Paris Coulter
by Thomas Fleming
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
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.
[Subscribe online to Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. Click here for details].
1 Comment by Johan Dieckmann on 28 June 2007:
“… Ann … will continue to wear short skirts and sport her long hair until she looks like John Kerry in a Heidi wig. …”
2 Comment by robert m. peters on 28 June 2007:
Miss Ann had an opportunity to take what little high ground there is in the marshy campus of the political battle during her on-the-air conversation with Mrs. Edwards. She utterly failed, wallowing in the slim, if I may mix my metaphors, like a blond amazon in the mud wrestling arena of a “gentleman’s” bar. I suppose that the “news show” she was one is both “gentleman’s” bar and marshy campus of political battle!
Miss Paris, on the other hand, now has religion. Since she claimed to have gotten it in prison while reading the Bible, we might conclude that she has Christianity. If she does, some of us need to muster up the courage to plan an assault and rescue the Faith from her clutches; otherwise, there is absolutely no telling what she is going to do with It. Not out of malice but out of “blond” carelessness is might have It with her when she appears in her next unanticipated video!
3 Comment by Red Phillips on 28 June 2007:
Coulter is a jingoistic, islamophobe like so many others on the “right.” Here is hoping she has a change of heart.
But some of her comments, while crude, impolite and inappropriate, have clearly been overplayed by a hostile media. See here.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/6/28/131441.shtml?s=ic
She is one of the few “mainstream” pundits who has been willing to address the demographic change aspect of immigration, and for that she deserves some kudos.
She also needs to dress like a lady. The spectacle of her in a provocative dress on the cover of her book “Godless” was much commented on, and for good reason.
4 Comment by Red Phillips on 28 June 2007:
Do comments sometimes go into a filter here? Like if it contains a link?
5 Comment by Mark Depré on 28 June 2007:
It seems that Dr Fleming is becoming soft on liberals.
That’s a pitty.
6 Comment by Annie on 28 June 2007:
I think everyone is sick of hearing about Paris Hilton but no one is through making fun of her! “The Prison Life 2: Full Release” is an addicting game on gsn.com that pokes fun at this “news” spectacle. Check it out!
7 Comment by Rick Oliver on 28 June 2007:
Coulter responded in a column today:
http://www.breitbart.com/anncoultercolumn.html
I thought it was fairly persuasive and read in proper context, she does not appear to me to be making hay out of the Edwards’ grief, but it is a close call.
She really takes some shots at Chris Matthews, who despite Lou Dobbs, probably has the best cable news TV program. (Or maybe I think that because Buchanan is so often a guest.) Anyway, Matthews seems to be intellectually honest but when he claimed Coulter wished Edwards was killed in a terrorist attack, he lost some credibility.
8 Comment by Red Phillips on 28 June 2007:
I like Tucker, but he comes on too early.
Does the fact that I have a preference make me a news geek?
9 Comment by Frank on 28 June 2007:
I saw Coulter’s ‘defense’ of her tasteless joke, then I saw Buchanan defend her for using an effective method of communicating with the public, and finally I tuned out the tv.
10 Comment by Frank on 29 June 2007:
Actually I must have only caught the highlights or the last 5 or 10 minutes of the ordeal.
Oliver’s article makes me think she might have been portrayed falsely. However I know that at least her calling Hilary a name was out of line, and she is shamelessly self promoting in that article.
11 Comment by Adrien Larrarte on 29 June 2007:
Dr. Fleming, I dont know if you remeber me, but I attended the 2004 Summer School. I was truly impressed by your insight then, and after you truthful look at Ms. Coulter, I am even more impressed. Thank you for showing the psuedo-conservatism and bad taste of the modern right-Mr. Adrien Larrarte
12 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
Ann’s writing and attack style may be just a bit too layered in irony and sarcasm for public consumption. Certainly so for consumption and analysis by the mainstream press. She acquits herself quite nicely at Rick Oliver’s Breitbart link, above. All things considered, John Edwards probably deserves more than Ann has given him.
Ann Coulter is what it looks like to attack the lefty establishment where they live and not from the ivory tower. I agree with Red, though. She needs to work on her fashion sense.
13 Comment by jack bailey on 29 June 2007:
Ann Coulter mobilizes the conservative base like only a few can. She takes on the leftists in a counterintuitive fashion by using their iconography and body language. So I say, if she is good enough for Mr. Buchanan why not for the doctor. The flash comes with the teritory. These are attention grabbing devices, which are not always in good taste but her message hits the right spots of the outsmarted public nuisances. After all, anyone that Christopher Hitchens cannot stand has got my vote. On the Edwards standoff: There is no one in the history of politics that has used their own personal tragedy for gain the way the Edwards have, and it was about time for someone to cut into their bedwetting self promotion. Watching them, one almost gets the feeling that a terrible car crash with lots of broken bones and near death experiences is just around the corner for their next staged media fundraising event. I hope Ann stays on their case for the duration.
14 Comment by Recalcitrant Republican on 29 June 2007:
It is unfathomable to me why so many Faux News-watching working-class conservatives insist on reflexively defending this wretched, anorexic, razor-tongued harpy.
Of course, the majority of good and sincere souls who allow their brains to be turned into tapioca pudding by listening to the neocon inanities of Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly don’t even comprehend that that the statist propaganda they’re watching on that network has nothing to do with authentic constitutionalist conservativism anyway.
Of course, the real similarity between La Coulter and the vacuous Miss Hilton is that both these women (through their respective marketing proxies) are playing us like fiddles in the best P.T. Barnum style. They’ve got US talking about them (and thus generating what advertising pros call “impressions” of their “brands”) right here in this forum, haven’t they?
I for one refuse to take anyone who sells trash-talking, miniskirted dolls (or are they “action figures”?) of herself seriously as a public intellectual, much less a spokeswomen for whatever passes for “conservatism” in 2007.
While middle America drowns itself in debt over iPhones and chinese junk at Wal-Mart, madamoiselles Coulter and Hilton are laughing all the way to the bank.
What fools these mortals be.
15 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
The two defenses I hear of Coulter are: 1) She’s better than Hannity et al., and 2) Her victims have it coming.
As for number one, it is good to remember the Latin saw that goodness does not consist in being better than the worst. Appreciating the subtle differences between Chris Mathews and his rivals reminds me of my perverse Scottish terrier who prefers eating cat excrement to any other. Some people have had your nose in the electronic litterbox too long.
Number two is simply irrelevant except in the code of children: He hit me first or called me a bad name or looked the wrong way so I beat him up. My mother always instructed me on these occasions that two wrongs do not make a right. Ann Coulter is the kind of person who gets in a disagreement and then spits in the other person’s face. There is no excuse for this behavior, any anyone who thinks there is, including our old friend Mr. Buchanan, needs to go tosome quiet place and think for a moment.
I already conceded that she is intelligent and often correct in her judgments. She is also often wrong and says things so stupid I wonder if she is being paid by the DNC. Just one example, when she called for the forced conversion of Muslims. She claims, I believe, to be some sort of Christian, but she doesn’t understand one of the most fundamental moral and spiritual teachings of Christ and the Church. She has also, I learn from Wikipedia, “dated” Bob Guccione, jr., Dinesh D’Souza, and Bill Maher. If I were Ann Coulter, I would have a thing or two to say about her erotic taste.
Yes, I’m soft on liberals because I think human beings, no matter how stupid and ill-intentioned, are human beings. It can only be an evili ideology that teaches you to spit at “the other” because they are Muslims or Jews or Christians, liberals or conservatives, rich or poor. What is Coulter’s ideology? Greed is good? Or simply: Me First?
16 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
I believe Chronicles supports a doctrine of returning fire when fired upon. In the case of Ann Coulter, what may appear as “spitting in the other person’s face” when viewed through the lens of the lefty establishment media, is in fact returning fire. And quite effectively hitting the target. Which is why they cry so loudly.
17 Comment by Ronald Kyser on 29 June 2007:
I did some quick research on Miss Coulter and her antecedents and learned the following:
She’s apparently of Kentucky Scots-Irish stock. (That heritage is rare on the North Shore of Long Island Sound, though that Okie’s boy Ron Howard also chose to rear his family there.) She exhibits some common characteristics of the breed– the wiry frame, the combativeness, the always entertaining juxtaposition of extreme patriotism with extreme rebelliousness.
She was born in New York, her family moved to Connecticut, and she went to college back in New York. Any Northeasterner sentient before Woodstock can tell you what that common scenario was about: the income tax and the drinking age. So if anyone was wondering why she’s careful to cast her votes in Florida, wherever she may hang her hat today…
As lawyers, and sharp ones, both she and Edwards could explain why her defense of her attacks on him is, on technical and legalistic grounds, correct. That doesn’t make her persuasive. Edwards knows how to turn a jury; Miss Coulter does not.
18 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
If Mr. Jenkins really thinks the Left is afraid of Coulter, he knows very little about the Left. Leftist ideology controls both parties, and the only serious competitor is some form of classical liberalsm that is almost as bad. If I wanted to be pragmatic about politics, I would exile Coulter to some pleasant (for her) place like a Club Med to prevent her from undermining whatever small credibility so-called conservative ideas have.
Retaliation against personal attacks is necessary in my business, but there are limits. If David Frum’s wife died, we would not be mocking her; in fact, I find the whole business of the polemical obituary, in which Mr. Buckley has specialized, contemptible. What, exactly, did Mrs. Edwards or her dead child do to Ms Coulter? Not to understand this elementary principle, something our mothers were supposed to have taught us, is not to know the difference between right and wrong. Even supposing Coulter had a worthy objective–something I do not at all suppose, quite the contrary–it would not justify the means she employs, especially since she has seen fit to go after the “godless.”
Finally, it is a very strange idea that what is good for Pat Buchanan must be good for another man. I am not a republican ideologue, but in a republic we are supposed to be free men who act on principles, not slavish followers of this or that hero. To revere and parrot PJB, as estimable as he generally is, is no better than supporting the commander-in-chief.
If we are going to continue to debate this topic, then I want to know, from Coulter’s supporters, what is the moral basis, the general rule that they would invoke to justify behavior that would normally not be tolerated in everyday life. For example, you would not go to the funeral and crack bad jokes about grieving parents imply because the father is a business rival. What makes it acceptable in this and other instances in which the this harridan has made money by violating the ordinary rules of courtesy?
19 Comment by G.S. on 29 June 2007:
I think the “defense #2″ mentioned by Dr. Fleming might be seen as an extension of the doctrine of Total War into the social / political arena.
20 Comment by Charles on 29 June 2007:
I hate to sound like a tin foil hat person but it seems as though the neocons have a secret lab where they create these mildly attractive female pundits. What’s the name of that asian woman who is always on Fox news spouting off imperialist rhetoric?
21 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
G.S. has anticipated exactly the point that needs to be raised. Ms Coulter is the W.T. Sherman of social life.
22 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
I fully appreciate and respect the detached classical intellectual analysis of the on-going cultural crisis at Chronicles. But participation in the game necessitates being on the field. And there the calibration of right and left may differ from that at Chronicles.
I understand the lofty stratosphere of cultural criticism and thought occupied by TRI, but one is playing to a mighty small audience when claiming that Ann Coulter is an agent of the left.
Even conceding the Chronicles criticism of the pantheon of other popular “right-wing” talkers, Ann occupies a unique position in that spectrum. E.g., only Coulter, among all of them that I know, has ever spoken in favor of repeal of the nineteenth amendment. She deserves more credit that a summary dismissal.
And as to the moral justicfication of her behavior: She attacks politicians and persons who have willingly put themselves in the realm of politics with their public statements. Is that not fair game? As far as I know she has never attacked a private citizen. Did you read her account of her attack on Edward’s exploitation of his son’s death?
23 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
I find it very curious that people who will never have any more political influence than we have at Chronicles wish to pretend that they are involved in hardball politics. No one in America has any power except the very rich who buy politicians, and Ann Coulter will never be rich enough.
I have read and heard what she said and watched her entirely futile attempt to justify herself on Chris Mathews. Nothing so far has been brought up that would remotely justify her behavior on that or many other occasions.
Then, as soon as one enters public life, an enemy is justified morally in slanderling, libeling, ridiculing, or employing any technique of vilification? This then applies to conservative heroes as well as to liberals and leftist villains. So it is thus impossible to criticize Christopher Hitchens for his nasty, lying, tasteless attacks on Mother Teresa.
Here is Ms Coulter on four 9/11 widows from NJ:
These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them. … I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much … the Democrat ratpack gals endorsed John Kerry for president … cutting campaign commercials… how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.”
Whatever the widows may or may not have done or said, the retaliation is the equivalent of dropping nuclear weapons on a parking violator.
I conclude from Mr. Jenkins’ remarks that the Left is free to say anything about any conservative, in or out of politics, so long as there name has been in the press. Because evil leftists lie and slander, it is perfectly acceptable for virtuous conservatives to do the same. In other words, virtue and vice do not exist. All that matters is to cheerlead for party that promises your side the most benies.
24 Comment by Red Phillips on 29 June 2007:
Everyone is some combination of good and bad. Although the relative balance differs wildly. I am more inclined to hold Ann Coulter’s jingoism and mindless Muslim hating (as opposed to the more thoughtful analysis of ST) against her than I am her public crudeness.
There is some truth to the saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. When she is being attacked from the left for issues other than War and her inexcusable crudeness, I am inclined to defend her. Just as I have often defended Chronicles and Dr. Fleming from attacks from left and “right.”
The public battlefield that Mr. Jenkins is alluding to is multidimensional. I fully understand the problem with the modern political nomenclature re. right and left and conservative and liberal. But there is also a consideration of distance from the current political center, regardless of the confusion over how to define that center. Ann Coulter is and has always been more “conservative” by degree. She was criticizing the Republican Party long before it was cool to do so. Many years ago (96?, 98?) I remember she said she casts protests votes for the Libertarians because she thought the Republicans were insufficiently conservative. And as I stated above, she was one of the very few public pundits willing to go on the record that a large part of the issue with immigration is demographics. Everyone knows that, but so few are willing to say it. Most are slavishly denying it. That makes her at least a partial ally.
If a person is partially judged by the quality of their enemies, then Miss Coulter is doing something right. Her enemies are the left and the center “right.”
She needs to get right on the War, dress like a lady, settle down and get married, and polish the rough edges. She is a rehab project, not the problem to the same degree that Ted Kennedy is.
Is that a defense? I don’t know? It is perspective.
25 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
Dr. Fleming has taken to straw men.
I don’t approve of lying and slander. But honest stinging attacks on public figures when they attempt to exploit their private lives in the political realm is fair game in my book.
I recall some rather stinging attacks on one vice-president Dick Cheney on the occasion of a rather unfortunate hunting accident on these very pages a year or so ago. And I regarded those attacks as unfair because Cheney was making no attempt to exploit the incident in any political way. It was just an unfortunate private accident. The exploitation of the incident occured on these pages.
The 9/11 widows and John Edwards’ both attempted to exploit their personal grief in the political realm. And they were called on it.
26 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
Ah, now I see. One law for the Republicans and another for the Democrats. That is the only rule that has been put on the table.
No, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. No, I don’t have to vote for or support the lesser of two evils. No, there is no meaningful conservative movement in America. No, neither I nor Chronicles have more in common with Ann Coulter than with her leftist enemies. And no, we are never justified in doing evil that good may come of it.
In rejecting these very simple principles, the most important of which could have been learned in the nursery or in the Sunday School, Coulter’s defenders, no matter how lukewarm, are rejecting basic morality in favor of an entirely fatuous pragmatism that will never bring them even the hint of an iota of power or influence. They are living in the unreal universe of internet blogs where people think that by sounding off about the Left, they are actually accomplishing something practical. They might as well listen to Rush and Sean, sign up as lifetime members of the braind-dead dittos branch of the GOP.
Dragged unwillingly, some 25 years ago, into political commentary, I have had the pleasure of knowing or at least meeting a number of politicians, insiders, and top political analysts in America but also in the former Yugoslavia, Russia, and Italy. Two Republican Presidents have had nice things to say about our magazine and its editors. Candidates for presidency and for the senate have foolishly sought my advice. Far from boasting about this wasted time, I am simply trying to explain there is nothing in it. The nearest I ever came to power was when a college friend became a Democratic congressman. Out of friendship, he would, on occasion, actually listen to what I had to say, and he helped another friend with an marsh protection program. That is why my second rule of politics has always been: Vote for the crook you know, because unless you are very rich, familiarity is the only influence you will ever have.
Here, my friends, is a practical piece of political advice: News and discussion of party politics in America is only for comic relief–or useful to point a moral. If you want to do something serious today, have a good dinner, read a poem, listen to music, plant a tree, pick up trash along the street–anything that gives innocent pleasure to someone or makes a slight improvement of your little world, anything but persist in the delusion that you are going to change anything.
I’m moving on. Discussing moral issues with those who pretend to an amorality they would not tolerate in their enemies is an occupation even more futile than defending Ann Hilton and Paris Coulter.
27 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
Morality and evil are a bit much for this discussion. What we are talking about is low blows in political discourse. Honest low blows.
Are political low blows Christian? I dunno. Should there be one set of rules for Democrats and another for Republicans? No. Are some low blows deserved and others not? Are some invited? Maybe.
Cracks about Playboy posing 9/11 widows and an “Ask me about my dead son bumper sticker” are low blows. Were they invited? Maybe.
28 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
I have said we are moving and yet the the conversation continues to degenerate. No, we are not talking about low blows in politics. We are, in fact, talking about good and evil and what it is permissible for decent civilized people to say. Not being in politics, I have very little interest in discussing the mucky little lies that people like Coulter are paid to tell, even when I am on her side on an issue.
Let us suppose for the sake of argument that we need nasty little people to do political dirty work–a Dick Tuck or Gordon Liddy or Scooter Libby or Ann Coulter. When they get caught in criminal activity, they go to jail. When they disgrace themselves, we distance ourselves from them with a hypocritical “I am shocked, really shocked…” What her defenders here are proposing is to admire her precisely for the evil she does. This is not acceptable, not in my home, not in the magazine, not in our conferences, and not on this website.
We all make mistakes and say things we should not have, I no less than any one, but in defending Coulter’s right to say such things, her admirers are racing ahead of her. If they think the dead child bumper sticker is a potentially justifiable low blow, then they put themselves outside of any discourse I am willing to have. As Aristotle says, some immoral arguments deserve not a refutation but a blow of the fist or at least a blow of the “delete comment” button.
29 Comment by Tim Manning on 29 June 2007:
Political correctness will end when someone goes out of their way to say a lot things that they don’t really mean. That’s what Ann is doing—pounding the nails into the PC coffin. But she’s also making herself into something she really isn’t.
There are 2 kinds of PC. One is accidental and authentic. The other is disgusting. The trouble with Ann is that the people who take her seriously only care about her disgusting stuff.
That does beg the question that Tom is answering. Is she really good for anything?
30 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 29 June 2007:
Thanks to Ronald Kyser for that socio-ethnic heritage look-up on Ms. Coulter. Kentucky Scots-Irish. Wiry, rebellious….impolitic. It’s good to know there are some things you can still count-on.
31 Comment by Red Phillips on 29 June 2007:
I don’t think I have ever defended Republicans. In fact, I was giving Coulter credit for being one of the first “mainstream” pundits to call them on their fraud. Nor have I ever supported the lesser of two evils. I have been suggesting support for the Constitution Party on here for years and getting grief for it.
And I certainly agree that there is no meaningful conservative movement. There is a meaningful anti-Democrat movement.
But I certainly have more in common with Ann Coulter than I do Establishment lefties. (I may not have more in common with Coulter than I do populist lefties like Nader.) She is a theist (whatever type of Christian she may or may not be) and an anti-anti-theist. She is a cultural conservative at least in what she publicly supports/opposes (abortion, gay marriage). She is generally anti-tax and anti-spending at least on things other than the War. And she is on the right side of the immigration debate for the right reasons. (Now whether she does more harm than good for those causes is another matter.)
I don’t understand and never have what is the virtue of despair. Even if the despair is based on reality. Does not the Good Book tell us to despair not?
If there is no meaningful conservative movement then why should we not try to create one?
The internet, instead of being a waste of time, is actually a tool we can use. Look at the Ron Paul campaign and how it is flourishing due to the net. I have never believed that Ron Paul has any chance of winning the nomination much less the Presidency, but he could start something that leads to something that leads to something, etc.
Any counter-revolutionary coalition is going to have people I don’t agree with. Even somewhat unsavory people. That is the nature of coalitions.
32 Comment by Lord Karth on 29 June 2007:
That someone like Ann Coulter says what she says and does what she does comes as no surprise to me. There have always been screechy, scurrilous people in politics: such a field is their natural habitat. In a media-marinated environment, people like that have to get down in the mud with the rest of the pigs in order to keep their place at the trough. It gets our attention and provides the porcines with an income. “Value” for “value”. For Ms. Coulter to not do so once in a while would mean the end of her livelihood.
In my opinion, Paris Hilton and Ann Coulter are far more alike than they are different. The “celebutante”’s occupation is acting in outrageous (and utterly predictable) ways to get attention, and Miss Ann’s occupation is writing and occasionally saying outrageous (and predictable) things to get attention. Their principal difference to me seems to be that Miss Ann tries to make money from what she does; La Paris occasionally has to spend money doing what she does.
The issue is how we react to them. Proper perspective indicates that they should be treated like the entertainers and actors that they are. In the days of the Vicar of Wakefield, such creatures were supposed to remain outside the city walls; modern America has decided to knock the walls down and invite them into the house. Having done so, however, we do not have to either take them seriously as social or political weathervanes, or support them (either by buying their books or the magazines containing articles about them). They should be no more admired than any other performer. Watch them if you must, but then toss them their tuppence when they’re done and send them out the tradesman’s door unceremoniously.
Your servant,
Lord Karth
33 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
I should think it would not be too difficult to distinguish between despair and an honest appraisal of reality.
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 phoney “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. But so long as self-described conservatives are willing to play the fool for anyone willing to make a spectacle of himself/herself on TV, they not only will make no headway, but they will continue to go with the flow that leads to depravity and despotism.
This much my old friend Rothbard knew, which is why he broke with nearly all his libertarian allies. Now, I never agreed with his basic principles, but the fact that he was a man of uncompromisning principle encouraged our collaboration.
Ron Paul is a nice man, who hates many of the things worth hating. The trouble is what he stands for positively, and that is a rather trivial form of classical liberalism. I would probably vote for him on the same grounds that I worked with his friend Rothbard. But it would be impossible to take part in any movement to advance the very political philosophy that played a part in destroying the West.
The choices we have in practical politics, supposing it makes any sense to get engaged, are limited. I am always happy to work with anyone who might be in a position to cut the size, scope, and income of government, but, if it is a question of a principled “movement,” then there is no point in supporting anyone who does not understand a few basic truths about the nature of man and human society.
34 Comment by Rick Oliver on 29 June 2007:
Dr. Fleming,
You consistently argue for people to simply live their lives, go to church, and take care of their families and communities, and not to worry about what the powerbrokers around us are doing because we have no influence. It’s the ideology of the early Christian in the Roman Empire. But isn’t there an equally legitimate paleoconservative argument that we need to build a movement and crush the elite replacing it with our own? Wasn’t that the point of Sam Francis’ middle American revolution political theory? It seems like it was reasonably close to being accomplished in 1996.
35 Comment by Frank on 29 June 2007:
I was wrong: Coulter called Edwards the bad name. I don’t follow politics closely.
It appears that she’s questioned the sexuality of both Clintons and even Al Gore. I’m not the expert PJB is, but I do disapprove of these tactics.
—
I do follow Pat Buchanan and Dr. Fleming when I’m uncertain of a political event. There is only so much time in the day for me to read up on current events, and they appear to be wise and experts in their fields. Bush does not appear to be either.
36 Comment by TJF on 29 June 2007:
As colleague and co-conspirator with Dr. Francis in many a campaign, I have to say that my forays into conservative politics and movement building convinced me, entirely, that there is no radical middle-America–a concept invented by our late friend Don Warren in The Radical Center, a book worth reading though not especially encouraging.
No, there was absolutely no chance of success in 1996, as I told anyone who would listen, including our candidate, and our distance from that goal had to be measured in light years then and in parsecs today. It does not mean that there is no point in engaging in politics, but it is important not to be deceived.
Here is the scenario I imagine for the next several decades. Conservatives will continue to dream of causes, movements, and leaders, and, meanwhile, they will neglect their own immediate duties and make alliances with utterly contemptible people who will sell them out. In the end they will despair, having accomplished nothing but the waste of their everyday lives. They might just as well be do-gooding liberals.
Why do people, Ron Paul and a few others excepted, enter politics today? It is because they want to make themselves bribable. If you want to get something done, then, you need the dynamite–a corrupt politician–and the match–money. Even one of these might do in a pinch. But, in the immortal words of a communist balladeer, “If you ain’t got the do-re-mi, boys, you ain’t got the do-re-mi. Why you better go back to beautiful Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee.”
In other words, if you want to get in the game, follow the lead of Fred or Rudy or the Clintons, who know what it takes to get near power. Otherwise, seize the high ground and build a moral and cultural fortress for yourself.
For example, for all the time you waste on politics, you could spend 5 days in our Summer School and actually learn something about the historical forces that have landed us where we are. Without such knowledge, you will be taken by surprise, over and over. If you want to be a footsoldier in the army of lemmings that is marching off the cliff, then run for office or send checks to this year’s designated third party loser who would, if elected, probably make things even worse. (I hear that last year’s Constitution Party team have been anathematizing each other.)
I’m sure everyone knows the familiar Confucian parable, if only because I quoted it in my last book, but here it is anyway.
The ancients who wished clearly to manifest illustrious
virtue throughout the world would first govern their states
well. Wishing to govern their states well, they would first
regulate their families. Wishing to regulate their
families, they would first cultivate their own persons.
Wishing to cultivate their own persons, they would first
rectify their own hearts. Wishing to rectify their hearts,
they would first seek sincerity in their thoughts. Wishing
for sincerity in their thoughts, they would first extend
their knowledge. The extension of knowledge lay in the
investigation of things. [The Sacred Books of Confucius and
Other Confucian Classics, edited and Translated by Ch'u Chai
and Winberg Chai; Hyde Park, NY: University Books/Bantam,
1965. Ch. II, p. 295]
That, in more elegant form, is what I propose–that we begin at the beginning.
My virtual friends, whose loyal and passionate convictions I do appreciate, I’m going home for drinks and dinner in the garden, and act three of Die Meistersinger.
37 Comment by Michael Ezzo on 29 June 2007:
I think Dr. Fleming nailed it when he wondered if “Me first” was
the motive at work with Mrs. Coulter. I have neither seen the woman speak, nor read her work. But what strikes me in everything I hear ABOUT her (and most other conservatives — Pat B. being a major exception — in the major media), is that it all seems purely self-serving. It doesn’t convince anyone who doesn’t already agree. And it makes no attempt to do what the true and honorable conservatives are doing : to try to rebuild Western Civilization, as Chronicles does with their magazine, this site, their summer schools, their convivia. It’s easy to see who is doing the truly useful nuts-and-bolts work, and who isn’t. Pardon me if I’m repeating what others have said.
38 Comment by Bob Sale on 30 June 2007:
What I like about Ann Coulter is her willingness to prove the double-standard of liberalism. We have no one else in popular politics able to pull this off, and I am thankful that she’s around.
The fairly recent controversy over her insulting John Edwards is a fine example of how far gone liberalism (and conservatism) is. She never actually called him a “fag.” She knew that if she had, she’d have been consigned to Siberia. So, instead, she took it a step further (in a sly turn) and proved that the mere mention of only wanting to call him a fag is enough to force liberals (and many conservatives) to go ballistic and cause a panic in the media.
It’s hilarious to see how pure and sensitive we’ve become since Lenny Bruce shocked us 50 years ago.
One other thing. The bit she wrote about forcing Muslims to convert to Christianity. She (and many others) had just lost a good friend — Barbara Olsen — on one of the 9/11 planes. Who wouldn’t react and write such a thing (or worse) in response? I knew at the time when I first read it that she was reacting, and I understood why. The sissy-boys at NRO couldn’t handle it and that was first of two essays that eventually got her kicked off of their website.
39 Comment by Bob Sale on 30 June 2007:
>For example, you would not go to the funeral and crack bad jokes about grieving parents imply because the father is a business rival. What makes it acceptable in this and other instances in which the this harridan has made money by violating the ordinary rules of courtesy?
Of course you wouldn’t go to the funeral and crack jokes. But if the bereaved took the story of the funeral into the business world and used it to bring attention to their business and to bring down the competition, you might be justified in pointing this out and even mocking it.
40 Comment by Bob Sale on 30 June 2007:
Michael Ezzo (and possibly others here) might actually read one of Coulter’s books — starting maybe with Treason (Chilton Williamson included it in his Conservative Bookshelf) and maybe even moving on to Godless.
Certainly she is in ways barbaric in her character. Certainly, in a better world we wouldn’t have her type of criticism, but this is not a better world and she knows how this game is played (and who is playing it) and is doing a superb job.
75 years ago Albert Jay Nock spent much of his time writing essays that he admitted would do little, if anything, to improve the culture. He knew that by “doing and writing the right thing” he had placed himself outside the arena and that this pretty much was the case for anyone who set out to be consistently good. Fred Chappell’s great book is called Brighten the Corner Where You Are and I think Nock would agree with the point (Nock believed that we were simply responsible to “improve one unit” — our own).
But Coulter is in the arena and she is in many ways fighting for the permanent things, or in the least she is (much of the time, at least in her books) pointing toward those things. I really think she knows the truth of things, but she’s dirty; she’s in the arena.
Personally, I won’t ignore her or slough her off because she’s offensive and at times doesn’t do the right thing.
41 Comment by Sid Cundiff on 30 June 2007:
Were you fellows born yesterday?
Politics is and always has been
– “the systematic organization of hatreds” (Henry Adams)
– “a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles” (Ambrose Bierce)
– “the conduct of public affairs for private advantage” (Ibid.)
In bad simple constitutions, it’s all about money. In that particular bad simple constitution (Polybius) called “democracy”, but really ochlocracy, Mr. A saves money to buy a flat-screen TV (”work”); Mr B, wanting a flat-screen TV but having no money for it (”needs”), has Leviathan rob Mr A of A’s saved money, at gun point (“taxes”), and then give that money to Mr B, so that Mr. B can go buy a flat-screen TV (“entitlements”). Afterwards Mr A will sputter in indignation at his real victimization, and beforehand Mr. B will sputter in his feigned. And we’re talking about big money here!
In such a squalid constitution, do you really expect the hireling barristers of Mr A and Mr. B to be gentlemanly in debate, cordial in relations, civil in tongue, and anything other than masters of the mendacious and the vituperative? Do you really expect this contest of bladders and exchange of indignations to be carried out in polite language? or without bloodshed?
You have two choices: (1) enthrone the current Duke of Bavaria as our legitimate Jacobite King, given that he’s the current Stuart Pretender, and give him (and to his descendants by primogeniture) plenitude of powers; or (2) live with the status quo without complaint. Tertia via non est.
42 Comment by C.R. Coughlin on 1 July 2007:
7/1/07
I have come to prefer Chronicles to all other journals of its type, and have observed that Dr Thomas Fleming is held in respect and reverence by its contributors. I have begun to share these attitudes.
Therefore I cannot comprehend that the clumsily wrong-headed joke likening Paris Hilton and Ann Coulter is attributed to Dr. Fleming. Since the only similarity between the two is physical, the author of the joke appears to be guilty of a superficial understanding of Ms. Coulters commentaries and writings or just intended join in a cruel mass whipping. I like her work, I don’t give a fig about her appearance.
Ms. Coulter is one of the great wits of our day. She has managed to do a great deal of good for the conservative cause by being intellectually solid while being hilarious. She writes so effectively that she has penned five best sellers in a very short time. Liberals of my acquaintance can’t ignore her, and as a result, labor vainly to come up with effective responses to her arguments. Thus insulting her in the misfired manner of the subject joke has become a national pastime. Fair minded liberals of my acquaintance toss in their sleep trying to circumvent her arguments, and I observe some being slowly converted.
A great liberal strategy that has triumphed over conservatives and good sense for a long time is that liberals hide their dictatorial impulses behind sympathetic shields. Great harm has been done by this exploitative strategy of painting those with different solutions as being against the subject problems. Thus, whenever we conservatives are proposing different remedies, we are portrayed as intending harm to minorities, women, the environment, and a long list of other untouchables. This strategy has been unmasked so effectively by Ann Coulter that it has caused the recent contretemps.
To misunderstand Ann Coulter’s jibes that strip naked this underhanded strategy is to be either so emotional as to misunderstand her or to be incapable of understanding the brilliance of her humorous constructions. To persecute her for terminology that addresses our brutish fellows in ways that communicates, engages and convinces them, is to single her out for venial sins in this cultural hell of bad taste that we all inhabit.
In TV debates she is confrontational but always rational. She sometimes is correctly contemptuous of the questions asked her, but rarely interrupts. She remains calm even when given to opportunity to respond as happened when Chris Matthews and Elizabeth Edwards ran on and on, talking over her every attempt to speak.
But perhaps I am confused about which of my idols has clay feet.
If so, I invite corrective comment.
43 Comment by Michael Ezzo on 1 July 2007:
Thanks for the advice, Mr. Sale. I will try to read one of those books. I do agree with Mr. Cundiff, however, that politics is mainly about who gets the cookies.
Indeed I’ve read Fred Chappell’s fine novel and have taken that advice to heart in as many
ways as possible. This is a worthwhile way of ordering one’s exterior life,
in keeping with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Ignorance gives me little right to spout off about Mrs. Coulter, but it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that big media conservatives (with some exceptions) are often exploited to besmirch the name of
conservatism.
Your comparison with Albert Jay Nock is a point well taken,
and informative; something I had never considered before.
Chronicles I think is right in staying out of politics.
Slowly, but surely, they win people over to their side.
So I’m sticking with them. Thank you for your comments.
44 Comment by Nicholas G.P. Moses on 1 July 2007:
“Just one example, when she called for the forced conversion of Muslims.”
That, I believe, is unfair to Ms. Coulter, who said, word-for-word: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” I interpreted that statement as a call for a revival of the Crusades.
I cannot defend Ms. Coulter on the whole: she is crass, vulgar, and negligent of the principles that hold civilization together. But I agree with Dr. Fleming: in spite of all that, she happens to be right on a great many occasions. And I would add, as many of our esteemed peers seem to observe, she screams out at times when no one else would dare touch a sensitive issue. In doing so she is often crude or frankly wrong, but I must give her credit for being that scream in the silence. In that sense she is like a better educated version of Brigitte Bardot–except that in France there is actually such thing as a right-wing movement.
I agree with Mr. Jenkins: it is imperative that a conservative movement take form in the U.S. Unfortunately, conservatism–even, too often, the “paleo” variety–takes too many cues from classic liberalism. (To see why Dr. Fleming considers this so destructive, check out http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/nihilism.html) Americans have got to start looking across the Atlantic, and conservatives the Western world over have got to consider some sort of international Christendom solidarity. Ours is an international problem: no country will be safe until leftism is stamped out from every corner of the Christian world.
45 Comment by T. Chan on 1 July 2007:
That, I believe, is unfair to Ms. Coulter, who said, word-for-word: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” I interpreted that statement as a call for a revival of the Crusades.
Except that is not what the Crusades were about, though perhaps that is the erroneous representation one gets in textbooks in such today.
46 Comment by Nicholas G.P. Moses on 2 July 2007:
“Except that is not what the Crusades were about, though perhaps that is the erroneous representation one gets in textbooks in such today.”
This is true, and I spoke too hastily. But the point is that I do not recall her calling for the *forced* conversion of Muslim subjects to Christianity. Proselytism does not by necessity require compulsion.
47 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 2 July 2007:
C.R. Coughlin,
Beautifully, accurately and thoroughly stated. Count me solidly in your camp. Though, I doubt that Dr. Fleming will budge and, further, fear he may have moved-on from this topic.
48 Comment by TJF on 2 July 2007:
I had decided to go on to other things but made the mistake of looking over more comments. Two small points:
First, if conquering a country, killing its leaders, and converting (note the active voice) the people is not forced conversion, then what is? The First Crusade was launched, quite specifically, to rescue Eastern Christians from persecution and to preserve the holy places being demolished by Fatimid rulers in Egypt.
Second, I appreciate Mr. Coughlin’s kind words, but cannot help thinking that if Ann Coulter is one of the great wits of our time, that says something our time. The great Richard Porson told Robert Southey that his epic Madoc would be remembered when Homer and Vergil were forgotten. Coulter’s wit, likewise, will be remembered when Mencken and Nock (and Ronald Knox and Evelyn Waugh and virtually every humorist in the language) are forgotten.
Some of the discussion has taught me what Mr. Sale has tried to teach me in the past: rational discourse in the age of the internet is futile.
49 Comment by Nicholas G.P. Moses on 2 July 2007:
Perhaps I simply misunderstand the meaning of the word “convert” as opposed to proselytize. (I’ll not get into the difference between persuasion and forced conversion or Vatican II versus Msgr Lefebvre.) I hope that I can be forgiven this gaff; I do, after all, come from a generation for whom words don’t mean anything in particular. I do, however, stand by my conviction that she did not actually mean forced conversion per se for two reasons. First, I simply cannot conceive of even Ms. Coulter advocating such a thing, and I may well be underestimating human nature, but so be it. Second, it would not be the first time she has allowed polemic flair to override fairly basic verbal sensibilities (e.g., the difference between “who” and “whom”).
As to her supposed celebrity wit, let’s face it: that would amount to nothing without her blond hair, long legs and short skirt. Ms. Coulter’s columns are like tobacco products: to paraphrase Dr. Fleming from a while back, they’re fun and refreshing but caustic and addictive, and if you live on them they’ll kill you.
50 Comment by Bill Jenkins on 2 July 2007:
Nicholas,
Tobacco products. Good analogy. To which I say let’s not get too puritanical and dismiss the Marlboro Girl, altogether.
51 Comment by Red Phillips on 2 July 2007:
“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?
52 Comment by Bob Sale on 2 July 2007:
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.
53 Comment by Nicholas G.P. Moses on 3 July 2007:
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.”
54 Comment by Bob Sale on 3 July 2007:
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.
55 Comment by C.R. Coughlin on 4 July 2007:
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.
56 Comment by alice on 5 July 2007:
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!
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