Wednesday, March 14, 2007

That Crazy Old Ann in the Attic

The SJ-R is keeping Ann. I guess the really sad part is that so many people actually find value in that hate-filled bile she spews. I’ll never understand fascisms broad appeal to certain mentalities. Disgusting.

And can we drop the false equivalence between Coulter and people like Ted Rall and the late Molly Ivins? Coulter is in a league of her own. Rall and Ivins maybe could be compared to a George Will or David Brooks or Robert Novak but no one, Left or Right, compares to Coulter.

Personally, I would have been fine with simply replacing Coulter with another conservative writer. It isn’t about closing off a rightwing opinion; it’s about injecting some sort of reason into the discussion. There is no way Coulter believes half the outrageous things she says. She does it for pure profit and, as such, is abusing the privilege. I have plenty of conservative acquaintances who say the same thing.

In rightwing world there has been a race on for years to see who can be the most outrageous and loud in demonizing progressives and Coulter simply took the wheel and floored it. I can almost guarantee that years from now, when Ann’s star starts to fade or someone figures out how to be even more extreme and shrill, she’ll “repent” and tell her “real” story in an attempt to squeeze a few more bucks out of her notoriety.

Update: Will says it better.

Update II: Some of Coulter’s “balance” .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first amendment wins again.

Anonymous said...

RM,

The First Amendment was never an issue here. The paper has limited space and certain standards. I could submit an editorial calling Rod Blagojevich an asshole and a mo-fo and there is no way they would publish it (even if I was civil they likely wouldn’t publish it). Not because they wanted to violate the First Amendment but because they were using editorial judgment. This has nothing to do with the First Amendment.

Anonymous said...

Bread and Circuses Dude.

JP

Anonymous said...

Dave,

Sure it does. You want her blacklisted, like McCarthy, for her conservative views which you disagree with.

I actually disagree alot with what Ted Rall says and I totally disagreed with Molly Ivins. But I do not call for their ousters.

I will agree that she went overboard with the fxxgot comment. But nowadays, who doesnt go overboard? Ted Rall called Condi Rice a house Nxxger, there was no outrage calling for him to be removed. Chris Britt's cartoons are very offensive to many many people, but he is a talented cartoonist, and I disagree with his viewpoints, but I dont want him dismissed. Bill Maher the other day was disappointed that the vice-president of the United States didnt die. I mean come on. It does go both ways.

Me, I personally listen alot to Air America. I am a political junkie and disagree with 99% of whay they say but it is entertaining for me anyway.

I personally dont understand what the uproar is really all about. So she called someone a name, like I said, it happens all the time.