Redstate

Except this time, it means bone-crunching.

Ann is a mudslinger.  Her incentive is to be extremist to get name recognition to sell books and get notoreity.  She has no incentive to help pass policy.

It is time for Ann to shut up and let conservatives get policy passed.  As Robin Burk just said, she is a "serious liability" to the conservative movement.

Cigarettes and wealthy exotic Princes.

Doverspa -

I'm pleased to read your reaction to Coulter.  Unfortunately, we also have this:

"The House goes wild for Ann. There's a better response for her than Karl Rove."

Evidently, she has a constituency.  Somebody's buying all those books.

Regarding this:

"Coulter is our Kos. You want vitriol, see Ann"

Vitriol is correct.  Sorry, but Coulter is Kos times ten.

Regarding this:

"Her irony is good, but you sense she actually believes that, as she says, 'It's time for a new McCarthyism.'"

My reply to Coulter, and those who think like her, is the same as my reply to Buchanan's "culture war" speech way back when, and to many similar remarks in the interim.  Tell me where and when you want to meet, and what your choice of weapon is.  Or, perhaps more realistically: you can shoot your mouth off all you want, but if you want to take it to mat, you better be ready to rumble.

You won't hear me saying things like this very often, but I'll say it now.  To mangle an old New England expression, Coulter may not be a fascist, but you can see one from there.

Cheers -

This is not a good thing.

I don't respect Coulter, nor Kos.  They both spew vitriol.  Kos has an actual desire and incentive to get his policy choices implemented.  But both have an incentive to be extreme to attract readers.

but she's almost always right.  She writes vicious but (unlike the lefties) extremely well-thought-out prose.

If you haven't read Treason, forget everything you've been told about Ann and give it a shot.  Also "Useful Idiots" by Mona Charen.  These two books are why Americans who pay attention favor Republicans on foreign policy.

except that if she did not exist, she would have been invented.  Her public persona may be one that she has cultivated for the obvious reasons, but the utter irrationality of the left on many issues made the appearance of someone like her an inevitability.  Take, for example, the tired shibboleth of "McCarthyism", as though McCarthy did nothing other than harrass a few liberals who never had any sympathy for the Soviet Union.  As though concern for the possible presence in positions of influence of persons sympathetic to, or employed by, the Soviet Union, during one of the most tense periods of the entire Cold War, was naught but a manifestation of the "authoritarian personality" of right-wing crypto-fascism.  Liberals invested so much, for so long, in the effort to whitewash the unfortunate allegiances and inclinations of some of their icons of the period, that there was bound to arise, at some point in time, a vituperative right-wing push-back on the issue.  If, like McCarthy, it went too far, that was to be expected, because liberals had for too long gone too far themselves.  In other words, we're free to disavow Ann if we want; liberals ought to undertake some self-examination to learn what they might have done to deserve her vitriol.

To be strictly accurate, Kos made the following disgraceful comment regarding the four private security guys who were killed and mutilated in Fallujah:

"Screw them"

Not quite the same as cheering, although I'm not sure it's any better or worse.

I'm not sure there's that much value in trying to see who's a bigger jerk, Coulter or Kos, but since I started it by stating that Coulter was ten times worse, I'll offer some prime Coulter quotes:

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"

"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too"

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building"

"I have to say I'm all for public flogging."

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it! It's yours"

"My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism"

"It would be a much better country if women did not vote"

So, IMVHO, Coulter is Kos times ten. I recognize that neither you, or so far anyone here on RS, is defending Coulter or her statements, but it's hard for me to see the two as being in anything like the same league.  

As always, YMMV.

Cheers -

The very important Fafblog has a list of our next targets.

Achtung!

as though McCarthy did nothing other than harrass a few liberals who never had any sympathy for the Soviet Union

Well, "did nothing" is probably a stretch.  I mean, the guy drank like a fish.  As one who enjoys a drink (or six) every now and again, let me tell you:  That's something.

McCarthy over-reached, and turned into a monster.  In so doing, he probably set back anti-communist efforts by decades.  Really:  it takes a special kind of incompetence to turn Algier Hiss -- a bona fide communist spy -- into a lion.  That's called a backlash, friend.  And it's not a good thing if you're serious about rooting out communist agents.

Coulter is more of the same.  She does more harm to the cause she professes to support than the "other side" ever will.  If everyone's a "traitor," how the Hell can you smoke out the real traitors in your midst?  How do you fight a war when 49% of the country is the "enemy"?  Of coruse, she has the luxury of not considering such things, because she's not actually interested in winning.  All she cares about is the fight.

Well, if that tickles her toes, so be it.  But the rest of us -- those who are interested in making this nation better -- will not-so-politely tell her to shove it.

         looks like a long-haired Afghan dog.

She's still hot though. And I'm a girl.

My point is simply that liberal defenses of traitors like Hiss, the Rosenbergs and a whole host of people who ought at least to have had the decency to admit that they were wrong to dally with the commies were so over the top that some conservatives were bound to go apoplectic, especially after having to listen to the same exploded defenses for 50 years.  One extreme calls forth the other.  

As to whether she does more harm than good, I don't know, as I wouldn't know how to begin quantifying such things.  But she does make it difficult to dialogue with rational liberals, and that's bad enough.

I don't know what you guys are whining about.  Ann Coulter doesn't go on television ranting and raving like the liberals do.  Remember Lawrence O'Donnell?  Paul Begala?  James Carville?  Try Maureen Dowd. Ann is nothing like these losers but she does have a sharp wit and biting tongue and knows how to dish it out. These conspiracy theory wingnuts deserve nothing less.  

That is the problem with Republicans.  They don't know how to go for the throat while the Democrats are pros at aiming for the head.

I hope Ann keeps it up and never gives an inch. She is a strength for us conservatives, not something to be ashamed of.

Ann is nothing like these losers but she does have a sharp wit and biting tongue and knows how to dish it out.

Well, she does talk.  And talk.  And talk.  And talk.  And talk.  

I believe that she writes a column a couple of times a week.  

She is called upon by the networks because the lady will not shy away from the liberals.

She is our KOS?  What kind of crap is that?  All she does is tell it like it is.

What are you ladies so afraid of?  

Public flogging; using the hell out of the planet; local strong government; and a restricted franchise.

Sorry. Coulter's not as bad as Kos, for a host of reasons.

Oddly enough, I find myself less than categorically opposed to public flogging.  In some cases, it might actually be more effective, cheaper, and on the whole less abusive than locking people up in some hellhole for years.  At least you get the punishment over with and move on, rather than drag it out for years.

Strong local government is fine with me.  Local fascism is not.

I'm also OK with restrictions on the franchise, but denying it to women is IMO not a good thing.

We disagree on using the hell out of the planet.

I've said my piece of Coulter, I've no desire to discuss her further.  If you have the time and inclination to reply, however, I would be interested to know the reasons for your opinion of Kos.

Cheers -

. . .having the vote--the Nineteenth Amendment was one of the two or three most important developments in US civil rights during the 20th Century.  However, I must admit that when I saw the polls immediately after the 2000 Democratic Convention that indicated that ten percent of women had decided to switch their support from GWB to Gore, and that the reason overwhelmingly cited for the switch was his performance at sticking his tongue down Tipper's throat in public, my faith in that very important principle wavered for a few moments.  Fortunately, my moment of doubt passed and the particular idiocy that provoked it had no lasting effects.

is a nasty nasty person. A Florence King in the making.

But I have all her books, read all her columns, and consider her a role model.

Despite the demogoguery and the vitriol, the lady is right on the big stuff. And has a quick mind to express it.

is I've heard Coulter mutter some of those lines

And they are much more H.L. Mencken than Joe McCarthy.

IMHO, Ann fancies herself a wiley curmudgeon -- a Beltway Dorthy Parker -- with none of Parker's wit or PJ O'Rourke's charm. She has beaten her schtick to death and the problem with schtick is that if/when she tries to make a serious point, no one can be sure if she means it or not. Sure she has fans, as she offers a guilty cathartic release for some who are just plain tired of the Leftist Cult's fatwas.

I wish she'd retire and go eat something. Poor gal, obviously hasn't had a meal in years.

I've seen no schtick out of Markos. He is deadly serious about everything he writes and his blog is a vertible hive of groupthink.

Darleen -

"And they are much more H.L. Mencken than Joe McCarthy"

There may be something to that.  I agree, however, that noone can be sure what she means and what she doesn't.  Is she just tarting up a reasonable, but highly conservative position with extreme statements for shock value?  Or does she really believe what she says?

What I don't see is the equivalence to Moulitsas.  For laughs, I just checked his site.  His articles for today include:

1.  A discussion of how port security funds have been spent.
   
   
2.  Comments on a NYT editorial on torture.
   
   
3.  Comments on an Atlanta Free Press editorial on the ease, or lack thereof, of getting a WH press pass, as that relates to the Gannon affair.
   
   
4.  Comments on a NYT article on a suicide bombing in Iraq.

All of these articles are critical of the Bush administration.  All also address relevant, substantive issues, in what appears to me to be a reasonable way.  All, as far as I can see, are no more partisan than a typical post here on RS.  In particular, none calls for bombing, killing, or forcibly converting folks they disagree with, for removing the franchise from folks whose voting patterns they don't like, etc.  None has anything like the venom, hatefulness, or flirting-with-fascistic rhetoric of the average Coulter spew.

I'm really not here to defend Markos Moulitsas.  His "screw them" comment, specifically, left me cold.  In any case, he's a big boy, and doesn't need me to stand up for him, or not.

What I am curious about is the perception here at RS that there is an equivalence between someone Kos and someone like Coulter.  Can you explain this to me?  I don't get it.

Cheers -