Michelle Malkin on Coulter’s Idiot “Ragheads” Comment
I’ve been quite behind on my blog reading since being stuck on a Treo for a week or so. But I am now hooked up to a cable modem and flying free. I’ll do my best to catch up, but with all the boxes unpacked in the house, it’s inevitable that there are a few things that I have missed that I would normally comment on.
For example, Ann Coulter (whom I have said many times I don’t like) has said yet another stupid thing, using the term “ragheads” to describe certain Muslims. I think Michelle Malkin, whom many reflexively deride as a racist (but isn’t), has it just right in her post on the issue:
Ann says many deliberately provocative things. This one was spectacularly ill-chosen and ill-timed. I want the young conservatives who attended CPAC–particularly young conservative Muslims–to know that not everyone uses that kind of epithet.
I don’t. Not in public. Not at home. I have no ill will towards peaceful people who happen to cover their heads for their faith.
My problem, as I’ve made clear on this blog, is with radical Islamists at home and abroad who threaten our existence. I don’t care what they wear on their heads. I care what’s in their heads and what’s strapped around their chests and and what’s hidden in the soles of their shoes and what’s being cooked up in their labs and nuclear reactors. I have a lot of blunt names for these jihadists who have killed our sailors and soldiers, butchered and beheaded innocent civilians from around the world, flown planes into buildings and incinerated babies, children, and pregnant women in the name of religion.
“Ragheads” is not the word that immediately comes to my mind. Evildoers. Bloody murderers. Bastards. Yes. “Ragheads?” No.
Amen.
If I were an innocent Muslim I would take more offence at being called an evildoer, bastard, bloddy murderer than just a raghead.
Comment by rab — 2/13/2006 @ 4:56 am
Conservative though I may be, the entire diatribe was trivialized by the preamble…”Ann Coulter stated….” She has fallen into a liberal mindset of name calling and often pointless vitriol. She has a tendency to ‘fall in love’ with certain lines which she repeats until she finds a conversation that it fits into. She has just gotten lazy. C’mon Ann, to the showers for now. Maybe your game will sharpen up in the next half.
Comment by paul — 2/13/2006 @ 5:22 am
When are people going to catch on to her shtick? Who are these morons that invite her to places? the future of the right wing? The present?
Comment by actus — 2/13/2006 @ 6:17 am
Well that was a pretty milquetoast response. No bold-faced indignation? No calls for an apology?
Apparently Coulter’s racial epithet garnered a heckuva lot of applause at CPAC.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/ann-coulter-at-cpac-on-r_b_15434.html)
Nota bene: this isn’t a problem just with Coulter alone. So why is Malkin trying to tell the young conservatives at CPAC what they think?
And why does Patterico give Coulter a pass on her CPAC statements which, yet again, wink and nod at political violence (against Bill Clinton and 5 members of the Supreme Court)? Where is his signature bold-faced outrage? Where is his call for a clear and unambiguous statement by Coulter on the issue of political violence?
Coulter’s track record is plenty long. What does this say about conservative groups, such as CPAC, who continue to support her?
Comment by m.croche — 2/13/2006 @ 6:17 am
It goes without saying that Coulter should apologize. That I feel that way should have been obvious to anyone reading my post.
Comment by Patterico — 2/13/2006 @ 6:24 am
Also, I have not been on the Internet as much as normal. If she winked and nodded at violence against anyone, croche knows damn well that I denounce that, and I think she should crawl into the same hole already occupied by lunatics like croche who are unwilling to deem Osama a bigger menace than Bush.
Comment by Patterico — 2/13/2006 @ 6:32 am
There have been plenty of conservative writers who have decried the lovely Miss Coulter’s choice of words, not only for this latest incident, but ones in the past as well.
I’m just wondering when we’re going to see our friends on the left similarly criticize liberal writers who call their political opponents all sorts of vile crap?
Comment by Dana — 2/13/2006 @ 7:42 am
Patterico sez: “… I think she should crawl into the same hole already occupied by lunatics like croche who are unwilling to deem Osama a bigger menace than Bush.”
Criminy.
Every once in a while I get the feeling that Patterico may be, despite everything, an honest soul. Then I read things like this and the feeling goes away.
(Where is Osama by the way? I still can’t forget the words of GWB: “– I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him.”)
Comment by m.croche — 2/13/2006 @ 9:23 pm
croche, I asked regular leftist commenters here to comment on who was a bigger threat/enemy: Bush or Osama. I heard from everyone except you; you demanded to be paid, though we regularly get your silly opinions for free. So I paid a penny for your thoughts on that issue, which was overpayment enough — and you still refused. I had you pegged as a guy who would never say, flat-out, that Osama is worse than Bush. So far, my prediction appears to remain accurate. Prove me wrong.
Comment by Patterico — 2/13/2006 @ 10:09 pm
To call an Arab or Middle Easterner “raghead” is certainly abusive, but it’s far from racist” as many alledge. Put simply, it’s slimy invective.
But don’t Arabs and Middle Essterners ever do anything slimy?
Oh - like behead innocent people, murder apostates, or terrorize civilians? And when Muslims fail to reject this evil-doing and resort to pretentious hypocrisy like”the Religion of Peace” to characterize their superior religion - don’t cha just wanna use the “R” word?
I know I do!
Comment by Orson — 2/15/2006 @ 1:22 am
[...] UPDATE: I guess I didn’t pass on this after all. [...]
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