I hate to prove my everlasting love for Ann Coulter. Wonder who a fellow would have to shoot to get a date with Ann? All the worth-shootin' Kennedys are long dead...No wait, that's not what I mean to say. Let me reload and take another shot at it.
I hate to love Ann Coulter. She's a bad, bad person. It's a horrible vice that speaks to the moral rot at my soul. It proves I'm heartless. But I can't help myself. I love Ann Coulter.
I suspect that Miss Ann would not approve of the likes of me. For starters, her new book is called Godless. Us vs. them here makes it that athiests are liberals and conservatives are believers. I'd fall on the wrong side of that divide, I'm afraid.
But her whole PR run on the book has been built on these now famous and publicly repeated statements from the book about the New Jersey widows "enjoying" their husbands deaths. "I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." Predictably, there have been a bunch of people of all political stripes clucking their tongues in exquisitely sensitive outrage.
This whole public theater of Coulter's has a beautiful Andy Kaufman thing going. She's the national political wrestling villain, an evil heel. Oh god, I think it's going to be a gusher! I'm just saying.
Let's pause to note for a moment that she's got a perfectly legitimate point about professional widows and victims. Left wing types have gotten to be pretty clever about sending out widows, grieving mothers, and victims to do their dirty work, to a significant extent shielded by our compassion, taking foul advantage of our social niceties.
I object strongly to this emotional fascism, and the specifically depraved, life-energy draining vampirism of this whole setup of pushing the victims out as spokesman. Yes, it's dishonest and intellectually corrupt — but that's not the worst of it.
The worst thing is how this whole strategy depends on playing up to people's senses of pity — and that's just as wrong as can be. I'm sure the author of Godless would appreciate me invoking Nietzche, and specifically his Anti-Christ in her defense. Then again, some folks do seem to think that she is the Anti-Christ. But I digress.
Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands in antithesis to the tonic emotions, which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive effect. One loses force when one pities. The loss of force which life has already sustained through suffering is increased and multiplied even further by pity. - Friedrich Nietzche, The Anti-Christ section 7
Nietzche was arguing against Christianity specifically with this argument and he certainly had a good point, but it's not all inclusive. Coulter has her better and lesser points, but she does not play to pity. Her idea of Christianity is something else.
The cheesiest Christians have nothing on the modern church of liberalism. Take it as it applies, but the poopie-lickin' pity parties make me nauseous like Nietzche. Coulter looks at them that way, too. That's the main real reason I love Ann Coulter.
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - nugget
Brilliant.
2 - Deliver US from Bush
The GOP, bereft of decency, has to depend on a "woman" to fight for them.
Part of Ann Culter's hypocrisy is her accusation that the Left puts "un-assailable targets" out there as mouthpieces. That may be true sometimes, but the fact is, she does exactly the same thing.
Like Thomas Sowell, a Black, Female, or Gay conservative gets to say things a White Male would never get away with. Coulter's cute, incendiary throw-away comments would get a guy attacked in an alley, but Ann, with her coke-driven hyper-sexuality can spew her divisive non-sequiturs and flirt shamelessly at the same time, throwing off her opponents. We in the mainstream need to demand that Ann stops showing so much skin, gets married, and goes home to raise kids and clean house. She's way too uppity for a good Christian woman - she should leave the thinking to the men. These are the things that her female un-assailability shields her from hearing, and she uses it un-repentantly.
Her pretend spirituality is particularly nauseating, especially to those of us in the Mainstream who are religious. She is doing what Goebbels and Stalin did - de-humanizing her opponents. Watching her on Leno, it's apparent that she wants to classify anyone not on board with her particular brand of pernicious Neoconism as a sub-human, effeminate, abortion-hungry Satan worshipper. She is claiming that Neocons alone are on G-d's side - while at the same time epitomizing the cynical, atheistic dog-eat-dog heartlessness of a Nazi.
Ann's so-called "religion" has nothing to do with any part of the Bible I'm familiar with; she seems to model herself after the Medieval Catholics with their torture chambers and arrogant decimation of "Heathens." Ann Coulter, Fred Phelps, and Bill O'Reilly are of the same cloth - and their popularity should be chilling to anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930's.
3 - Mr. Real Estate
There's nothing like controversy to make you transform from a nobody into the author of a New York Times No. 1 Best Selling book. Whether people love her or hate her, people are buying Coulter's book, and that's probably what she wants. I don't agree with Coulter's tactics, but the firestorm she's created is making her richer by the day.
4 - Al Barger
Deliver Us- Do you think you're winning hearts and minds with your ridiculous rhetoric? You talk about Ann "de-humanizing" people while you're calling HER Goebbels and Stalin and every other type of name.
Meanwhile, you do not get to decide about whether she's really a Christian, any more than she gets to decide that of you. My guess is that you yourself are atheistic, presuming to judge whether someone else is a legitimate Christian. Only, I suspect you don't care about any of that, other than as an excuse to bash away at her. In short, your objections are political, so you shouldn't pretend that they're religious.
It's not that Ann Coulter is not religious, it's just that it's not the version of Jesus liked by members of the godless church of liberalism. She seems to be more into the old hard Yahweh of the Old Testament than the candy-ass pity-Jesus beloved of modern leftists.
5 - Deliver US from Bush
So, let's see... it's OK to be divisive, hypocritical, and dishonest as long as you're making money?
Is that what Jesus would do? Ann claims to be on the moral high ground just from the title of her book - but she's in the deepest part of the gutter - that's OK since she's selling books? That's the pathologically cynical Republican way, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Judeo-Christian values.
And by the way, they're giving her trash away on every right-wingnut magazine, they must have gone out and bought thousands of copies of it just like Rupert Murdoch did, just pump up the numbers....
6 - Deliver US from Bush
By the standard of Torah, or "Old Testament" as its erroneously called, Ann Coulter has committed one of the gravest of all sins, by breaking the 9th commandment in every page. "Bearing False Witness" is what she does when she tries to say that any non-Neocon is a Satan worshipper. Obviously, there are many, many religious people who recognize the terrible cancer that has taken over our government.
Ann Coulter is beneath contempt, and until she went religious I didn't care to dignify her with a rebuttal. But her "religious" pretentions are really going too far.
The "church of liberalism" is an idiotic, amateurish sound bite that the trained-seals will be chanting from now on, but it has nothing to do with reality.
If you would take time to read the Bible, you would see that Torah law is radically progressive, defending the rights of the underdog, preventing monopolistic activity, and condemning arrogance. "Yaweh," as you call it, is allowed to issue rebuke and be imperious, but not the humans of His creation. Just because Coulter pretends to be God, her confused sheep-followers think she's being "Biblical."
Ignorance breeds ignorance, and the misinformed fools who scream the loudest slogans get the attention, but they are sadly confused.
7 - Al Barger
Deliver Us, I was looking again at your first comment, #2 "Part of Ann Culter's hypocrisy is her accusation that the Left puts "un-assailable targets" out there as mouthpieces. That may be true sometimes, but the fact is, she does exactly the same thing... Coulter's cute, incendiary throw-away comments would get a guy attacked in an alley, but Ann, with her coke-driven hyper-sexuality can spew her divisive non-sequiturs and flirt shamelessly at the same time, throwing off her opponents."
In the first place, this "coke-driven" business is the hypocrisy coming from someone bitching about people "bearing false witness" unless you've actually seen Ann with a coke spoon.
But your basic argument there is that Ann is herself an unattackable opponent, like the NJ widows. But of course it is absolutely not even vaguely similar. Her point is that you're not allowed to criticize these victims at pain of being villified for cruelty. You're not ALLOWED to be critical of them.
Whereas your argument is that Ann is unassailable because she's sexy and funny. That's not fair! Rightwingers have to be grumpy old fat guys. It's not that you're not allowed to criticize Coulter, just that it's hard to do because she's an appealing character. That's not the same thing, is it?
8 - Deliver US from Bush
"Not allowed?" No one is stopping Ann. And her immunity to criticism is not because she's cute and funny [she is neither, ever seen her hands? she's a mutant!] but because she's a freakish woman, and women are not usually mouthpieces for the pretend-macho Neocons. Because she's female, she gets away with her insulting generalizations, pretending they're funny, and that she's some kind of a comic.
She's an absolutist, she breeds division, and is a pernicious, anti-social influence. The tacit or blatant support of her by Right-Wingers is a disgrace to decency. The depravity that permits a person to support the Anti-American Bush agenda is a result of generations of people educated by television and living in artificial environments with no down-to-earth common sense. She epitomizes the abstract, out-of-touch, Hegelian mind-set that says black is white and white is black.
Thanks to Coulter and the Republicans, now no one is unassailable, and the "tone" of the debate has descended to the level of schoolyard screaming matches.
Criticizing the NJ widows is just a cheap attention-getting tactic anyway, to divert attention from their arguments, which unlike the wives themselves, ARE un-assailable. Bush & cronies lied us into a war for oil and empire, and are decimating the economy to line the pockets of their looter buddies. By creating their own propaganda wing of the media, they wear a veneer of credibility that is acceptable to the people who are also duped by every other form of deceptive advertising that carpets our world.
As for Coulter's coke addiction, read "Blinded By The Right, the Consience of an Ex-Conservative," by David Brock. A one-time co-conspiritor with Coulter, he documents her drug use during the 90's in detail. Maybe she's clean now, but that still doesn't excuse her shameless pandering to her dim-witted, bloodthirsty, racist worshippers.
9 - Margaret Romao Toigo
Al Barger writes, "Left wing types have gotten to be pretty clever about sending out widows, grieving mothers, and victims to do their dirty work, to a significant extent shielded by our compassion, taking foul advantage of our social niceties."
Deliver US from Bush writes, "Coulter's cute, incendiary throw-away comments would get a guy attacked in an alley, but Ann, with her coke-driven hyper-sexuality can spew her divisive non-sequiturs and flirt shamelessly at the same time, throwing off her opponents."
So what? Haven't you good people ever heard that all's fair in love, war, and partisan politics?
Both paradigms could be interpreted as unseemly, unfair, and unethical. However, both are also examples of brilliant rhetorical strategy.
It can be very frustrating when our opponents take advantage of our various social niceties in order to make their respective points because it is very difficult to formulate refutations that will not be taken as cold, callous and cruel.
Complaining about an opponent's use of such tactics doesn't work because it forces one to assume the role of a "victim" who has been victimized, not by the insensitivity of others, but by one's very own obtuseness.
Countering such contrivances is not really all that difficult, for they are nothing but sophisticated forms of ad hominem argumentation.
The helpful hint here is that attacking an individual's ideas always works better, in the long run, than attacking the individual himself or herself.
10 - Libareal
Hey deliverYBOY!
You are sounding like Howard Dean...ironically your description of St.Ann...sounds like you are really describing yourself!
"an absolutist, he breeds division, and is a pernicious, anti-social influence"
11 - Deliver US from Bush
Bush's appointments of Condoleezza Rice and Gonzalez are the same tactic. They're not part of the good 'ol boy gang, and they're minorities - so who will dare criticize?
When Gonzalez was being appointed, Bushies had the nerve to accuse Dems who objected to him of "racism," but the objection was that he, like Bush, has no respect for our Constitutional Rights. Condi, who Exxon has named an oil tanker after, is another Neocon criminal no one dares attack. Same tactic, using an un-assailable minority as a human shield for their deceitful agenda. They are using the spineless political correctness of the left quite well for their treasonous ends.
Pretend-diversity is just more evidence of Republican hypocrisy.
Yes, all is fair in love, war and partisan politics. It is a dog-eat-dog world, just ask Ghengis Khan or Pol Pot. That's what America's Constitutional Democracy was supposed to protect us against, until the Reagan/Neocon cancer took hold.
12 - Margaret Romao Toigo
America's Democratically Representative Constitutional Republic was never intended to protect us from the responsibility of thinking for ourselves. In fact, the First Amendment protects and defends our right to fully engage our political "enemies" in this dog-eat-dog world -- and in just about any manner we see fit.
Complaints about "[the use of] an un-assailable minority as a human shield" or "[the use of] the spineless political correctness of the left" or remarks about "pretend-diversity" and "the Reagan/Neocon cancer" are really good for rallying one's own troops or preaching to one's own choir.
However, in serious discourse in which diametrically opposing viewpoints are explored, they are nothing more than inflammatory tit-for-tat silliness.
Sure, I made the assertion that all's fair in love, war, and partisan politics, but there is also something to be said for taking the high road and not lowering oneself to a level one is actively attributing to one's opponents.
13 - Al Barger
Yeah there, Deliver US. So Bush is not allowed to appointment members of ethnic minority groups to a conservative administration. Would it be ok if W found a couple of LIBERAL blacks or Hispanics for his cabinet?
You know, the fact that you're really, really mad does not constitute evidence that you have any legitimate point whatsoever.
14 - JOHN THOMAS GILLICK
LOOKING FOR A WAY TO DEAL WITH OUTBREAKS OF COULTERGEIST ACTIVITY?
TRY THIS ...
Just stop talking about A** C******.
Really. Stop altogether.
The best way of dealing with the phenomenon is silence and dismissal.
Don't buy her books, don't read her work, don't review it, don't discuss it, don't discuss her. If you happen to be a professional member of the chattering classes, don’t appear with her on talk shows, don't engage her in debate, dialogue, arguments, faces-offs or whatever. And when the subject of A** C****** comes up - disregard it. If asked about her, ignore the question calmly; wait patiently for the next question on another subject. Pressed for an opinion, yield none. Charged with being “afraid to engage” the issue, smile and wait. The best public statement on A** C****** is DEAD AIR.
Make some.
Then, move on - and leave her ranting to her choir.
More even than on the cheers of her sad supporters, the creature lives for and feeds on the outrage of the easily-baited.
And no productive purpose is served by feeding its need for that attention.
Don't be so weak as to succumb to her provocations. You have better uses for your time and energy.
We all do.
MOVE ON.
And when others raise the question of what to do about A** C****** ... say, “nothing.”
Or ... just say nothing at all.
15 - Al Barger
Mr Gillick, I'm highly entertained by this same spiel that you post on every Ann Coulter related thread. You've got this thing where you won't even say her name, as though the alphabetic symbols contain some voodoo power. It's like she's Cthulhu, "She Who Must Not Be Named."
Thing is, unlike Cthulhu, Ann Coulter is all too real. You think she's like an evil Tinkerbell, and if you just quit believing she'll wither up and die. Ain't happening, not even if you hold your breath till your face turns blue.
16 - nugget
sounds like A** C****** really got to gillick. Have a beer, buddy.
17 - JP
Al, Coulter is a witch who should be burned at the stake immediately.
Seriously. She believes that John Murtha is "The reason soldiers invented 'fragging.'" Fragging, as you may or may not know, is a soldier attempting to kill his own officer.
The fact that this low-life trash would stoop to advocating KILLING is a sign that this "woman" is bereft of any morals or any class.
Not that I read RedState, but I'm astonished that someone there spoke the truth. The fact that Ann Coulter is at the top of the best-seller list is a sign of how ethically and morally challenged our country really is right now.
18 - JP
Further Al, she may market her "skank" look and her figure, but I wouldn't F her with your dick. I have taste.
19 - mike
Ann Coulter said in her book what needed to be said about using certain people to ptomote a leftist agenda. remaining parts of her book are trash.
20 - Al Barger
JP, if you're going to play up her quote to Hawkins about Murtha, you might also have noted this quote from the same story in which Hawkins said, "Although, I wouldn't have phrased that like Ann did, I would say in her defense that in that quote she didn't say that she wanted to kill Murtha, she'd didn't say that she thought he should be killed, and she didn't say that she thought Murtha should have been fragged. Is that hair splitting?"
Whereas you say, "Al, Coulter is a witch who should be burned at the stake immediately.
Seriously."
That does appear to be saying that she should be killed.
Plus, Murtha has turned out to be a punk-ass Democrat who does not support our troops and appears to be anxious to snatch defeat in Iraq from the jaws of victory, despite his own military background. That's a lot more important than parsing her words or yours.
She was expressing the frustration that a lot of soldiers apparently feel about this congressman, not advocating violence.
21 - Arch Conservative
If one more person rights another fucking post about Coulter they should be forced to have a three with her and Michael Moore.
22 - JP
Al, I wrote that in Coulterspeak. It's rhetorical, don't you get it? Like we're all supposed to when the goddess herself does it?
23 - Al Barger
Yes JP, you cussed her. I'm not offended by the comment particularly, but just didn't find it interesting. You should try to wrap the common vulgarity into some kind of more interesting intellectual shell. Otherwise, you're saying nothing.
Arch Conservative- Arch, buddy, pal, why you harshing on me like that. Michael Moore? How about we replace Natalie for Michael.
Indeed, I should write a whole new column on Ann Coulter and the Dixie Chicks together.
24 - Silas Kain
I'd love to have sex with Ms. Coulter. She's man enough for me!
25 - Ann Coulter's Ass
What the fuck is wrong with you man? This woman is nothing more than a shill for the repugnican party!
Why? Cause it's an easy sell to the mindless drones such as yourself who buy into that party's fascist shit.
Get a plastic blow up sex doll to better satisfy your ass kissing infantilism.