented) Metropolitan Community Churches are brute beasts and a vile and Satanic system that will one day be utterly annihilated and there will be a celebration in heaven...
And Jack Kelly can't help himself - spinning again.
While it's true that in this Sunday's column he spanks Ann Coulter pointing out her "vile mouth" and calling her a "foul-mouthed narcissist." He can't resist a few tried and (and yet untrue) jabs at the left.
Kelly first frames Coulter's recent outrages as par for the course for liberals:
Ms. Coulter is the conservative those on the far left love to hate. This is in part because, in her substitution of invective for argument, she is the conservative who most resembles themselves.
Really? Who on the left has as big a following as Ann Coulter and is as much a foul-mouthed narcissist? Kelly gives us a clue as to who he thinks it is:
Like Michael Moore, she learned long ago that hurling insults sells more books than reasoned arguments do.
That's right - Michael Moore. Who said...what again? Kelly doesn't say. He leaves it up to his audience to fill in the blank.
In his defense, Kelly spends most of the column criticising the various defenses other conservatives have used to defend Coulter. A laudable undertaking - especially by a fellow nutcase conservative. This is how he describes the defenses:
If they didn't reveal so much inner ugliness, the defenses offered for Ms. Coulter's remark would be hilarious in their hypocrisy.
But he still can't resist smearing Liberals while spanking conservatives:
The third is that the moonbats on the left say more vile things, more frequently. Also true. "Comedian" Bill Maher was only one of many who expressed regret that Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't assassinated. But your mama should have taught you in elementary school that bad behavior by your playmates does not justify bad behavior by you.
Like his colleague Ruth Ann Dailey, Jack Kelly's a few days behind the learning curve on this one. His column was published on the 11th of March. 6 days before on the 5th of March, Bill Maher posted this at the Huffington Post:
On Saturday, the website NewsBusters.org posted a story under the headline "Bill Maher Sorry the Assassination Attempt on Dick Cheney Failed."
There's just one problem: As a fair reading of the show's transcript makes clear, I never said those words. Still, over the weekend, dozens of websites, mostly right wing, picked up the story (with headline intact) thus proliferating the myth that comic Maher somehow advocates the whacking of our Veep.
Don't get me wrong: I've never joined the Dick Cheney Fan Club. But what I said Friday -- and what I believe -- is that the Vice President has presided over a bungled execution of a war in which thousands of our bravest continue to die. And I believe that were he not in power, our troops would likely come home sooner. But I don't wish him dead.
Ironically, I made my comments during a discussion about Free Speech, which is one of the chief reasons that I love my country.
Maybe Kelly thinks he's covered his ass by adding that "was only one of many" qualifier.
But if you're gonna quote a guy, shouldn't you at least, well, quote him?
Here's exactly what Maher said on his HBO show. The discussion was about his discomfort over the Huffingtonpost's decision to erase the comments there that expressed regret that the assasination attempt failed. Maher's point then was, why can't they say that? Joe Scarborough has an intelligent answer:
Okay, then – but, let’s put it this way then. If somebody came on here and said that they wished all abortion clinics had been blown up...and you didn’t step forward and say, “I disassociate myself with those remarks,” and it just floats out there in the transcripts, then you’re going to be connected with those words. Arianna Huffington has every right to say, “I don’t want to be associated with this hate language.”
Which actually makes sense. But here's what Maher is quoted as saying:
But I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn’t be dying needlessly tomorrow.
And then a few seconds later the conversation continues with Joe Scarborough and Congressman Barny Frank:
SCARBOROUGH:...If somebody on this panel said they wished that Dick Cheney had been blown up, and you didn’t say—
FRANK: I think he did. [laughter]
SCARBOROUGH: Okay, did you say--?
MAHER: No. No, I quoted that.
FRANK: You don’t? Oh, you don’t believe that?
MAHER: No, I’m just saying that if he did die—
SCARBOROUGH: [laughter] Okay, but if – oh, let’s just say—
MAHER: [overlapping]—other people – more people would live. That’s a fact.
See that? When asked if he believed it, he said (and this is a quote) "No." and that's a far cry from saying he expressed regret that the Vice-President wasn't assassinated.
But you know, for my buddy Jack Kelly, letting pesky things like details get in the way of a good story is not something he seems to be interested in.
On Hannity and Colmes last night, Ann Coulter explained her "joke" with this:
Faggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays.
And:
It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss,' and unless you're telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person."
Really? "Faggot" having nothing to do with gays? I am assuming at least a few members of Pittsburgh's gay community read this blog. Can I get a ruling from the judges? Is it true that "faggot" is not an anti-gay slur?
Anyway since language expert Ann is claiming that "faggot=wuss", what does "wuss" mean? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "wuss" is probably a combination of "wimp" and "pussy" and it means:
A person regarded as weak or timid and especially as unmanly
The term itself is a sexist insult. A man is a wuss if he's acting like a weak woman. Not sure if Ann's gained any ground on that one. Especially if she's saying that that's also the definition of "faggot."
Ann also tried to dance around the issue by saying that it was a joke about rehab - and how in Hollywood people go to rehab for alot of stupid reasons. But let's analyse the joke:
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.
If you look closely, she's saying that she can't talk about Edwards, because in her comments she wants to use a particular term - but if she used that word, she'd have to go into rehab.
Lil Annie Coulter drew attention to this meeting with her John Edwards homophobic "faggot joke." Now you can watch even more of this fun, wholesome event with The Nation's Max Blumenthal's "CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Documentary."
He interacts with some of your fav wingnuts like: Malkin, Tancredo, Norquist, Horowitz, D'souza, and of course, Coulter herself.
And speaking of all things racial, when Blumenthal tries to goad Tancredo supporters Borat-style they, no dummies, tell him to get lost. Though, as he leaves their company one of them desperately tries to hide his Confederate lapel pin. (Rep. Tom Tancredo [R-Co] has called Miami a "Third World country," when he's not busy worrying that "efforts to merge the U.S. with both Mexico and Canada is not a fantasy.")
First, Ann. This is from the New York Times (a place where Ann "joked" about killing all the journalists inside):
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.”
Funny, huh?
Some Republican reactions.
Senator John McCain's spokesman:
The comments were wildly inappropriate.
Rudy Giuliani:
The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate.
Kevin Madden, Governor Mitt Romney's spokesman:
It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.
Her "faggot" joke was not just a distraction from all the good that was highlighted and represented at the conference. It was the equivalent of a rhetorical fragging--an intentionally-tossed verbal grenade that exploded in her own fellow ideological soldiers' tent.
And:
With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees.
The political equivalent of Britney Spears shaving the hair off her head, Ann Coulter made headlines at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by calling Democrat John Edwards a faggot. Wearing a leather dress and a Christian cross around her neck, Coulter must be a liberal infiltrator whose purpose is to give conservatism a bad name.
And:
Ironically, Coulter's "joke" about Edwards was presented in the context of saying that if she used the word "faggot" to describe him, she would have to go into rehab. The idea of getting Coulter some professional help doesn't sound so funny to me.
Conservative Ann Coulter said this today at the Conservative Political Action Conference:
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.
There is no place in political discourse for this kind of hate-filled and bigoted comments. While Democrats and Republicans may disagree on the issues, we should all be able to agree that this kind of vile rhetoric is out of bounds. The American people want a serious, thoughtful debate of the issues. Republicans -- including the Republican presidential candidates who shared the podium with Ann Coulter today -- should denounce her hateful remarks.
UPDATE Part Deux: See the clip, hear the applause, experience the magic that is - COULTER:
