Throwing Out The Babe With The Bath Water
February 11th, 2006 at 2:15 pm by SmantixQueen Ann’s Rebellion hit blogger’s row at the CPAC conference and I’m left to imagine how they winced at each other when collectively declaring Ann Coulter persona non grata for the conservative confab. Proving that in defeat, Democrats will defend (nay, Encourage!) the most obnoxious among their ranks to the bitter end…
… but that in victory, Republicans/Conservatives throw their own to the wolves at the first sign of controversy. Don’t let that “Press Pass” go to your heads, guys.
Ann Coulter proposes a new “post-9/11 rule”:
“Rag-head talks tough, rag-head faces thunderous consequences.â€
That will be all on her.
Is “raghead” racist? Only if you stereotype all Muslims to begin with. John Walker Lindh certainly wasn’t an Arab. Though I was not there, I would wager she was referring to people like Ahmadinejad or any other clucking tyrants with glass chins and nuclear ambitions.
Is it culturally and ethnically insensitive? Sure. Inasmuch as criticizing one’s attire can be. Coulter’s had more people rebuking her comments today than the entire culture she denounced has been since they started burning down embassies last week.
Because we’ve got to be sensitive to their feelings.
One Tom Bridge with Washington Metroblogging writes:
Sad, isn’t it? That those talking in sensible tones will be forgotten for the loudmouths with braggadocio. What happened to the impassioned and dedicated work of smart and talented men and women on behalf of the duty of a grateful nation? Is it lost upon the masses in favor of the reptilian revenge driven brain? The five second soundbyte generation?
I think I’m going to go be ill.
Don’t worry, sugar. It’s nothing a Midol can’t cure or possibly The Pet Guru on Animal Planet. And yes, Grover Norquist and Bob Novak will be forthcoming. In sensible tones no less. Maybe Novak can bring some more of that gravitas and charm that made his soundbytes so popular with Special Prosecutors last year as long as we’re concerned about appearances.
Even bulldogpundit, who I follow daily at the anklebiters is calling for an apology?
…what an utterly despicable and nauseating comment. I wonder if Ann, who supports the Iraq war, realizes that many Americans died liberating those “ragheads” over in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[...]
Ann, as much as I love your writing and agree with much of what you say, you should apologize for your comment. It was wrong.
Nauseating? I turn on the computer and I turn on the tv. I see tens of thousands of what I’m sure are non-rag wearing, peaceful peoples torching embassies, kidnapping people, attacking police, wearing suicide belts as a form of protest, demanding that free peoples shut down their newspapers, editors being arrested for exercising a free press, all the while imploring that, Allah willing, they’d kill all of us.
I see the Attorney General getting hauled in front of Congress for trying to keep them from succeeding by Democrats who would rather fight Republicans than terrorists.
I think I am getting a little nauseous trying to get worked up about this non-controversy.
Shape of Days takes a page out of the liberal playbook and goes so far as to equate people (one in particular) who defend her as racists. Kind of like how people who didn’t fall in line after the Harriet Miers nomination really just hated women.
Outside the Beltway takes a side as well:
Coulter is an embarrassment and her words continue to get quoted as representing what “conservatives really think.” The CPAC organizers should be ashamed for inviting her back year after year and giving her such a prominent stage.
I expect Coulter to get picketed before speaking engagements at the University of Texas or Cornell but at CPAC? Come on. Coulter’s not elected to any office yet we still need to censor her lest the media paint all people on the right as racists.
*Pfew* Lucky we avoided that brush.
I respect all of those bloggers (at least the ones I’ve heard of) but as far as a “prominent stage” goes, Coulter sells a million books and is on tv all of the time but being given a few minutes to speak at a meeting of, by, and for conservatives is too high profile? It’s not liberals who are buying those books, fellas.
She’s our CPAC Valentine. A guilty pleasure we indulge who unapologetically cracks the rhetorical beer bottle over every liberal she engages in contrast to the effete, bow-tied excuses that pass for conservatives on our evening yelling matches. An infotainer whose high heels can aerate a freshly seeded lawn and whose ass just might smell like vanilla ice cream wrapped in an Italian leather mini-skirt.
Let’s not take her more seriously than she takes herself and practice a little 11th Commandment if we can’t.
The opinions expressed in this post are that of smantix alone and in no way reflect those of the rest of the 6MB cast and crew.
February 11th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
It Could Have Been A Lot Worse
She could have called them sand niggers *I* don’t call…
February 11th, 2006 at 7:50 pm
I love her the same way I loved Jerry “The King” Lawler. You know that strap is gonna come down and someone’s going to take an ass-whoopin’. I’d like to provide her some guilty pleasure…
February 11th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Comrades,
Heh. I just love it when the moonbats get slapped with a truthful comment, when someone actually steps up and speaks truth to sour, so to speak. The way they twist and shout and go all spastic trying to denounce her. It’s as if they were all political vampyres and she tossed some holy water onto them.
Oh the pain! The pain! It Burns!!!
Respects,
Gwedd
February 11th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
Much like the Downing Street Memo, or the Bourbon Street Memo or the Downing Street Memo 2, it’s obvious to this party that “the fix is in” and that the right side of the blogosphere has decided to sacrifice Coulter in front of their tribunal and for what? Who is going to be impressed by this?
Tom “Let’s Nuke Mecca” Tancredo will no doubt be well-received due to his stand on immigration but what? Am I supposed to muster some artifice of outrage over Coulter’s predictable comments and dutifully ignore Tancredo’s from the recent past?
This whole tempest in a tampon is tactical vanity and practical bullshit.
February 11th, 2006 at 10:59 pm
Hear Hear Smantix. Conservatives who cast aspersion on Coulter over the raghead comment are pandering just like the dems at whom they spew their regular vitriol.
I say good on her.
“tempest in a tampon” Heh!
February 12th, 2006 at 1:12 am
SmantiXXX! You criticized my Jeffypoo!!!!
It’s on now, bro. I’ll meet your ass under the bleechers after football practice. No knives, no guns, but bats are ok. For me. Because I’m a big ‘ol wimp.
February 12th, 2006 at 7:55 am
It wasn’t a personal attack but it was a criticism of the race card tactic by his drawing from the specific to the general.
As I said, I like all of the sites above (with the exception of the DC Metroblogging one that I’d never heard of) but that doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with every one of them 100% of the time.
February 12th, 2006 at 9:56 am
Ann Coulter = General Patton
More testosterone in little pinky than any twelve Administration spokesmen combined – think Scott McClellan
Thanks for your work.
February 12th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Sunday Funnies
image courtesy of faithmouse
image courtesy of Cox and Forkum
The Nose on Your Face gives us Top 9 Signs Your Religion Is Not Peaceful.
Point Five shows us how a Moderate Muslim Demonstration Turns Violent
Blogs for Bush has a laugh at first photo…
February 12th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
It wasn’t a personal attack but it was a criticism of the race card tactic by his drawing from the specific to the general.
Well, of course, saying “Raghead” is an ethnic slur, SmantiXXX, not just a clothing criticism like “your ass looks fat in those tapered-leg jeans.”
I’m assuming you’re criticizing Jeffypoo’s reaction to the following comment:
“They look and act like ragheads to me so, as they say on the street, I’m good with ragheads. If they start acting like they have a brain then we can talk nomenclature. RAGHEADS SUCK!!â€
Sounds rather ethnic-slurry to me. This letter-writer isn’t so much defending Ann Coulter as he is agreeing that Raghead is an appropriate way to address them.
I can say “Niggers are ruining my neighborhood!” and have people cry racism and ignore the underlying problem or say, “Black people in my neighborhood commit 50% of the crime, yet are only 15% of the population.” Republicans don’t need to start spewing emotionally-charged words! In the case of Islam, is saying ‘Raghead’ really necessary??
February 12th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
It’s not necessary, but look at Coulter’s goal and her audience. She’s an entertainer primarily, playing to a conservative crowd. Mission accomplished for Coulter; she’s generated controversy and no-doubt increased readership.
Ethnic-slurry to be sure, and your point is a good one. Which is more effective in communicating the same message? It all depends on the messenger and intended audience. If Bush were to make the ‘Nigger’ comment, the message is muted amid cries of racism. But if Coulter blandly recites race and crime statistics, her readers would likely yawn and look for entertainment elsewhere.
February 12th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Hottest.Coulter.Action.Ever
Feisty steps to the plate in support of some protein blogger. Be it any other commenter, Smantix would no doubt have eaten her liver with fava beans and a nice chianti. I love everything Feisty has to say, maybe because she is a paradox unto herself….
February 12th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
In the litany of epithets and the totalities of offensiveness – I’m just not putting “raghead” as highly as you guys are. Feel free to hit the archives but I don’t believe you will find where I’ve ever gone that particular route for style points.
Cherry-picking one letter writer out of the “tons of mail” as to imply that the bad spellers who’d support Coulter on this issue are closet klansmen is what made me include that link. If I’d been the object of tens of flame messages, I might signal someone out and put words in their mouth as well. It doesn’t make it right.
She suggested bombing every country that let the Danish embassies be overrun, repeated her line about poisoning a SC Justice, and that there was more dissent on a slave plantation than there was over the Miers nomination. But the PC remark is the cause of concern.
The locus of this post was more about how people on the right deal with each other when they have disagreements – as they invariably will.
The enemy’s out there, man – out there!
Republicans don’t need to start spewing emotionally-charged words! In the case of Islam, is saying ‘Raghead’ really necessary??
As I said above, Tom Tancredo was at CPAC and his “nuke Mecca” comments didn’t warrant his invitation getting lost in the mail. But he’s actually elected and Coulter’s just a polemicist. So much for emotionally charged words.
He also said in his speech to build a wall “Open borders are wrong,” Tancredo said. “No matter how good they are for the restaurant industry.†That’s racial stereotyping. Are the Chimichanga Republicans going to let Tancredo get away with that racial blasphemy??? Or are the Sensitivity Police going to let that one pass?
February 12th, 2006 at 7:47 pm
I’m being remiss in not including Sager’s comments on Tancredo:
“Yes, God forbid the restaurant industry, the construction industry, fruit growers or any other industry do well.
So, here’s the rub with all the people who think that immigration is going to be the defining issue within the Republican Party for years to come. They’re wrong — and not just because their policies are based on economic ignorance and not-so-subtle racism.”
Wow. If you’re for immigration reform, you’re a racist too. I’m shocked, shocked at these broad, tarring strokes for not marching in lockstep with the milquetoast, Country Club GOP leadership who choose to sell out national security in favor of cheap landscaping and a fucking bag of oranges.
In the future, my nick can also be smegmantix, sementix or some variation thereof. I’ve tried to keep this above the waist but you go with your strengths I guess.
February 13th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
So she’s gone from “Slander” to “Treason” to “poisoning a Supreme Court justice” to “raghead” in a failed attempt to be popular among a few thousand like-minded fans. The words she really, really likes is “money” and “fame.”