Paris Coulter
Here's a variant on an old joke.
Question: What's the difference between Ann Coulter and Paris Hilton?
Answer: Beats me.
Think about it: a pair of blond would-be bombshells who get their names in the paper by doing (in Paris's case) or saying (in Ann's) outrageous things. There are differences, of course, almost all of them in favor of Paris. First there are the respective ages: Paris is only 26, while Ann is already 46, old enough to know better. Then there are their family backgrounds. The Hiltons are awful people with a conspicuous lack of shame, while the Coulters were, from all that one can tell, respectable members of the upper middle class. Paris is dumb as a rock, while Ann is smart girl with a law degree and a ready wit. In sum, poor Paris does not appear to know any better, though even she has cultivated a new image since her release from jail. Ann, by contrast, will continue to wear short skirts and sport her long hair until she looks like John Kerry in a Heidi wig.
It is not that Ann Coulter is never funny, never right. Over the half the time, her analysis of current events displays intelligence and common sense. But it is as if she has undergone an operation to extract not only her sense of propriety but even her conscience. When it is pointed out that she has made tasteless jokes about the Edwards' loss of a child, her only defense is that Edwards helped poor people gouge doctors or that the Edwards are raising Coulter cash by attacking her.
I am not going to list Ms Coulter's verbal and ethical atrocities. There are entire websites devoted to them--the Wisdom of Ann Coulter on the Washington Monthly's site is one of the best. My point is to make a simple ethical distinction: Attacking John Edwards' career as a trial lawyer or his hypocritical advocacy of the poor is perfectly acceptable, but making hay out of parental grief--even if the parents have implicitly exploited their position--is beyond the pale.
If bad manners and bad taste are now conservative virtues, I am happy, more than ever, not to be a conservative.
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"What in the world, my dear doctor, do you imagine we have been doing if not laying the groundwork for an authentic and principled opposition to the two-party, single-ideology regime. And why in the world do you imagine I and others are so offended by the phony “conservatives–Buckley and Bennet, Will and Hannity, neocons and libertarians–whose only effect is to distract decent people into pointless campaigns based on false principles. That is precisely why I think it is imperative to pose the ethical questions before moving on to a political alliance."
A few points, and then I will move on as well. I know that Chronicles is trying to lay "the groundwork for authentic and principled opposition," I just think we disagree some on the best way to go about that.
I too disagree with the idea that a new coalition is going to arise from the middle, the belief of Warren and Dr. Francis I believe. I think a new conservative movement is going to come if it ever does, and it ain't looking good, from the ashes of a disgruntled and discredited current right.
Current conservatives have many faults (easily summarized as not really being conservative), but they at least fancy themselves conservatives which is a start even if they are misguided. If conservatism is a sentiment or a state of mind as much as it is a program, as Kirk suggested (a suggestion that was not without problems of its own), then part of the battle is won because how people self-identify is important and generally enduring.
But instead of building a "fortress unto which they can repair," I think it is best to go and try and recruit them. I think you catch more flies with honey. I don't think it is helpful to be too harsh to Ann Coulter for some of the same reason I don't think it is helpful to vilify evangelicals.
I have agreed that Ann Coulter is often harsh, impolite and unladylike. I think the 9/11 widows stuff was beyond the pale. But I think advocating the rather indiscriminate killing of Muslims is a worse moral offense. When our site posted her column on demographic change and defended her at another site against charges of racism, I always prefaced it by distancing myself from her on the War. I should also make sure I distance myself from her on her comments.
But I am not sure why I have an affirmative obligation to go after her for her crude comments. To me that just adds to the left-wing hate fest and the soft-right's attempts to distance themselves from her. At some point it is probably best to "purge" unsavory elements, but when to do that is a judgment call.
There are at least a few small signs of hope in the mainstream conservative movement. Paul Weyrich seems to be coming around. Richard Viguerie's idea of an independent conservative movement not wedded to the GOP is long overdue. (That movement will either have to be pro-intervention or anti-intervention, it can't be both, and RV seems unwilling to takes sides at this point.) David Keene is harshly attacking Rudy, and Donald Devine broke from Bush long ago. The "crunchy cons" are a step in the right direction. Ron Paul is making converts on non-intervention. Etc. Too little too late? Perhaps. But better late than never? Certainly.
Speaking of Kirk, have you read the new TNR article on him?
I'm glad this thread is continuing for a couple self-serving reasons.
First, I don't seek Ann Coulter out; if I for some reason catch a glimpse of her or hear of a recent controversy concerning her I check in and am usually amused by what she pulls off.
I did read three of her books, the first of which is titled Slander, and which went a long way in helping me navigate an online "discussion" I was having at the time with some women who fancied themselves "unschoolers" of their children. I couldn't communicate with any of them -- it was like talking to brick walls -- because they would not take what I wrote literally or seriously. And this inability to communicate would have been the case had we been sitting across from each other at a Starbucks. I know that I have a long way to go to get civilized, but these women were so far gone that even I was exasperated. Coulter's book explained exactly what was happening.
All of this said, today, and on an increasing number of days, while reading Russell Kirk's A Program For Conservatives (1956, but could have been written yesterday) I find myself wondering why I ever get on the internet or turn on the tv. The whole venture is agitating, often barbaric, a waste of God-given precious time, and a diversion. OK, it's also an amazing tool and I am thankful for the wonderful things it has provided. But you get my point.
Speaking of which, Paul Gottfried has a review of Alan Wolfe's piece of you-know-what about RK up at Taki's website.
Just a question: could Mr. Sale perhaps clarify what he means when he says that her book "explained exactly what was happening"? @\I too read the book in my wild and wayward days of youth gone by (four years feels like a long time at my age), and while I recall that much of what she said was true, I cannot recall that any of it was aimed at much of a coherent point. There was a vague suggestion that mainstream journalistic, public and academic discourse--as well as entertainment production--is sharply slanted toward the left, which frankly should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been breathing any time during the last fifty years and who actually understands the origin and meaning of the terms "left-wing" and "right-wing."
Without taking the book down and flipping through it, I remember that it clarified (with examples) that ideologues will only hear what they want to hear, even if what they hear is not what's been said. More to the point, they will take something said (or written) and presume that it is a covert assault, attack, or threat.
Of course, Coulter's was not the first nor the definitive book on the topic, but at the time it hit me hard and it was pretty dang amusing.
A note to those who are blind to the robust intellectuality of Ann Coulter.
She was drowned out, as is the current custom of the mob attacking her, in her most recent FOX TV interview when she voiced the suggestion that one solution to bring illegal immigrants “out of the shadows” would be to grant them a path to citizenship as a reward for turning in an employer who is paying illegal immigrants less than the minimum wage. It would be a feasible, if not a complete strategy.
It is my direct experience that many South Florida Resort employers are aware that they are employing and abusing illegal immigrants. However it may be difficult to prove in court that they had full knowledge without the employee bearing an ID card that can not easily be counterfeited.
We need to listen more thoroughly to Ann Coulter whose Rabelaisian humor does lead large numbers of us to see the worth of such uncommonly creative thinking.
This partial solution might end the enabling participation of a significant slice of such knowing employers of illegal immigrants and would be a temporary alternative to the biometric encoding on Social Security cards that some reckless Senators see as inevitable.
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it. Miss Coulter has that power, she is smart, articulate and she GETS IT! She does not care about political correctness that the liberals try to ram down our throats, I applaud Ann, a liberal's worst nightmare, smart, rich, successful, a huge following and a conservative, she is fully loaded, God, I so admire her!