Appalling:
If Ann Coulter were a liberal, conservatives would denounce her as a perfect symbol of how modern liberalism has lost all sense of decency. But Coulter's a conservative, so how does a conservative audience respond when Coulter makes a "faggot" joke about a Democratic Presidential candidate? With laughter and applause. Yes, laughter and applause. Just pathetic. (Oh, and I realize Coulter and her suporters deflect criticism with every 7th grade bully's favorite gambit: "It's all just a joke!" "Where's your sense of humor?" etc. I trust VC readers are far enough past junior high not to buy that one.)
Related Posts (on one page):
- Ann Coulter and the Right:
- Appalling:
I don't know either.
Sigh
How is this more hateful than her ludicrous suggestion that former President Clinton was gay and her often-expressed views on the gay population in general? The wording is a little cruder, but there's not really any new ground being covered.
I'd prefer to live in a world where Ms. Coulter wasn't a bigot, but getting angry at her for being a bigot with crude one-word epithets instead of multi-paragraph stereotype-laden rants doesn't really seem like it has much of a point.
[OK comments: Benjamin, re-read the post carefully. It is not primarily targeted at Ann Coulter.]
Apparently Malkin was there and called it a "smattering of laughter".
To give people a basis of judgement:
I don't want to get into a debate on accoustics or sound rigging and would rather just ignore crude attention-seeking antics, but to me it seems there is little laughter, more gasping and limited applause, like 20 people clapping loudly rather than 200 people clapping normally.
Not as good as silence or boos or people getting up and leaving, but much less than full-throated support.
As for a "perfect symbol of how modern liberalism has lost all sense of decency" I'm afraid that collection has grown much too long and too deep, reaching a point now where a comment such as calling Bush a fag would be considered movement toward decency.
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/006976.htm
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/02/thanks-ann/
For a more reasonable conservative reaction to Coulter from a few years ago, see what Jonah Goldberg wrote about her when they kicked her out of National Review.
As for the CPAC reaction, it's disgusting too. Laughter could be written off as an involuntary reaction in poor taste -- but applause takes conscious effort. And there was definitely applause. I have to say, reading Orin's link, my estimation of Michelle Malkin went up about 100%. (Still not a fan, but I had written her off as a Coulterwannabe.)
(Liberals are by no means immune from this sort of bigotry; I haven't seen anybody read Joe Wilson the riot act after the appearance where he called a couple of Republicans gay, among other personal attacks. But I'm not engaging here in a "they started it." There's no defense for Coulter's behavior, or for anybody enabling her.)
Am I supposed to be shocked that the crowd was applauding bigotry, or that they were applauding crudeness? Applauding crudeness is a depressingly common activity among Americans of all political persuasions, and this doesn't strike me as a noteworthy example of it. Applauding bigotry is to be expected from people who sincerely hold the bigoted opinions in question, and this particular bigoted opinion has a significant number of adherents in this country, many of them associated with the conservative movement, so why shouldn't we expect them to applaud?
In both cases, I find the situation dismaying, but the basic dismaying facts about the American political landscape were already well known. What's new and interesting here?
So long as conservatives are caricatured as selfish, mean, sexually-repressed Babbits by the Left there are going to be caricatures flying in the other direction, too. It's childish, of course, but politics is childish.
It's the sort of thing that passes for sophmoric entertainment, but it has no place in any serious political conversation. But that's the problem, too many people would rather be entertained by someone mocking the other side than would like to participate in a debate that actually sheds light.
``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'm at so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards.''
That's a good line!
It's not a faggot joke, but two jokes, one about Edwards's preening, and the other about free speech.
Outrage is already covered by the joke. I don't know if anybody noticed
So you think the media share Coulter's views? And if not the media, then why "major political figures" (whoever they may be)? The woman's a headliner and she's hired as a draw; we don't need to look for any deeper reason than that.
It's time for Republicans to cut their links to her. Not only is she not funny, but she also hurts the party every time she opens her mouth. While most conservatives shrug her off as a lunatic, most on the left can use episodes like this to claim to independents(who both parties need to win leections since the base alone can't do it) that this is what passes for mainstream conservative thought.
I know that most on the left view conservatives as morally flawed, and people like Ms. Coulter do us no justice by reinforcing that false premise.
Damn those fast typing fingers of mine!
Jeez, slow day in the legal world?
What a joke!
And if Kerr and Somin want to get themselves all lathered-up over someone's speech, how about this:
From Ann Althouse's Blog
Did you even bother to read the post you linked to?
If you want to criticize Coulter, fine (I sure would) but getting uppity about Conservatives/Republicans based on her behavior and ignoring the behavior of similarly-placed Liberals/Democrats is pretty intellectually dishonest.
Oh, please name some.
Are the two necessarily mutually exclusive? And I don't mean in the same comment, but rather, isn't it possible to engage in intelligent, substantive debate, and subsequently make jokes that mock your opponent? South Park, for example, tries to do both at the same time. Of course, their jokes are much more insightful and funny than Coulter's, but I do think that the more appropriate criticism is more about the calibre of Coulter's jokes, than the mere fact that she is crass, offensive, or humerous.
As a Michigan Law grad myself, it is a constant embarrasment to know that such a vile lunatic went there too. Fortunately, there are many positives about the place. Assuming you go there, good luck!
You saw a different speech than I did. Or maybe you just heard what you wanted to hear.
Point taken. My problem with Coulter is that her humor is not sunstantive. Just look at her on the video clip, she can't help laughing at how offensive the joke she just made is. I see no indication that she'd actually defend the idea that proposition that is was wrong for that actor to go to rehab; I see no indication that she's really willing to argue that Edwards is actually gay, or that that means anything; I see only a shit eating grin at being able to say something taboo with no repercussions.
Three questions:
1) Who on earth is Leonard Kaplan?
2) What do you imagine the relevance of his remarks to be to whether conservatives should embrace Ann Coulter?
3) Most importantly, do you see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a conservative worldview?
Oh, brother. "Elementary," indeed.
I'd like to tell you what's wrong with Ron Hardin, but you can't call someone a "faggot" at the VC, so I won't.
--See, Mr. Hardin? I didn't call you a bad name. You're not the least offended, I'm sure.
The trope of mention by pretending not to mention has its own name, which I am too lazy to look up, and was a favorite of Cicero's.
Maybe I've been spoiled by years of reading P. J. O'Rourke (who I'd note is just as un-PC as Coulter, but manages to do it without being a complete ass), but I consider the suggestion that I'm supposed to find Coulter amusing to be an insult to my intelligence.
--See, Mr. Hardin? I didn't call you a bad name. You're not the least offended, I'm sure.
The trope of mention by pretending not to mention has its own name, which I am too lazy to look up, and was a favorite of Cicero's.
That's what I don't get about modern sensitivity, which is largely off-scale. No, I'm not offended. The trouble is that it's not funny and doesn't allude to some truth.
If you had added that you get sent to rehab, that would help the joke ; if it referred to my habit of not dressing up (``You're not going out like _that_, are you?'') it might get another point or so, but that's not stereotypically homosexual as far as I know.
I'd suggest you're not likely to enjoy Coulter and to stay away from her writings
What "truth" was Coulter alluding to, for heaven's sake?
There are a lot of things to mock Edwards for, but being gay or acting gay are not on that list.
The second truth is the free speech one. It is necessary to use some word harmlessly to get this part of the joke to work.
I don't know about the name of the trope for not mentioning what you're mentioning (Cicero had a great fig-tree joke, by the way, which I don't quote because it might in fact have been Aristotle, I'll have to check), but metonymy or synecdoche would be taking the part for the whole, or vice versa, which would apply in this case.
Would all the people bemoaning the "PC environment" take the same position if Coulter had said, "I would say something about Al Sharpton, but you can't call people 'niggers' anymore"? What a sharp attack on the PC environment that would be! And would people defend her by saying that she wasn't really be calling Sharpton that name, just objecting to censorship and referencing his "street style"?
Obviously not. So another thing this illustrates -- because Coulter's vulgar idiocy has long been on display -- is how homophobia still remains popular among elements of the "conservative base."
But it doesn't select out anything about Sharpton, but more about the speaker. And of course it leaves out the rehab
point that would be the motivation.
You can, however, select out Edwards's preening with a passing reference to gay men.
In the midst of all this august umbrage, you and others have missed at least a couple of things, a critical context and a double irony. It was John Edwards who attempted to use Mary Cheney's lesbianism against her father in the 2004 race, when Edwards and Cheney were the competing VP nominees. It is within that context, together with the preening, together still within the context that no one takes the f-word used in the manner imputed, that all this is transpiring.
It would take someone with a supple aphoristic acumen to catalog all the hollow moral umbrage of contemporary "liberals." Or do you not see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a liberal worldview?
Harrumph.
And wasn't it Edwards who hired a couple of anti-Catholic bigots recently?
1. Al Franken. Now running as a democrat for the US Senate.
2. Randi Rhodes and most of Air America or what's left of its bankrupt act.
3. Whoopi Goldberg.
4. Joy Bahar on the view just recently.
5. Rossie O'Donnell anytime and everywhere that hog shows her face.
6. Dan Rather and staff. I find it far more obscene that they would fake documents to try and alter a presidential election than a few comments from Coulter or any of the above.
Says the "Dog"
Nick
Whether we are successful or not, we should try. Both sides would do well to remember that, and not regards such disassociation with caving to the other side.
Let me repeat the question: Do you see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a conservative worldview? Please say "no" if the answer is indeed "no," but I don't know how your theorizing about the political left is relevant.
While I am rephrasing what has already been said above (apologies), you are correct. Ms. Coulter did not actually call Mr. Edwards a "faggot." She did however imply that Mr. Edwards was one, and in matters such as these I do not see any substantial difference between the two. They are both sides of the same coin and both amount to a same vulgar sophomoric insult.
To rephrase and restate what Aderson said formerly, if I were to say to your face "You are a lying cheat and twit" how does the quality of my intent change than if I said to you "I would call you a lying cheat and a twit, but I won't because you could sue me for slander"? I personally do not see the distinction.
As for the "humor" defense, didn't Mr. Kerr cleared that up at the beginning of the post?
Maher
- Howard 'I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for' Dean
Ann Coulter is hot. And sassy. Conservatives, to a greater degree than liberals (and of course this is a bald generalization) are more sexually inhibited. So they can't say they're attracted to her physicially, but they can comment about what a clever wordsmith she is (even when she isn't). People watch her, applaud her, invite her, buy her books, etc., because she is hot. Her popularity would be much less if she said exactly the same things but looked like Rosie O'Donnell. This explanation also accounts for why she isn't in any publicized (not that I've heard, anyway) romantic relationship, to say nothing of marriage, despite the high value allegedly imputed to marriage and family by conservatives. Granted, she may be saving herself for Mr. Right, but she's smart enough to know that, like letting herself go physicially, she'd lose much of her audience if she were not single, and therefore theoretically attainable.
--------
The above is, as noted, sociological analysis of the back-of-the-postcard variety. To answer Orin's thoughtful and important point, I think decency is more a theoretical value than an actual value of conservatives, much as with liberals. This thought is restricted, however, simply to those conservatives and liberals we hear about. Much of the "great unwashed" in the country's middle are likely good folk, albeit easily swayed and misled folk. The ones we know of, see on TV, etc., however, are into politics. Politics is not a game where decency, as opposed to the call for decency, wins one many points.
Randi Rhodes, I'll give you. One can argue over whether one or the other is more offensive, but that's a debatable point?
But what's particularly offensive about Al Franken? I listened to his show on many occasions and found it entirely innocuous. (assuming that 'dying of boredom' is just a figure of speech, of course).
The trope of mention by pretending not to mention has its own name, which I am too lazy to look up, and was a favorite of Cicero's.
The latin name is "praeteritio"; that term wasn't in use till much later than Cicero, though, so he probably called it by its Greek name, which I, in turn, am too lazy to look up.
Joseph Slater,
You proposed a hypothetical statement as follows: "I would say something about Al Sharpton, but you can't call people 'niggers' anymore"?
The following would be a more accurate comparison to what Coulter said:
"I would say something about Al Sharpton, but you can't call people 'niggers' anymore unless you are African American, a white rapper, or a white Democratic Senator who used to wear a white sheet."
Is that an insult to Al Sharpton or mockery of black leadership that approves or condemns word usage as a function of the user's skin color and political affiliation?
Coulter was mocking the notion that people go to rehab because they use a word. This is the case with the star of Gray's Anatomy who recently went to rehab after a controversy over calling another cast member a faggot.
Is it an insult to Robert Byrd, African Americans, or white rappers?
Are lawyer jokes insults to lawyers?
If Edwards were gay, the joke wouldn't work. The necessary point of truth is his preening, which gets selected out by mentioning the word faggot. It is then possible to make the free speech joke.
Were Edwards gay, it would just be an epithet, and the free speech joke would just be that you can't use epithets.
What she is doing is putting two things together so as to get galvanic stirrings from the words, which is why you could put her with the poets. Sophomores don't usually achieve that.
There is, though, the matter of audience ; but that too is already covered by the joke that the audience would like to criticize as sophomoric.
I think Coulter appreciation is not taken seriously enough. She's not failing to see anything that the audience is seeing
My theorizing vs. your facts? You presume a great deal, even beyond the obvious.
My facts (John Edwards' attempt to use Mary Cheney's lesbianism against her father, such forming an aspect of the context of Coulter's comments, Edwards' hiring and defense of anti-Catholic bigots), together with my theorizing/interpretation, is of no less value than your own combination of fact and theorizing/interpretation. Power and presumption are not co-equal with value, decency and meaning.
The relevance of the competing questions is co-equal.
No, enough of them are the sort of bigots to make that 'joke' and mean it. Not that I expect that bothers you much. Oh, sure, you and your the other VC contributors can feign outrage, but you're spineless. Really. You're all a bunch of enablers for this bigotry.
I remember when this was a legal blog instead of an opportunity for people to pontificate about non-legal irrelevance.
Do you? I think when I first encountered this site, several years ago, it was already packed with "non-legal irrelevance," like bits of mathematical and etymological small-talk just like the "non-legal" "umbrella" post you are commenting to complain about right now.
Oh, wait, you're not complaining about the post just below this one? Only this one and the one just above it? Never mind then.
Edwards has been called "The Breck Girl", which carries more than hair care implications, for quite some time.
Are you similarly offended by that?
Or is it just Coulter you don't like?
Why can't you just answer the question? A real conservative would honestly and directly answer the question. But instead you try to weasel out of it.
Oh, wait, you're not complaining about the post just below this one? Only this one and the one just above it? Never mind then.
As I wrote:
As I wrote, I check back every now and then when I think of it to see if it is more like it was, and this time I saw:
It was looking good.
Then I saw:
After two Ann Coulters I stopped going any further. I did not get to:
Try to jump to conclusion quicker because Ann Coulter is involved. Oh, you already were pretty fast.
But I will take you seriously, and provide a serious reply:
Do you?
I remember when this was a legal blog instead of an opportunity for people to pontificate about non-legal irrelevance.
I think when I first encountered this site, several years ago, it was already packed with "non-legal irrelevance," like bits of mathematical and etymological small-talk just like the "non-legal" "umbrella" post you are commenting to complain about right now.
My impression of three or four years ago was that it was not packed with what you call "packed with "non-legal irrelevance," like bits of mathematical and etymological small-talk". It did get that way with those types of posts and the other types I mentioned in my previous comment. It was then that I stopped reading.
I really used to like this blog a lot. It is no longer the legal blog it used to be.
I think the mix of topics is about the same as it has been since I started reading it in late 2002 (and blogging here since early 2003, if I recall correctly). What is the period that you had in mind?
What is the period that you had in mind?
From about 2003 to 2004. I think it was in the first half of 2005 that I found what was once a daily legal read to no longer be enjoyable. During the intial period mentioned, I was impressed with legal posts that, to me at least, did not appear to be political posts. I was also impressed that this blog was not a bunch of junk or rantings like I had encountered in other blogs. It was like a mini law review, but fun, but that changed.
If you regard what's been forwarded as evasive then you need to re-read, and better comprehend, what was said about presumption and power not being co-equal with value, decency and meaning. Whether it descends to a "junior high" level or not I don't know, but your own narrowness and illiberality is on display.
What does it mean to say that "presumption" and "power" are not co-equal with "value, decency and meaning"? How is that responsive to the yes or no question that I asked? Can you explain a bit more?
I nominate this for question of the day.
In this sense, as opposed to the culinary or more general senses of 'faggot', isn't 'a womanly or unmanly male' the explicit meaning of the term? After all, it was a term for a burdensome woman before it was applied to homosexual men around 1914. A number of other terms also came to be applied to homosexual men in the years immediately preceding and following WWI that have the general sense of the individual not being as a man should, or was expected, to be. 'Queer' is perhaps the definitive example of this development.
A complaint I have with Professor Kerr's original post is that a study of history will show that there has never been a sense of decency in American politics. Slanderous attacks have been standard fare even for the Founders. That shouldn't prevent anyone from denouncing such tactics, but let's not pretend that things have ever been other than as they are.
Too, why have you refused to answer the questions asked?
Let's review the question one more time. Here it is: "Do you see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a conservative worldview?" Now why is this question at "presumptive conceit"? The "why do you beat your wife" question is improper because it assumes a fact not in evidence, namely that you do in fact beat your wife. But what fact is assumed by the question, "Do you see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a conservative worldview?" I don't know. Again, I don't know why you can't just say yes or no. Oh well.
What does this question have to do with Ann Coulter?
How about the question "Do you think the world should be free of hunger and pain?" Or "Is world peace part of a conservative philosophy?"
I mean one could answer yes to your question and still be on either side of the Ann Coulter thing.
BTW, did you see the links on Drudge Report today for a new BBC documentary debunking the whole Global Warming scandal and its junk science?? 10 different scientists from MIT, NASA, oceonographers, and climatologists describe how global warming science is junk science; that the CO2 evidence contradicts current man caused global warming theory; how funding by governments has corrupted this whole global warming pseudo science; and the founder of greenpeace talks about how third world countries such as those in Africa need to burn more coal and oil (he can't bring himself to do the really right thing and say build more Nuke Power Plants) for electricity but the global warming do gooders instead have them using wind power and wood stoves which is not healthy for the poor.
Says the "Dog"
Again, my note concerning your formidable obtuseness, or is it something more consciously employed, e.g., reflective of, again, power and presumption? Too, that you're seemingly incapable of taking me at my word is not my problem.
And again, why do you refuse to answer virtually the same question? Are you suggesting decency is more obviously on display among the putatively "liberal" community? Or is your retort along the lines "I asked first," thus failing to transcend a "junior high" level of exchange, if that? Further still, socially/politically I consider myself a classical liberal, in the mold of Locke and Montesquieu, even before I consider myself a "conservative" (in sneer quotes), though in large measure there is a convergence of some fundamental principles.
But yet again: do you not see human decency and respect as having any relevance to a liberal worldview? If so, explain any of several things among this putatively "liberal" community, but we can begin with the anti-Catholic bigotry previously mentioned and on ample display in other putatively "liberal" fora as well. (I'm not Catholic, there is absolutely no need of concern about personal offense, I'm referring specifically, strictly and solely to bigotry as expressed in a social/political sense, not in the least as a personal/individual concern.)
Prof. Kerr's post seems very clear to me - whatever his feelings about Coulter, he's criticizing the audience that cheers her on. The relevance couldn't be clearer: she flaunted indecency and disrespect at a function for conservatives, and a conservative crowd applauded her for it. Prof. Kerr seems interested in whether the audience's ideals should put them above nasty and petty sniping.
I suppose I thought my question had some priority over yours because 1) it is my blog 2) it is my post, 3) my question is directly relevant to the thread, as it goes to the question of whether conservatives should shun Ann Coulter, and 4) your question is quite irrelevant to the thread, because the answer seems to have no bearing on whether conservatives should shun Ann Coulter.
In any event, given the tone of your comments, might I suggest that you find another blog at which to comment? You have become rude and obnoxious, and that kind of tone is really inappropriate for this blog. (see comment policy below.)
She made what some would consider an off color joke. I don't consider that flaunting indecency and disrespect. Maybe some amount of disrespect but most political humor is based on disrespect and that isn't limited to Coulter by any means.
We are discussing politics right? If politics were devoid of nasty and petty sniping then the democrats would have nothing to say (except maybe Lieberman) and there would only be a few republicans left speaking.
Come on, I mean this isn't a graduation ceremony at a seminary its politics and political humor has always been pretty rough. Just look at what a whole bunch of the founding fathers said about each other in print over the 25 years after the adoption of the Constitution.
Its like I said to Orin above, one could answer yes to his broad to the point of irrelevance question and be on either side of was Coulter indecent or just a political humorist of the bombastic type.
Says the "Dog"
Then your answer is something like "Yes, but nothing here implemented human decency or respect." That doesn't make the question irrelevant, and frankly, your evident discomfort with the question (and sophistry on the other thread, trying to argue that Coulter wasn't actually calling Edwards a "faggot") suggest to me that you also recognize that the audience here crossed the line from rough politics to squalid slurs.
No my answer would be Yes, and people who think Coulter crossed some line as well as people who think she didn't can all comfortably give that same answer to Orin's overly broad question.
I disagree. The question is so overly broad that the answer to the question yes or no bears no relation to any point of proof about whether Coulter's speech crossed some line of acceptable social behavior. Orin's question is like querying the mother of an accused rapist if she thinks rape is bad and rapists should be punished. No matter how the mother answers the question its irrelevant to whether or not her son committed a rape in the case at bar. Its irrelevant, just like Orin's overly broad question.
I don't have any discomfort with the question. I was just pointing out that people on both sides of the Coulter speech issue could answer the question the same way. So I would suggest your mind reading abilities and sixth sense for recognizing the emotions of others over the internet needs an adjustment.
Actually, I argued nothing of the sort. I merely pointed out to two posters that their analogies or attempts at giving what they claimed were similar examples to what Coulter said were inaccurate because their analogies/examples contained direct statements of derision versus Coulter's statements that were at most an indirect statement of derision. I also pointed out that you can't tell for sure what Coulter was trying to say other than it was a bombastic joke with shock value. Very similar to George Carlin's kind of schtick.
Finally, I find it really funny that some people seem to take much greater umbrage at my signature line than those who seek to suppress the speech of shock jocks like Ann Coulter, Randi Rhodes, the entire world of Daily Kos and Howard Stern.
Says the "Dog"
You mean some openly bigoted people refusing to answer a simple question?
Of course my question was overbroad; intentionally so. But it wasn't my only question, obviously; I had a line of follow-up questions that I never could get to because people had such tremendous trouble with the first one.
In any event, perhaps it's best to sunset comments now rather than later; this thread seems to have brought out a lot of nastiness and hostility in the VC comment crowd.