Coulter: Clinton Was Blown . . . by a Jooooooo!
Ann Coulter defender Xrlq offers still more ammunition against Coulter: her own words. Our pal X provides this link to excerpts from Chapter 1 of her latest book. This way, you can form an intelligent opinion about whether the book is crap without having to pay her a dime.
Xrlq cites a disturbing passage in which Coulter suggests that she hopes liberals won’t make it into heaven:
I don’t particularly care if liberals believe in God. In fact, I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven.
To me, this kind of sounds like she wants liberals to roast in hell, but I’m sure her defenders will have all sorts of explanations: she didn’t say the word “hell”; maybe she meant they should go to purgatory; she didn’t really mean it; liberals should roast in hell anyway.
As much as I like that passage, I have another favorite:
Liberals use the word science exactly as they use the word constitutional.
Both words are nothing more or less than a general statement of liberal approval, having nothing to do with either science or the Constitution. (Thus, for example, the following sentence makes sense to liberals: President Clinton saved the Constitution by repeatedly ejaculating on a fat Jewish girl in the Oval Office.)
Here’s what I find especially interesting about that passage: why did Coulter find it necessary to include the word “Jewish” in that last sentence?
We have all sorts of Coulter apologists populating the comments here, so I am sure someone can explain this to me.
To me, every word in that sentence is designed to show how repugnant and disgusting Clinton’s actions truly were. I mean, just look how bad his behavior was. He didn’t just kiss her; he ejaculated! Not on a woman, but a girl! Not just once, but repeatedly! Of all places, in the Oval Office! And she was fat!
And to top it off, she was Jewish!
I just don’t know how else to read this. I can’t see the inclusion of the word “Jewish” in that sentence as anything but an attempt on her part to heighten the outrage.
As if the fact that she was “Jewish” somehow makes it worse. As if it is somehow relevant to anything.
My initial impression is that this is about as strong evidence of the repugnance of Ann Coulter as anything I’ve ever read by her.
If I’m wrong, why did she use that word?
UPDATE: Some explanations from commenters are offered in the extended entry.
Scanning the explanations, I find one that kind of makes sense, from PrestoPundit:
What the language does is to make the act impersonal — Clinton isn’t doing this with a unique individual, he’s doing this to what they call in the social sciences an “ideal type”. The language objectifies the target, turning her into a familiar kind rather than a singular person on equal terms as an individual with Clinton — making Clinton look even more the sexual pred[a]tor.
OK, I’ll buy that as a possibility. It seems to me, though, that there is a deliberate (and, at a minimum, curious) choice in the decision to pick the word “Jewish” as one of the words used to objectify Lewinsky. “Naive intern” would objectify her as well — but it would have a different effect. Evidently Coulter needed the effect that comes only with objectifying Lewinsky as a “fat Jewish girl.”
Another explanation is offered by commenter nash: that the line “plays to a sterotype of single Jewish women which Monica Lewinsky seems to fit into, if barely.” This stereotype, nash explains, is one of a “Jewish American princess” as a “grasping, selfish, lazy, and sexually manipulative” person — like those “JAP” jokes you hear.
Uh, OK.
The explanation I don’t buy is that Coulter is mocking liberals by saying that they would approve of such a line. As Another Drew says: “I think it was to indicate the subliminal contempt that Liberals have for minorities.” According to this view, I guess, when Coulter used the word “fat” to describe Lewinsky, she wasn’t herself calling Lewinsky fat. Instead, she was saying: “I would never call anyone fat, but mean and nasty liberals might, so I put that word in their mouths. Also the word Jewish.”
Mmmmmm . . . not buying it. Coulter was herself calling Lewinsky “fat.” And “Jewish.” There’s a reason she picked those words. I think she considered them both to be insults.
UPDATE x2: Note that I did not assert that this comment shows that Coulter is anti-Semitic. Rather, I read it as a vaguely anti-Semitic comment, because I couldn’t think of a reasonable alternate explanation. Suggesting that a comment might sound anti-Semitic is not the same as categorically declaring that the person who made it is anti-Semitic.
Many commenters appear to be missing the distinction.
I still find her comment troubling, but I am willing to assume that Coulter doesn’t hate Jews generally. (Her feelings towards Arabs are another matter entirely.)
In any event, a more convincing alternate explanation for her comment, and some other thoughts, are available here.
I think it was to indicate the subliminal contempt that Liberals have for minorities.
Comment by Another Drew — 6/15/2006 @ 8:44 pm
Why does it matter if Monica is Jewish or not? The fact is that Bill Clinton is and will always be a virulent scumbag! It’s time for those Democrats who still have a semblance of decency to look back and ask themselves what has happened since Teddy’s murderous drive off the bridge at Chappaquiddick in 1969. Teddy is the reason I left the Democratic Party! His mommy Rosie blatantly told the world that her son was above the American system of justice — unfortunately, she was right, at least up to now!
Comment by Mescalero — 6/15/2006 @ 9:00 pm
Why does it matter if Monica is Jewish or not?
Ask Ann Coulter. She’s the one who seems to think it matters.
Comment by Patterico — 6/15/2006 @ 9:03 pm
I assumed that it was to make the sentence scan better. She needed another adjective after “fat” or the sentence would have ended too abruptly.
As to defending Coulter’s harshness, I’m still waiting for you to come up with something she said that is unusually harsh by modern standards.
Comment by Doc Rampage — 6/15/2006 @ 9:06 pm
From Ann, it’s more of the same. Using that descriptive does not make it worse. If a redhead, she would’ve said that.
She’s crackling, wicked and mean-spirited. And apparently she tucks the truth into every paragraph, safe as a baby. She forces the reader to wade through the venom.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 6/15/2006 @ 9:07 pm
Yeah. I guess “naive intern” would scan OK. But it doesn’t have that same insulting and vaguely anti-Semitic snap as “fat Jewish girl.”
Comment by Patterico — 6/15/2006 @ 9:16 pm
Another Drew could be right. Seems reasonable.
Look at the very next sentence. Coulter promotes the *Judeo-Christian* tradition. A page earlier she says “If a Martian landed in America and set out to determine the nation’s official state religion, he would have to conclude it is liberalism, while Christianity and *Judaism* are prohibited by law.” In a footnote on the page in between (page 3), she says “Throughout this book, I often refer to Christians and Christianity because I am a Christian and I have a fairly good idea of what they believe, but the term is intended to include anyone who subscribes to the Bible of the God of Abraham, including *Jews* and others.” *Emphasis* added. It’s hard to believe that Coulter is denigrating Jews when she includes them in the opposition to Godless liberalism, the primary thrust of her book.
Read Chapter 2 too. No, I don’t get a commission. I just like her writing.
Comment by D Huff — 6/15/2006 @ 9:23 pm
All right, I have seriously considered staying out of this because despite appearances I dislike being at odds with our host. But staying out would be somewhat dishonest, because I have absolutely no intention of ceasing to read Ann’s columns and books. And since that’s the case, I’m going to say why it is the case. So here goes.
Okay, Pat. You. Have. Made. Your. Point. I have not denied since the very first Jersey Girl was insulted that Ann. Coulter. Is. Wildly. Insulting. Or if I did deny it I recanted pretty quick and I’m not going scrolling for it now.
Now I’m going to make my point, which is: the reason why I still read her despite her insults. From page 2 of Godless:
“As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, chastity is not. If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? … And if gays can’t change, why do liberals think child-molesters can? Pedophilia is a sexual preference. If they’re born that way, instead of rehabilitation, how about keeping them locked up? Why must children be taught that recycling is the only answer? Why aren’t we teaching children ’safe littering?’
“We aren’t allowed to ask [emphasis mine]. Believers in the liberal faith might turn violent–much like the practitioners of Islam, the Religion of Peace, who ransacked Danish embassies worldwide because a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammed. This is something else that can’t be taught in government schools: Muslims’ predilection for violence. On the first anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the National Education Association’s instruction materials exhorted teachers, ‘Do not suggest that any group is responsible’ for the attack of 9/11.(1)”
And even more tellingly, the paragraph following the description of Clinton and Lewinsky:
“The core of the Judeo-Christian tradition says that we are utterly and distinctly apart from other species. We have dominion over the plants and animals on Earth. … Liberals would sooner trust the stewardship of the Earth to Shetland ponies and dung beetles [true]. All their pseudoscience supports an alternative religion that says we are an insignificant part of nature [true]. Environmentalists want mass infanticide, zero population growth [true!!], reduced standards of living [true!], and vegetarianism [also true!]. The core of environmentalism is that they hate mankind [or at the very least, they like everything else on Earth a hell of a lot more].” Bracketed text, obviously, mine.
Reading Ann helps me clear away some of the foggy thinking surrounding various issues. It’s why I read a lot of things (ahem). I am not an apologist for her insulting jokes, but I continue to be a reader of her substance.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/15/2006 @ 9:33 pm
So, Anwyn: the reason the word “Jewish” is there is . . . why?
Comment by Patterico — 6/15/2006 @ 9:45 pm
It’s just another dig at the liberal mindset. Of course it either doesn’t make sense or is offensive to non-liberals — that is Coulter’s point — such a sentence would never be uttered by a conservative but could be by a liberal.
Her main point is that liberals throw around science and the constition as sort of sacred cows without caring whether what they are saying makes sense or not–it’s just a liberal card that is supposed to trump any and all opposing view points. She then adds in a few offensive points for good measure which suggest that liberals also don’t mind being offensive (in fact often don’t even recognize their offensiveness) as long as it either serves their cause.
In the end, her point would have been clearer without adding the insulting language (which as I’ve said I read as a separate dig at liberals).
Comment by Dave C. — 6/15/2006 @ 9:49 pm
Pat, if I’d read it before you blogged it, it would have passed through my mind simply as an adjective describing the girl in question. My focus was on Clinton’s distasteful proclivities, as Coulter always intends it to be, because her most oft-repeated message is what a disgusting man Clinton is [true!].
Since I wasn’t swift enough to think “that’s how a liberal would think” I’ll have to thank Another Drew and Dave C. for that and merely add that it makes the contrast between “Bill Clinton saved the Constitution” and the prepositional phrase that followsthat much more ludicrous, because of course it’s irrelevant.
Xrlq … forget it, it’s nearly 2 a.m. in the Commonwealth. Alas.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/15/2006 @ 10:40 pm
Too much thinking going on here, folks!
She put it in there to get a rise out of people.
Good, bad, or indifferent, that is what AC does - and does quite well, according to the reaction of our host here amongst others.
Comment by JD — 6/15/2006 @ 10:55 pm
I though it was stupidity that made the lefties pick out one word and write page after page of rants about the use of that one work. After watching the dim-wits performance in the Senate today, it is not stupidity, it is full blown insanity. The left truly is dangerous now, they are swimming in the sewer of self pity with no way to go but up or die.
Comment by Scrapiron — 6/15/2006 @ 11:06 pm
So this is the defense: she’s poking fun at how liberals would talk?
Low-eeze.
Did she also use the word “fat” to mock liberals — you know, because Coulter herself would never mock someone’s weight?
If I say to someone: “you’re a fat, ugly, Jewish jerk” — doesn’t that make me sound anti-Semitic? And doesn’t that kind of seem similar to what’s going on here? Clearly, she is angry at Lewinsky, and so she calls her “fat” — and also “Jewish.”
I know, I know. She defends Israel. But you know, it’s weird, but I think there are pro-Israel people who are also anti-Semitic. (I’m not Jewish.)
I think they’re firmly anti-terrorist, and that trumps the latent racism, at least as far as their public statements go.
For example, I always had the sense (back when I watched the guy) that Bill O’Reilly was vaguely anti-Semitic. He would screw up his face and sneer when he said “Alan Greeeeeeeeeenspan.”
Is it a coincidence that his populist political positions line up well with those of Pat Buchanan?
But he defends Israel!
I think the defenses offered here don’t wash.
Why use the word?
Comment by Patterico — 6/15/2006 @ 11:22 pm
Er, perhaps because Monica Lewinsky was a)overweight and, b)jewish? Would it have been better for Colter to have written, that Clinton “…repeatedly ejaculating on a fat Christian girl in the Oval Office?”
Comment by Ralph Volpi — 6/15/2006 @ 11:31 pm
Back to my last comment: if I tell you that you’re “a fat, ugly, Jewish jerk” — doesn’t that make me sound anti-Semitic? And if you really are Jewish, does that make it OK — because, you know, er, it’s the truth?
Lewinsky had dark hair, too. But for some reason that detail was left out. What was important to mention was her weight and her Jewishness.
Also, not that I really defend Clinton, that rat bastard, but I think that the Starr report indicated that he ejaculated once, not repeatedly. But Coulter says “repeatedly,” because it makes it all sound worse.
All indicative of her desire to make every word count — to make Clinton look bad. Which is fine in the abstract; I just find it highly curious that she seems to think “Jewish” is also a word that will make Clinton look bad.
Comment by Patterico — 6/15/2006 @ 11:37 pm
The reference to a “fat, Jewish girl” is a funny line because it plays to a sterotype of single Jewish women which Monica Lewinsky seems to fit into, if barely. This is from an article in the Boston Globe:
“The one place in popular culture where Jewish women reign is the Jewish American princess jokes. Here we are depicted as grasping, selfish, lazy, and sexually manipulative. Have you heard the one about how you stop a Jewish woman from having sex? You marry her. Encoded into these jokes is a level of misogyny that goes unrecognized by the mainstream Jewish community. The only critiques come from Jewish feminists. JAP jokes serve to help Jewish men bond with their non-Jewish brothers on the backs of Jewish women.
I think you find the line offensive because you want to be offended.
Comment by nash — 6/16/2006 @ 1:13 am
Thought you were an English major …
Imagine — if the facts were different — Coulter describing the target as “a fat farm girl.” What the language does is to make the act impersonal — Clinton isn’t doing this with a unique individual, he’s doing this to what they call in the social sciences an “ideal type”. The language objectifies the target, turning her into a familiar kind rather than a singular person on equal terms as an individual with Clinton — making Clinton look even more the sexual preditor.
Some “identities” are more radioactive than others — Coulter seems insensitive PC considersations about which identities need to be treated — often legitimately — with kid gloves.
Comment by PrestoPundit — 6/16/2006 @ 1:31 am
Seconding the JAP stereotype explanation.
Comment by Angry Clam — 6/16/2006 @ 4:23 am
Gotta agree with nash on this one. I think it was to make the description more insulting to the average reader. I also think Patterico has decided that AC is offensive and is determined to be offended, even if it requires picking through every word in the book in an attempt to pile up evidence so everyone defending AC has to agree with him.
Comment by sharon — 6/16/2006 @ 4:42 am
Pat, as the portly Jewish talk show host Michael Savage would say you are too sen–si–tive.
Comment by rab — 6/16/2006 @ 5:04 am
It’s a form of pornography. Aside from the sexual image, it evokes several degrees of anti-semitism (”a Christian girl was not good enough for Clinton”; “a Christian girl wouldn’t do it”; “Clinton sold us out to Israel for a ___”, etc.) “Fat” also operates on more than one level(”even a fat girl was not safe around Clinton”; “was that the best he could do?”; “he took advantage of an unattractive girl”). “Girl” as opposed to “woman” obviously intends to imply robbing the cradle. It’s what her hard-core fan base pays for. It sends little Pavlovian thrills of pleasure down their spines.
Comment by nk — 6/16/2006 @ 5:17 am
So you’d ask. Which makes her money. She’s a facade. Thats about it.
I was really surprised when I found out she had been editor of her law review at Michigan. It tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing. Its like Colbert, except she doesn’t recognize that its a joke. And its not funny.
Comment by actus — 6/16/2006 @ 5:37 am
If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? – Anwyn
OK, biology 1: Simple fact: producing too many young can lead to extinction. For example, many species have only one or two young at a time, while others can have hundreds or even thousands at a time. To show the absurdity of your comment, why don’t humans have thousands of children at once? (And don’t say because women have only two breasts most of the time.) Thus, if there are some in our midst who don’t procreate, it may actually be advantageous – especially in areas where food is scarce.
Comment by Psyberian — 6/16/2006 @ 6:21 am
Yeah. And also maybe there’s something to the idea that evolution is illogical and unsupported by evidence. After all, Coulter says that, and I disagree.
Comment by Patterico — 6/16/2006 @ 6:58 am
Dude, you really got to give this issue a rest. As with your marathon jihad against Harriet Miers, which began by raising legitimate substantive concerns about her professional abilities but soon morphed into a slugfest over a frickin’ birthday card, you seem to have slipped into “any argument against so-and-so is a good one” mode. If Coulter had a history of Jew-baiting, reading this particular quote as anti-Semitic would be very reasonable. If Coulter had no history of talking about Judaism at all, and this one comment were the only one she made about it in her new book, it would be semi-reasonable. But given her long history of defending both Israel and “Judeo-Christianity” (a silly tendency among evangelical Christians IMO, but hardly one smacking of anti-Semitism), and given her sympathetic comments toward Judaism in the same cotton pickin’ chapter of the same cotton pickin’ book (all accessible by following the same cotton pickin’ link, I might add), then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that the intent was probably something else.
In the alternative, if you really do think this particular comment about Clinton “saving the Constitution” was as wonderful of a rock-solid proof of her anti-Semitism as a silly birthday card was representative of the legal opinions a Justice Miers would have penned from the bench, then perhaps you’d care to explain why a person as blatantly anti-Semitic as Coulter would also write this:
… or this:
Both made basically the same point about liberals and their attitude toward religion. Both passages could have been written slightly differently citing equally silly cases, without portraying any religion other than Coulter’s own Christianity as the victim. Yet both times, she went out of her way to underscore that Judaism, as well as Christianity, is bearing the brunt of political correctness. If the point of her book is to spread anti-Semitism, then she’s doing a craptastic job of it.
Then again, anyone truly desperate to find anti-Semitism where none exists could always quote this passage:
… while helpfully dowdifying away the very next sentence, which reads:
Coming next: a major expose, in which blogger Richard Cabeza catches Paprika and Xlrg red-handed criticizing some guy who happens to be Jewish.
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 7:07 am
Actually, X, what I was looking for was an explanation for why she used the word. I quickly scanned your long comment and didn’t see one. What’s the explanation?
Comment by Patterico — 6/16/2006 @ 7:14 am
It a Don Imus kind of thing.
Look, there’s far too much REAL anti-semitism around . . . let me restate that: There’s far too much serious, even deadly, anti-semitism around for me to get even mildly worked up over Coulter’s comment.
And eight years later, I’m still embarrassed that Lewinsky is Jewish. Shame at Monica is more my emotion here, for whatever that’s worth.
Comment by Attila (Pillage Idiot) — 6/16/2006 @ 7:18 am
Maybe this is because I’m like Patterico in this regard Xrlq, but I don’t think that he’s obsessing. This only proves that he is an exceptional prosecutor. He can’t just half-way do anything – he is thorough. That’s all.
Of course on the other hand, when he elaborates on something I disagree with, he is obsessing.
Comment by Psyberian — 6/16/2006 @ 7:26 am
See, X, I know Coulter knows what she’s *supposed* to say. The question is, is this the mask slipping — or is there a legit reason to use the word?
I have updated the post to reflect on some of the reasons offered here. I think PrestoPundit’s “objectification” explanation is the best, but I’m not sure it explains the use of the specific word — unless you accept his suggestion that it was maybe just thoughtless and insensitive.
Comment by Patterico — 6/16/2006 @ 7:26 am
Good point.
Comment by Patterico — 6/16/2006 @ 7:28 am
Ask Coulter. The “JAP” stereotype makes as much sense as any, but the minority bit works too; by their own standards Dems should be more offended by their guy exploting a (1) fat (2) minority than if he had boned a (1) physically fit (2) WASP. The only explanation that makes none whatsoever is the one you’ve floated here - unless you think the passage you quoted and the passages I quoted were written by different people who don’t even talk to each other much.
[I think nk had it just right. She's saying that this is the best Clinton could do: a "fat Jewish girl." -- P]
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 7:36 am
on a slow saturday night in london during the protestant reformation, idle youth came up with a new amusement. a hollow wooden effigy of the pope was constructed, into which were placed several stray cats, before the whole was immolated on a bonfire. the onlookers amused themselves to imagine that the yowling of the doomed cats was the voice of satan himself emanating from the pope’s mouth.
ann coulter is very like those doomed cats with her constant yowling, and her yowls have almost as much meaning as those of the cats.
full disclosure: i am neither christian nor jewish, but pagan, but i have many jewish friends and would rather go out with a nice jewish lady (i am single) than ann coulter. nevertheless, i have amused myself to speculate what a one-off date with ann coulter would be like, and whether she would be presentable to my friends if i could only get some quaaludes into her first.
one final question for the christians here: we on the outside of your church keep hearing that your god is a god of love, yet the most prominent christians in america continue to spew hatred in their public statements, as ann coulter does. what’s the deal here? does taking communion on sunday put you in a state of divine-licensed hatred for the next six days? i sure wouldn’t want to end up spending eternity with you people.
Comment by assistant devil's advocate — 6/16/2006 @ 7:47 am
ADA, Comment #34:
Can I get you to make that “some of the most strident self-proclaimed Christians”? Your statement is not true about the actually most prominent Christian, George Bush, or any Catholic cardinal or archbishop that I have heard of. It’s also not true about the majority of the other sects including evangelicals.
Comment by nk — 6/16/2006 @ 8:03 am
The “JAP” stereotype makes as much sense as any, but the minority bit works too; by their own standards Dems should be more offended by their guy exploting a (1) fat (2) minority than if he had boned a (1) physically fit (2) WASP.
Hooray, it’s daylight in Virginia.
whether she would be presentable to my friends if i could only get some quaaludes into her first.
Gee, I assume that’s “just a joke” and you “didn’t really mean it,” or is it that you mean it and you’re right, too? Maybe Pat can tell us.
would rather go out with a nice jewish lady than ann coulter
Why is it relevant whether she’s Jewish or not? Something about that is a qualitative statement? Hmm? I notice you don’t stipulate you’d go out with a Christian other than Ann Coulter. Guess “Christian” is a qualitative statement too.
(i am single)
Shocker.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/16/2006 @ 8:17 am
It is a mistake to read this passage as Coulter’s intention. She is putting on the persona of a liberal, saying something (in a very exaggerated way, of course) that only a liberal would say. It’s Coulter’s sock puppet, if you will, only instead of revealing Coulter’s views, she is mockingly speaking in the voice of a liberal.
Comment by Dave C. — 6/16/2006 @ 8:17 am
Coulter’s stock in trade is being over the top. But it’s equal opportunity invective.
I’m reminded of an old line of my Dad’s: “I hate everyone, regardless of race, color, religion or national origin.”
If she’s Christian, she ought to think about Matthew 5:22 –
“But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
I think Ann’s often funny, often right, and sometimes wrong. But better 100 Ann Coulters than one Maureen Dowd.
Comment by Grumpy Old Man — 6/16/2006 @ 8:20 am
[...] Doubtful. But it’s Friday, baby, so anything goes! [...]
Pingback by Hot Air » Blog Archive » Coultermania! Is Ann anti-Semitic? — 6/16/2006 @ 8:31 am
@nk:
george bush enables those strident, self-proclaimed christians with his silence and occasional support in the face of their statements. pat robertson says that god should off venezuelan president hugo chavez. bush, not wanting to alienate his base, brushes this off as inconsequential. chavez and other prominent venezuelans read the american media, see this as tacit administration support for robertson, adjust their own policy accordingly and america makes a new enemy where before there was none.
@anwyn:
are “jewish” and “christian” qualitative statements? you bet your ass they are! christians are always after you to convert. they want everybody to be christian, and they want to impose their morality on non-christians by force of law. i would not be interested in dating anyone like this. jews don’t care if you convert or not. they never badger you to get down to their house on saturday in order to save your wretched lost heathen soul. i find this approach much more respectful of my beliefs than the christian approach is, so i reciprocate more respect.
jewish women are smarter, too. they’re more fun to talk to, the only downside is they don’t know when to shut up.
Comment by assistant devil's advocate — 6/16/2006 @ 8:43 am
I should’ve made my previous comment two comments instead of combining them. In case I managed to confuse anybody, the first part was Hooray to Xrlq, the last three parts were Boo to assistant devil’s advocate.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/16/2006 @ 9:02 am
Last comment:
“Just scratch the surface of a fundamentalist christian and you will find an antisemite, even if they do profess support for Israel, Coulter’s comment makes it seem as an excuse to support war”
Maybe that’s how God(Jehovah) made the fundamentalists? Or did they evolve into narrow-mindedness?
And what could be worse than being antisemitic?….thank you for the covenant!
Comment by Craig — 6/16/2006 @ 9:20 am
Judging from dahvid’s comments, scratch a compassionate non-Christian, find a misogynist anti-Christian snob.
Comment by sharon — 6/16/2006 @ 9:36 am
If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? – Anwyn
OK, biology 1: Simple fact: producing too many young can lead to extinction.
If people are born gay, then there’s a gay gene. In order for this gene not to disappear, it has to be passed on to offspring. A gay gene would be what’s called “evolutionarily maladaptive”, like a warm blooded animal someplace where the climate gets much colder, meaning it should be wiped out. Your reply completely fails to comprehend this elementary point regarding the theoretical driving force behind evolution.
Comment by Gerald A — 6/16/2006 @ 9:57 am
All the attacks on AC have focused on individual words or saying she is attacking someone. No one ever actually manages to debate or argue any of her actual points.
Could it be that people pick and chose specific words or phrase to be offended over rather than debate the points she is making. I have never heard a liberal factually destroy her ideas!!
Comment by FuzzyJJE — 6/16/2006 @ 10:03 am
“My, my such hatred! How unchristian-like, rather..how very christian-like.”
My, my! How liberal! Precisely Ann Coulter’s point. See, you attack Christians but when they treat you as you treated others, you cry, cry, cry. Not surprising.
Comment by sharon — 6/16/2006 @ 10:07 am
I will not debate homosexuality on this thread, period. But let’s clear up something: the quote with my name attached above: was from Ann Coulter’s book. Pysberian, you completely missed her point (and mine):We’re not allowed to ask.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/16/2006 @ 10:08 am
You completely missed the whole point of my comment Gerald A, it may be better that we have less offspring. There are other examples in biology where the number of offspring are limited. For example, the ugly little secret about penguins is, they often have two babies. But they feed the biggest one, and often the smallest just dies. (see http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/Auk/v113n02/p0496-p0498.pdf for example.) At first blush, that is maladaptive. But if the environment can’t support too many penguins, it makes perfect sense. Now there must be a gene for them to behave this way too, right?
Comment by Psyberian — 6/16/2006 @ 10:09 am
Are we at the point where religious preference should be kept a secret? The ‘jewish’ part of the sentence was put there to show that he is non-sectarian in his depravity. Just another barb on her barb-filled book. It’s funny. Lighten up.
Comment by Kevin — 6/16/2006 @ 10:15 am
ergh, I forgot a paste and screwed up my tags. This quote: If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? – Anwyn is Ann, not me. And also Pys still missed the point.
Comment by Anwyn — 6/16/2006 @ 10:16 am
I apologize for mis-attributing that quote to you Anwyn, when it was really an ignorant charge you quoted from Ann Coulter.
Comment by Psyberian — 6/16/2006 @ 10:16 am
No one has yet discussed the actually point - just made an attack based on one word!
Seems like they can’t debate her points - so actually individual words!
Haven’t finished the book yet so I don’t know if she goes into political correctness. Political correctness is also part of liberals religion - Ann never claims to be politically correct!!!
Comment by FuzzyJJE — 6/16/2006 @ 10:20 am
Sorry, grammar was horrible on last post. Forgot to proof before sending!
Comment by FuzzyJJE — 6/16/2006 @ 10:22 am
Take off your blinders, dahvid. The antisemitism in this country — and largely in the world, too — is on the political left. A conservative Christian who thinks I’m not going to heaven because I’m Jewish is not an antisemite. I think his religious perspective is mistaken, but there’s plenty of time to prove who’s correct. On the other hand, someone who equates Jews with Nazis and supports those who murder innocent Jews is an antisemite, plain and simple. Nearly all of those people are on the left.
Comment by Attila (Pillage Idiot) — 6/16/2006 @ 10:32 am
Isn’t this a reference to identity politics? Black, lesbian, or feminist would have worked and would have been used, had those been accurate descriptions. Evangelical, military or Southern would have not have been used, even if accurate. The Jewish Vote seems a little “inside baseball,” or at least it is not as well known to be as monolithic as other voting blocks (I had to google to doublecheck that Gore carried 79% of the Jewish vote), but the addition of the description changes the statement to a “blue on blue” incident in a political frame of reference. Not only did WJC do disgusting acts x, y, and z, but he did them to a member of a demographic that overwhelmingly supports his party. Is it worse to molest random children or your own children? If 70+% of all women traditionally voted democrat, then the term would have probably been omitted. It was already at 10, but AC had to turn it up to 11.
“San Francisco joined Washington, D.C., and Santa Cruz, Cal., as the only cities with formal bans on weight discrimination.” Is it any wonder that fat was included as a description as well?
Comment by rw — 6/16/2006 @ 10:36 am
Nothing will ever happen to Ann Coulter, her speaking fees or her book sales because deep down, you conservatives enjoy hearing that sort of hatred. If she crosses the line you tut-tut, sweep it under the carpet and continue to lap up her filth.
Just like you did when she referred to Iraqis as “ragheads.”
Just like you did when she pejoratively called Helen Thomas “that old Arab.”
Ann Coulter: The intellectual and spiritual voice of conservatism
Comment by The Liberal Avenger — 6/16/2006 @ 10:41 am
Patterico, found this via Hot Air. For what it’s worth, I absolutely, positively loathe Ann Coulter and everything she says, but I have never gotten any kind of feel for her being anti-Semitic.
And you know how sensitive my radar is on that topic.
On the other hand, I don’t understand why she felt it necessary to use the word “Jewish” to describe Lewinsky, either. Every other time I’ve seen that it goes hand-in-hand with a slam at Jews (usually on the order of the Great Zionist Conspiracy).
Not anti-Semitic, but certainly confusing.
Comment by Meryl Yourish — 6/16/2006 @ 10:42 am
We dehumanize people by putting them in a type all the time. We are simply selective in who we do this to. It’s ok to do it to a snake handling bible thumper. Given history it is decidely not ok to dehumanize someone who is jewish.
Coulter believes that Clinton’s sexual behavior is a representation of the dehumanization of a woman. The language used by Coulter dehumanizes Clinton’s sex object. It does so by using language that makes all of us understandably uncomfortable– because it calls up that history. Coulter’s point is that leftists are supposedly comfortable with the dehumanization perpetrated by Clinton — this sort even “saves the Constitution.”
Coulter doesn’t care that she dehumanizes Lewinsky in a way that offends the rest of us. Perhaps this is a sign of anti-semitism — of perhaps it is a sign of someone who doesn’t care about anyone’s sensitivities about anything.
Anti-semitic or cruely insensitive. Take your pick.
Comment by PrestoPundit — 6/16/2006 @ 10:43 am
Yeah, Liberal Avenger, ’cause it’s not like liberals don’t say horrible things about people.
Go visit Daily Kos’ comment threads, or the DU, or, best of the bunch, any Indymedia site. On that last, you will see art by the anti-Semitic cartoonist LaTuff, which echoes the artwork of Nazi-era cartoonists, and portrays Jews in the most disgusting ways imaginable–over anything regarding Israel.
When I bring it up, liberals tut-tut, sweep it under the carpet, and tell me that it’s just the fringe.
Which is why James Moran(D) blamed Jews for getting the U.S. into Iraq.
Because liberals just. Don’t. Say. That.
Sign me: A former Democrat and liberal now an independent centrist.
Comment by Meryl Yourish — 6/16/2006 @ 10:47 am
If you start with the assumption that Ann Coulter sucks, and therefore, the explanation that portrays her in the worst possible light is always the correct one, then I suppose so. Me, I prefer to start with the assumption that if someone is trying to make Point A, then any vague or ambiguous details should be presumed to have been intended to bolster Point A, and not to throw in a separate, totally unrelated Point B. Here, Point A was the idiocy of liberals crediting Clinton with “saving the Constitution,” when in fact all he’d done was defend himself for perjurying himself over a B.J. Simply describing Lewinsky as an “intern” would have sufficed to make that point, but given the chance to twist the knife a little further, why not? Start by calling her a “girl,” thereby underscoring the age differential and the element of predation. Then, to make it real fun, thrown in a couple of traditional liberal outrage factors which, for some reason, didn’t seem to offend the liberals much this time around.
Alternatively, by applying the croche principle, one can assume that the words “fat,” “Jewish” and “girl” were all intended to make points totally unrelated to the propriety of liberals defending Clinton. “Girl,” presumably, was intended to denigrate women generally, as Coulter has been accused of doing in the past despite allegedly being one. Or perhaps to make homophobic hay over the fact that Clinton didn’t grope a male intern instead; I don’t know. “Fat,” of course, was there to belittle Clinton’s inability to score hotter chicks. After all, every constitutional scholar since the Kennedy era has affirmed the power of the Executive to “save the Constitution” for a supermodel, but to do so with an ugly chick is an impeachable offense. And “Jewish” is there because … well, hell, damned if I know. What the hell is it there for? If there’s some stereotype floating out there about Jewish girls being easier, less attractive, or in any other way less of an accomplishment than scoring with Gentiles, I have yet to hear it.
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 10:47 am
The reference to a “fat, Jewish girl” is a funny line because it plays to a sterotype of single Jewish women which Monica Lewinsky seems to fit into, if barely.
This is supposed to be an argument in the defense? “She’s not anti-semitic. It’s just that part of the joke is about how Jewish women are grasping, selfish, lazy, and sexually manipulative.”
Comment by dorkafork — 6/16/2006 @ 10:49 am
re “As if the fact that she was “Jewish” somehow makes it worse. As if it is somehow relevant to anything.”
It doesn’t actually make things worse, but serves as convenient bait for any frothing-at-the-mouth fool who would irrationally snap at it.
Apparently that would include you.
Comment by Roger Snowden — 6/16/2006 @ 11:06 am
Patterico:
As would I, if I started with the assumption that Ann Coulter sucks, and therefore, every vaguely ambiguous statement she makes should be construed in the most negative light possible. I operate on a different principle, which is to assume that people generally try to make sense rather than spew nonsense. In that vein, I generally assume that if a passage is written to make Point A, any questionable phrases with it should be presumed to be intended to bolster Point A, and not to smuggle in some wholly unrelated Point B.
With that principle in mind - let’s call it the Non-Croche Principle, or NCP - let’s take a fresh look at the passage you quoted. What was its point? It’s not a passage about Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, obesity or Judaism. It’s a passage about liberals shamelessly invoking the Constitution to advance purely political, a-constitutional preferences.
You with me so far? Good. Now let’s look at the part about a “fat Jewish girl,” which consumed three words and four syllables to express most media sources said with only one two-syllable word: “intern.” Could Coulter have made the same point by describing Lewinsky simply as an “intern?” Absolutely. But it’s never been Coulter’s style to miss an opportunity to twist the knife, so it’s little surprise she said more. The question is which direction she turns it. One direction - yours and NKs - is to belittle Clinton’s sexual prowess. That requires the reader to assume a stereotype that does not even exist (fat girls are generally seen as unattractive but Jewish girls are not - nor are the generally regarded as “easy” in any other sense of the word) but more importantly, it adds zero value to the point Coulter was making - unless, of course, you think it is legally or morally acceptable to “save the Constitution” for a supermodel, just not for some ugly chick. Twisting in the other direction, however, does make sense: if “screwing around” with an intern is illiberal to begin with, it’s made even more so when the victim is a “fat” (presumptive victim, self-esteem problems, etc.) and “Jewish” (minority) “girl” (much younger, bigger power differential).
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 11:14 am
Whoops, Comment 59 didn’t show up at first, so I thought it had gotten lost in cyberspace and replaced it with Comment 62. Oh well.
[That's okay. Allow me to hijack this comment to respond to you. You are, I think, exactly right when you say that inexplicable language should be interpreted as bolstering the speaker's main point (Point A). Exactly so. And here, Coulter's Point A was the idiocy of liberals' crediting Clinton with saving the Constitution, when in fact all hed done was something really tawdry. (You'll recognize this as a slight tweak of your description. Remember this is her point, not mine; I would have focused on perjury and obstruction of justice. But I think I have fairly stated her point: it wasn't Constitution-saving; it was a cheap and tawdry B.J.) Besides the word "Jewish," every other word in the sentence bolsters that point, as I noted in the post. He didn't *make out* *one time* with a *hot* *mature woman* in a *private place.* No, it was more tawdry than that: he: *repeatedly* *ejaculated* on a *fat* *girl* in the *Oval Office.* And then the word "Jewish" is in there too . . . And I'm left wondering why Ann seems to think that word belonged in a description otherwise geared to make the act appear as offensive and tawdry as possible. -- P]
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 11:16 am
You know, it just occurred to me that if the courts paid as much attention to the text of the Constitution as we’re paying to three words from a bomb-throwing commentator, the country would be in much better shape.
Comment by Attila (Pillage Idiot) — 6/16/2006 @ 11:22 am
Done with you.
Comment by eddie haskell — 6/16/2006 @ 11:24 am
“If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce?”
Why hasn’t evolution wiped out hemophilia or any of the other genetic diseases that kill people? Recessive genes (genes that require two copies, one from each parent to be expressed) are common.
That homosexuality evolved as some sort of population control belies just as serious a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory though. In fact, it’s the same misunderstanding as the first statement.
Comment by Grant — 6/16/2006 @ 11:36 am
That homosexuality evolved as some sort of population control belies just as serious a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory though. In fact, it’s the same misunderstanding as the first statement.
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I don’t claim to know that homosexuality evolved for population control. I’m only saying that a lack of breeding by some members of a species can be used for that purpose. So that possibility alone shows the ridiculousness of Coulter’s argument.
Comment by Psyberian — 6/16/2006 @ 11:53 am
Producing fewer or no offspring in a given year is not the same as producing a non-reproducing offspring. In your penguin example, the parents only feed one because they can’t feed two, not to voluntarily limit the number of future penguins. It’s better to produce one healthy offspring than two unhealthy ones or to have both die. Your claims are as fundamentally wrong as Coulter’s.
Comment by Grant — 6/16/2006 @ 12:43 pm
Patterico:
Because the description wasn’t just geared to make Clinton’s actions appear as offensive and tawdry as possible; it was also intended to make them appear as offensive and tawdry to the very same liberals who should have condemned him but praised him instead. And in this case, underscoring a minority status makes it worse to liberals. Cf. Strom Thurmond’s love child - has any liberal ever mentioned his youthful tryst with the maid and not made an issue of the fact she is black?
On the other hand, Coulter routinely implies that liberals tend anti-Semitic, so I suppose she could have brought up the “Joo” bit in this context simply to show one more aspect of what would ordinarily offend liberals, but mysteriously didn’t in this case. Or maybe she was banking on the fact that many Dems are Jews, who generally aren’t all that wild about interfaith marriages, and are even less wild about interfaith trysts. Either of those is also a relatively minor tweak. But ultimately, we don’t know what she meant, and won’t until someone asks her. I’d try, but given your stature in the blogosphere, you’ve probably got a better shot at getting an answer than I.
Psyberian:
Perhaps. I think the stronger counter-argument is that evolution is a satisficer, not an optimizer. “Survival of the fittest” may have been Darwin’s shorthand, but on that point he was wrong; what we really have is more like “survival of those fit enough to survive.” If a particular subset of the world’s population had an unusually high rate of homosexuality, then of course that segment of society would reproduce itself less than the others do, but unless the entire population went gay, it wouldn’t cause them to die out. And the usual rate of 2-4% is barely a blip on the screen; we lose far reproductive potential to abortion, celibacy and birth control.
Comment by Xrlq — 6/16/2006 @ 12:54 pm
Honestly, I think she threw the word “Jewish” in there just to bait the far-left, islamofascist apologists.
By that I mean the people who in deciding to side with radical muslims have taken to chanting anti-semitic slogans just to gain some “street cred”.
Personally I think Coulter is blowhard, but it certainly fits with her “poke ‘em with a stick just to watch ‘em go nuts” style.
Comment by guy — 6/16/2006 @ 1:23 pm
Patterico, I don’t care for Coulter because I prefer reasoned argument to invective. You seem to think invective is fine as long as it doesn’t go over some ill-defined line. This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. First there is no sharp line, some invective is more offensive than other invective but it is a difference of degree not of kind. Second people will differ in what they find particularly offensive so there is no reason to expect others to draw a line in the same place you do. For example in comment 16 above you call Clinton a “bastard”. Some would find this reference to Clinton’s (purported) illegitimate birth offensive.
Comment by James B. Shearer — 6/16/2006 @ 1:32 pm
Oy vay, parsed that sentence and word to death. Nothin’ left but shreds, a scrap of a letter here and there, dots ripped of the ‘i’s, crossless ‘t’s, a scattering of serifs on my screen.
And what have we concluded?
Comment by BlacquesJacquesShellacques — 6/16/2006 @ 2:18 pm
I felt it was antisemitic. Intellectualizations? I thought it was in there because, as well noted above, American Jews tend to vote Democrat, from the conservative perspective tend to be a less unhinged liberal but still liberal. A fat, Jewish girl would be more likely to be a partner in this sexual indiscretion. If she were Protestant, she would be concerned that ’she wouldn’t look good in her bathing suit’ even with none and nothing on; so this vulgarity would be a factor to dissuade her. A ‘liberal’ person might not have this perspective, ‘liberal’ would include ‘Godless’ Jews, which her remark is probably directed at, rather than the Reform rabbi or the Jews of Israel who have responded to the perhaps Yom Kippur call, ‘next year in Jerusalem’ who might also have conveyed religious prohibitions.
Comment by michael — 6/16/2006 @ 3:36 pm
Hmmm … a somewhat different perspective, since this thread has precipitated me back into Spock/anthropologist mode … (”Fascinating, Captain !”) …
Ummmm - Mr P - is it possible that you-as-an-individual are accepting someone else’s assertion that “Jewish” is insulting, rather than merely observational ?
As an emigrant Scot, now resident in Southern California, it continues to amaze me how easily the locals take offence when offence may or may not have been offered …
There is a REASON why, in English, we talk about “taking offence” at something …
Consider this …
Most of us, when someone tosses something towards us, will tend to try to catch the something … if it’s a tennis ball, no problem … what about if it’s a sea urchin shell ? If we choose to catch the sea urchin shell (spines and all), it doesn’t matter if we do it from instinct or reasoned decision, the spines are likely to hurt !
If, on the other hand, we have wisely learned that, when someone tosses said sea urchin shell in our direction, we can simply ease aside and let it break into insignificance on the floor, then we are not hurt by it …
Potentially insulting words are like that sea urchin shell … yes, we can catch ‘em, and be hurt - but do we have to do so ?
With that said, did/does Ann realise that she was ‘tossing a sea urchin shell’ ? Uhhhh - well -d’uhhh ! Of course !
Still doesn’t mean we have to gratify that action on her part, however, by reacting to it by ‘catching’ it …
(further deponent sayeth not, for the nonce)
Comment by Alasdair — 6/16/2006 @ 4:35 pm
No liberals in heaven? Ann’s well-known hyperbole.
The “Jewish” mention? In my gentile opinion, I think getting to anti-Semitic from this one word is a real stretch. As previously suggested, you seem to be doing something liberals do a lot. Nobody on the left says “anti-Semitic” about Muslims who say far worse things.
Of course, if more evidence surfaced to bolster this charge, that would be a different matter.
Comment by Jim C. — 6/16/2006 @ 5:07 pm
Hey, Coulter has been anti-Semitic for at least two years, where was the outrage in her column when she wrote “Damn those Jews” in her 2004 column “Who would Jesus Kill?”
http://www.uexpress.com/anncoulter/index.html?uc_full_date=20040310
Comment by Conservativefreak — 6/16/2006 @ 8:42 pm
Patterico, I believe it is your birthday.
and as I reflect on what I know of your life, I can only hope that you contintue to act in a manner consistent with your previous actions and your life up till now.
In short patterico, you are hereby urged to “go”.
“Go” patterico, for it is your birthday, “go”.
For you are kicking ass.
Comment by Patterico's bro — 6/17/2006 @ 12:48 am
WTF?
Comment by Patterico — 6/17/2006 @ 1:05 am
Wihtout having read the surrounding context of the statement, I think her use of the word “Jewish” in addition to the other descriptive terms was primarily to explicitly define the latent degradation that Clinton was engaging in. The man was using this fat, jweish girl for his ego-ejaculatory power trip. Liberals, supposed champions of women, Jews, and the proportionally challenged, stood by and defended a base degradation of these three classes, both individually and taken together, as perpetrated by President Clinton.
This is a long running point of Ann’s and I suspect this is just another statement along those lines. I’m not sure exactly how this statement’s use of “constitution” makes sense, but without further context I doubt it can make much sense. Or perhaps that is her point entirely, that it doesn’t make sense unless you’re so far gone as to think that Clinton’s actions and lying and defense of the lying on this matter were in accordance with a constitutionally protect right or principle.
Comment by Paul — 6/17/2006 @ 1:59 am
Billy Clinton, who at the time was the most powerful man in the world, took advantage of a nice fat Jewish girl, who at the time was an lowly intern in the White House, and y’all worry about how Ann Coulter truthfully describes her in her book. Personally, I’d do a Jewish girl before I’d do a fat girl. Is that anti-porker?
In the same vain, Ann described the vicious Jersey widows accurately and everyone obsessed about her spot-on description of them and not the real point of her comment. That they seemed to be enjoying their 15 minutes of fame from a perch that was unassailable because they were grieving widows and used that fame to denigrate the President and his administration by lying and exaggerating has not been disputed.
Ya gotta love it…
Comment by Rick — 6/17/2006 @ 3:36 am
Dear Anwyn:
I’m not a regular here…just followed a link. But I can’t help commenting on the Coulter paragraphs you cite as material that helps to clear your thinking. So, speaking as a card-carrying member of the liberal left:
As a matter of faith, liberals believe: Darwinism is a fact [No, I don't...Darwinian evolution is the theory that best fits the available evidence...unless you subscribe to the "invisible man in the sky" theory of things, which I don't.], people are born gay [Homosexuals are probably mostly born that way, sure.], child-molesters can be rehabilitated [Doubtful, since most sexual crimes deal, in my opinion, with urges too deep-seated to be effectively rooted out...but what's your point?], recycling is a virtue [Conceptually, yes...practically it depends on the situation.}, chastity is not [What a load of rot...I certainly don't want my daughter banging everything on two legs the minute she comes of age. Chastity is, in fact, a virtue. But like honesty, it's the sort of thing that's idealized, and then rarely ever practiced. Doesn't make it worthless as a goal, but if you only plan for the optimal outcome, you're kidding yourself.]. If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? [There's no gene for green eyes...why don't they disappear? What a stupid question.] … And if gays can’t change, why do liberals think child-molesters can? [I don't.] Pedophilia is a sexual preference. If they’re born that way, instead of rehabilitation, how about keeping them locked up? [Because the way our laws are written, an offender serves his time and is considered a member of society again...ideally, anyway. If you think that should change, that's a debate we can have, but starting with the most extreme example isn't ever the best plan.] Why must children be taught that recycling is the only answer? Why aren’t we teaching children ’safe littering?’ [This is plainly an analogy in search of a point. Locate it for me, and I'll respond.]
We aren’t allowed to ask. [We most certainly are...in fact, we are expected to ask and question orthodoxy. The idea that we're not allowed is a fiction concocted by right-wingers tired of being told they're wrong, even though their rhetoric has not changed significantly in decades (except, perhaps, to become ever more bilious).] Believers in the liberal faith might turn violent–much like the practitioners of Islam, the Religion of Peace, who ransacked Danish embassies worldwide because a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Mohammed. [Heh. I can only assume Ann's being funny. Timothy McVeigh. James C. Kopp. Eric Robert Rudolph. All extreme right-wing nutballs. The worst you could commonly accuse the most extreme left of is property crimes. Again, this fantasy of an armed left-wing response is a concoction unparalleled in fiction.] This is something else that can’t be taught in government schools: Muslims’ predilection for violence. [I'm sure you'll be at pains to explain to me how Muslims are somehow more violent, as a population, than Christians have been over the years.] On the first anniversary of the 9/11 attack, the National Education Association’s instruction materials exhorted teachers, ‘Do not suggest that any group is responsible’ for the attack of 9/11.(1) [And yet, amazingly, the NEA is not a policy-setting body for American schools!]
The core of the Judeo-Christian tradition says that we are utterly and distinctly apart from other species. We have dominion over the plants and animals on Earth. [The Judeo-Christian tradition says a lot of things, not all of them worthwhile.] … Liberals would sooner trust the stewardship of the Earth to Shetland ponies and dung beetles. [False, as you're well aware, and nothing more than hyperbole.] All their pseudoscience supports an alternative religion that says we are an insignificant part of nature. [Really? Pseudoscience? Please point out which part of things are pseudoscientific...there is, after all, so much science around. As for insignificant, we are one species of millions on one planet out of billions. Unique? Very likely. Miniscule? Indubitably. Don't confuse the two, O Lexicographic Wonder.] Environmentalists want mass infanticide [False.], zero population growth [As an ideal, it would be a nice way to let technology catch up with population...it might even help to greatly reduce poverty and hunger. As a policy, it's not practical in a democracy.], reduced standards of living [Anwyn, friend, you're not paying attention. It's the right pushing most of these "free-trade" bills that have little to do with trade, and everything to do with lowering living standards. Just because liberals would like to see higher living standards for EVERYONE, as opposed to those in, say, Ann Coulter's tax bracket, doesn't mean we support lower standards.], and vegetarianism [Wait...define "support vegetarianism" please. I think anyone should have the right to be a vegetarian. Is that "support?" Well, fine. But I think it'd be a lousy policy to make everyone one, and impracticable. Surely you don't think "vegetarianism for all" is going to be the next plank in the Democratic platform, do you?]. The core of environmentalism is that they hate mankind [Umm, no. Environmentalism is about knowing your place in the structure, and trying not to eff up everything else as you move about. Nothing more, nothing less.].
Bracketed text, obviously, mine.
Reading Ann helps me clear away some of the foggy thinking surrounding various issues. It’s why I read a lot of things (ahem). I am not an apologist for her insulting jokes, but I continue to be a reader of her substance.
Ann’s “substance,” such as it is, amounts to little more than a collection of familiar right-wing strawmen and bugaboos, inflated to Brobdingnagian proportions by a generous helping of hot air, hyperbole, and outright intellectual dishonesty, then dangled in front of a frightened populace, with Ann controlling the puppet strings and all the while yelling “Booga booga” at the top of her lungs. Scare tactics, illogic, and unfounded ranting, all scooped out with a sweet candy shell of racism, homophobia and misogyny. Ann’s writing is, in my view, a peculiar mix of bile and self-loathing, but she serves it up in a way that her audience plainly loves.
So I’ll give her that. She’s a master marketer…a veritable P.T. Barnum of the right’s ongoing carnival freakshow. She knows her readers and sells to them expertly. But that doesn’t make her right, it doesn’t make her an incisive thinker, and it certainly doesn’t make her worth reading.
Comment by The Concordian — 6/17/2006 @ 4:43 am
Hey Conservativefreak, did you even read the article you linked? There’s nothing remotely anti-Semitic about it.
Comment by Xrlq — 6/17/2006 @ 6:24 am
You all are thinking about this too much. The reason Ann said “fat Jewish girl” is to make the sentence scan better and to make it sound like locker room talk. If Monica were Swedish, “fat Swedish girl” would have worked, too.
“I got laid last night.” “Who was it? Do I know her?” “Her name’s Monica something.” “Is she that fat Jewish (Swedish, Irish, whatever) girl?”
Remember, the Press asked Vernon Jordan what he and Clinton talked about when they played golf. His one word answer was “Pussy.” If you don’t think that Clinton and Jordan talked about Monica in exactly the terms used by Coulter, you are naive. Coulter is speaking in Clinton’s voice, out on the links with Eason Jordan.
Hey, Concordian. Your attempted fisking was lame. I would fisk your fisking if I had the time, but I will take issue with the following:
Take lefty Stalin in there with his 25,000,000 murders. And lefty Mao with his 35,000,000. And lefty Pol Pot with his 3,000,000. The “extreme left” has the highest body count in human history, higher than Hitler, who was also arguably a lefty — certainly lefties (i.e. socialists) claimed the German National Socialists as their own in the fight against capitalism and for socialism right up until the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact collapsed. “American domestic left” you will say. Okay, then. Have you never heard of the Weathermen, The Black Panthers, The Symbionese Liberation Army, The Manson Family? All lefties, all murderous. “That was the 60s and 70s” you will say, but it does put the lie to your statement that leftist violence is a “fantasy”. You must be young.
You know what, I am going to take issue with another thing you said.
This is a rhetorical trick and you know it. The fact that people who are nominally Christian or come from a Christian society have perpetrated violence does not change the fact that Christianity is generally a pacifist religion and certainly is so in the modern age. The violent do not use Jesus Christ as the exemplar for their violent behavior. Contrast this to teachings of the warrior Mohammed, which — unlike the teachings of Jesus — are exhortations to violence against unbelievers. Muslims hold the Koran and shout “Allahu Akbar” while carrying out their operations. They attribute their acts to their religion quite openly, which outside of Eric Rudolph, Christians have not recently done. You, generally, have proved Ann Coulter’s point. Any discussion of Islam and its flaws makes liberals uncomfortable and they will immediately switch the conversation over to the topic of how awful those Christians are. This is very odd behavior, given that Islam is a manifestly illiberal doctrine. The fact that liberals have no enthusiasm for denouncing Islamic doctrine makes liberals seems phony and unprincipled.
Comment by caspera — 6/17/2006 @ 8:00 am
Youthful tryst with the maid? He was an adult. She was a child. This was in the deep South during the Jim Crow era.
Are you completely ignorant of the subjugation of blacks and mixed-race people in the South in the early part of the 20th century? Are you completely ignorant of Thurmond’s virulent segregationism? Have you never heard Thurmond saying this:
So for Throm, blacks good enough to fuck, but not good enough to sit near.
Perhaps that’s why the race of the maid that Throm statutorially-raped is mentioned.
Comment by mark — 6/17/2006 @ 9:22 am
Agreed that Clinton’s party defended him in this matter over the minority, usually their greatest concern.
What’s annoying about this topic is that a young woman was individually abused by a man in power. His life goes on; hers is a punchline, including descriptions to this day such as the one by Ann Coulter. Once again, Lewinsky bears the weight of everyone’s chance to spout politics and prove righteous morality.
To cap the previous: Jewish was an accurate description. Fat was not. (See President/Intern photos.) Coulter could have use a sleazy ethnic word, the likes of which can be imagined here as well as omitted.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 6/17/2006 @ 10:01 am
Where does the idea that Monica L. is “fat” come from, for the gods’ sake? Look, I love loathing Clinton as much as anyone (and think that Ann C. is too easy on him by far) but since when does anyone who doesn’t look like they spent the last year or so in Andersonville qualify as “fat?”
There are a lot of times I’d like to take the fashion-industry mavens who’ve redefined “fat” and “overweight” down as far as it’s gotten, drag them into the street, and give them a collective stompin’ that would have the Hells Angels green with envy and wanting to study my technique. I know why they do it—it’s easier to design clothing for women with as few curves as possible—but they’ve taken it much too far.
And I think Coulter was playing off the stereotype of a Jewish girl as sexually cold—I could give you a bunch of jokes on the subject, but don’t want to waste the space here.
Comment by Erick Oppeen — 6/17/2006 @ 10:02 am
“Polish” scans the same as “Jewish”.
Lewinsky? Polish name, no?
Seems to me that all the purposes the defenders cited for ‘fat Jewish girl’ would be fulfilled by ‘fat Polish girl’. In fact, it would work better for most.
“fat Polish girl.” Why not?
Comment by pbg — 6/17/2006 @ 11:24 am
“Darwinism is a fact, people are born gay, child-molesters can be rehabilitated, recycling is a virtue, chastity is not. If people are born gay, why hasn’t Darwinism weeded out people who don’t reproduce? … And if gays can’t change, why do liberals think child-molesters can? Pedophilia is a sexual preference.”
Anwyn, if this sort of misinformation is an example of how Coulter helps you clear up your foggy thinking, you need some Windex for the brain. I suggest doing some *real* reading about these topics.
Evolution does not weed out those who can’t reproduce–it doesn’t work that way. Pedophelia is an illness that has little, if anything, to do with sexual preference or orientation.
It’s not that you aren’t allowed to ask–it’s that the answers are already out there for anyone to investigate, and people with knowledge of such things get tired of seeing the same old canards raised again and again.
Comment by Grover Gardner — 6/17/2006 @ 12:00 pm
I apologize if this has been covered, I didnt read all the comments, however this is my opinion.
Why would it have to mean anything? Its no different than any person making a description of anyone. For instance, when you are talking about someone of a different race everyone nearly always points out the difference to his or her own race or religion.
Take for instance, if you are white, and you are talking about someone who is white you will just say “this boy/girl I was talking to the other day” blah blah blah.. However if you were talking about someone of a different race you would say “I was talking to this black boy/girl the other day” etc.
This is for any person, race, or religion etc it doesn’t matter. The same goes if you were young you were say “I was talking to this girl/boy” or if they were older than you would say something like this “older person”, and so on.
It does not mean that there will always be a derogatory meaning or some hidden prejudice. Its to make a distinction of who you are talking about.
Comment by RenaO — 6/17/2006 @ 1:50 pm
Take lefty Stalin in there with his 25,000,000 murders. And lefty Mao with his 35,000,000. And lefty Pol Pot with his 3,000,000. The “extreme left” has the highest body count in human history, higher than Hitler, who was also arguably a lefty — certainly lefties (i.e. socialists) claimed the German National Socialists as their own in the fight against capitalism and for socialism right up until the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact collapsed.
Fascinating assertion. I wasn’t aware that the despots you name were part of the American political scene.
Comment by B — 6/17/2006 @ 1:59 pm
Mark:
Er, Mark.. you do know the meaning of “statutory rape,” don’t you? Here’s a hint: it has something to do with statutes.
Comment by Xrlq — 6/17/2006 @ 3:23 pm
Wow. I mean, just, wow. I’d always wondered who made up Ann Coulter’s audience. Reading this thread clears it all up. If Boo Radley and a person who thought 1984 was an operator’s manual, not an allegory, had a baby, and that baby smoked Parliaments by the carton…
Comment by Stu — 6/17/2006 @ 7:54 pm
I did the same thing the other week, when writing something about Freud. I was trying to dis him, suggesting that _of_ course a coked up guy with rich ladies on the couch is going to say everyone thinks about sex, and I mentioned Jewish because Austro-Hungarian Empire was a place where Jews were not elites, but in a sense second class citizens.
I wasn’t trying to say he was thinking about sex because he was Jewish (only that he was not in the ruling class, even though his patients were), but it could end up looking that way
Comment by JS Narins — 6/18/2006 @ 7:41 am
That’s interesting, Josh. If you were on a book tour, I guess you’d know the word’s a real hot button for some.
As far as Freud, I always remember the fact that he grew up wanting notoriety (fame). Then when you read about the split with Jung and their beliefs over sexual needs on the subconscious … it makes Sigmund look like an early version of Madonna. Anything to shock and titillate. Not to take away from his body of work, but I think he was a little bit of a huckster, too.
Comment by Vermont Neighbor — 6/18/2006 @ 9:37 am
Apparently the editors of jewwatch.com also found Lewinsky’s ethnicity relevant:
MONICA LEWINSKY–RUSSIAN JEWISH DESCENT
etc…
great (nor not so great in this case) minds think alike!
Comment by ann coulter kampf — 6/18/2006 @ 2:43 pm
Patterico, you’re right on the money with this one. Anne Coulter is a loathsome bomb-thrower, and apparently she believes that “fat Jewish girl” sounds more incendiary than “fat girl.” She may not be an anti-Semite - no one knows what, if anything, this media ghoul actually believes, other than that she believes it all the way to the bank - but she knows that a lot of her readers drink from that trough. Anything that demonizes anyone that isn’t Jest Like Them is a delight.
As for you, caspera, your assault on liberalism is utter garbage. Left and right ideologies alike have their monsters - - Stalin on one side, Hitler (ever hear him talk about God and Country?) on the other. Does a black-helicopter freak like Tim McVeigh discredit conservatism? Do religious cult masters like Jim Jones discredit religion? When American lefties start trying to pack their opponents off to gulags, we’ll talk.
Comment by beetroot — 6/19/2006 @ 9:23 am
pretty well every nasty trait you ascribe to liberals and liberalism are strawmen, caspera. you should think harder, read more, and practice groupthink on the internet less.
Comment by Matthew — 6/19/2006 @ 10:22 pm
Is that the Ann Coulter who is a popular author on Jewish World Review?
Well, I agree with you about O’Reilly, Patterico, but not AC.
I remember at the beginning of the second intifada, everytime the subject came up, O’Reilly made a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians - like so much of media continues to do. (He, at least, has changed his position since then.) Not to mention his insulting and denigrating usage on Fox News of the term Pharisees, from whom modern Judaism was born. I guess, for some people, Catholic school inculcation dies hard.
As for Ann, I believe, by the bye, she was at one time engaged to fat Jewish John Podhoretz.
If you are going to attack Ann, there are lots better grounds than this, Patterico.
And if you are as anorexic as Ann, Erick, from that perspective, Monica Lewinsky looks plenty fat. Not to mention that Monica was pretty much characterized that way at the time. The fat Jewish intern.
Comment by alcibiades — 6/20/2006 @ 5:31 pm
I was surprised by Ann COULTER comment about Bill
Clinton being a latent Gay.===BUT then I heard that actor KEVIN SPACEY was a ‘close” friend!
what’s up with that?
any clues?
THANK you
Nancy
AUG o6,2006
Comment by Nancy — 8/6/2006 @ 8:29 am
Why do we still talk about her????
Lets not waste our time. Just a shock writer looking for sales and attention.
She will go away if you stop buying books and talk shows stop having her.
Comment by Wakeup — 10/15/2006 @ 6:59 am
I think y’all are taking Ann Coulter just about infinitely too seriously.
Stu, you’ve stumbled on the dirty little secret of all the outrageous conservative opinion-celebs: the more OTT, the more the liberals pump up their ratings.
Comment by donquixot99 — 12/24/2006 @ 5:37 am