Patterico's Pontifications

3/7/2007

Open the Floodgates! With Hate Speech Redefined by Greenwald, We’ll Be Here All Year

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:01 am



Glenn Greenwald and his sycophants have made it clear: hate speech (at least on the right) doesn’t just mean racist comments and threats of violence and death. According to the Greenwald crowd, it’s “hate speech” when Ann Coulter says: “Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.” This (along with many similarly innocuous, if silly, statements) was cited as an example of hate speech by a Greenwald sycophant, in a post that Greenwald linked with approval. Thus, Greenwald has redefined hate speech to include any silly and over-the-top expression of disdain for the other side.

Sweet. The floodgates have been opened.

If Glenn Greenwald et al. think leftists aren’t guilty of this type of speech, they are dumber than they look.

We’re going to be here all year.

I’m a busy man, so I currently have time to give you only a taste. I’ll provide something more comprehensive later, but compiling an exhaustive list is going to take time. A lot of time. Because liberals have a lot of hate to go around.

Almost all of the following examples were cited in the first 50 comments to my recent post on liberal hate speech — you know, the post that restricted itself to actual threats and racism. (A couple of e-mails supplemented the list.) There’s a lot more where this came from. (I’m going to have to say that a few more times for our reading-impaired friends.)

California Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (h/t Lonewacko):

You’ve got all these crackers down in Southern Cal – ah, where is it, San Diego, taking on the governor.

NBC News military analyst and Washingtonpost.com columnist Bill Arkin (h/t EllisonEllenbergGreeny aka Dwilkers):

But it is the United States, and the recent NBC report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary – oops sorry, volunteer – force that thinks it is doing the dirty work.

Former Democrat presidential candidate Al Sharpton, on Jews (h/t Cassandra):

diamond merchants

Leftist talk show host Bill Maher (h/t Amphipolis):

I’m just saying if [Dick Cheney] did die, other people, more people would live. That’s a fact.

Leftist media mogul Ted Turner (h/t Roger H.):

What are you? A bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.

Air America radio personality and Senate candidate Al Franken (h/t Eric A.):

Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia.

Air America radio personality Randi Rhodes jokes about Bush being shot. (h/t roy.)

Radio personality Stephen Crockett (h/t roy.):

If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!

Again, these are just a few examples, almost exclusively from the first 50 comments on my post — which has over 250 comments. And I haven’t even tried to do independent research.

There are many more to come.

Leftists, read that again: there are many more to come.

Since you probably missed that, with the reading impairment so many of you seem to have, I’ll say it again:

There are many more to come.

Thanks, Ellison, for making this so easy. Here I was trying to provide real threats and racism. I can see I overly restricted myself.

These will eventually be added to my original post, when I get time. It’s going to be a monster post by the time I’m done.

Add your examples to the comments below. Remember: any time a Republican has been called a Nazi by a prominent lefty, it gets added to the list.

It all gets the Glenn Greenwald Seal of Approval.

45 Responses to “Open the Floodgates! With Hate Speech Redefined by Greenwald, We’ll Be Here All Year”

  1. Bush + Hitler in Google results in 2,740,000 hits which is about an average week of DNC press releases.

    Perfect Sense (b6ec8c)

  2. Hope the end, or rather up-to-date-but-continually-adding-on result will be one collated list to use as a reference!

    rightisright (9dcb28)

  3. Yeah, but the stuff the right says is all mean and nasty and evil because they’re on the right! And the stuff the left says is all justifiable and civil and perfectly acceptable because they’re on the left!

    Why won’t Glenns just come out and say it?

    Pablo (08e1e8)

  4. This is a product of Conservatives vehemently eating our own. Half of “Conservatives” did’t just disapprove of Ann’s remarks but quickly wanted to throw her under the bus and have her censored.

    Why? Because she supposedly reinforced the cliche that conservatives or republicans are homophobic.

    I guess we’re transitioning from a guilt based culture where people are responsible for their own crimes to a shame based culture to where being embarrassed by one of our own merits immediate reprisal for the embarrassment (not the actual offense). Often death, but in this case censorship.

    I believed it wouldn’t be long before the Left realized how quickly we will eat our own and moved the goalposts as to what constitutes that level of offense. Because guess who was most responsible for setting the shame level of the charge of homophobia? The media and the left were the one responsible for that. In that case, I guess you could justify it. But in reality, shame levels for conduct are arbitrary.

    So why not initiate shame levels with other aspects of Conservative conduct and discussion?

    Its funny one of the people who threw Ann Coulter under the bus was Michelle Malkin. But guess what, the left is going to quadruple its effort to associate a shame level to “Islamophobia” now. In which case, it will become her turn to be thrown under the bus.

    jpm100 (851d24)

  5. You just don’t get it Patterico. When Coulter made that statement she was,um, wearing high heels–the, uh, pointy tips of which convey agression and the obvious threat of violence. (Bingo!) That’s what made it hate speech. So all those liberals saying crude, stupid, hateful things don’t count.

    T-web (ac713a)

  6. The past record is irrelevant anyway: you are only as good as your next bit of hate. So in this spirit I say, it’s not that I hate gays, it’s instead that I despise Faux Liberals nearly as much as they despise themselves.

    J. Peden (d21084)

  7. Patterico,
    You’ve made your case. Those who haven’t seen your point by now are hopeless. Can we all just forget about Greenwald for a while? I’d like a concise summary of what’s been learned about the Border Patrol case. Please?

    Bradley J. Fikes (1c6fc4)

  8. Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets; “Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die . . Through love of having children, we are going to take over.

    gahrie (d8da01)

  9. I’d like a concise summary of what’s been learned about the Border Patrol case

    Heh, glad to see I’m not the only one feeling a bit… overwhelmed by the transcripts. Not that it’s not cool to have them posted and a neat service, but my non-legal-oriented brain seems to get a little fizzed by `em.

    My personal take is that you always think your political side is better about bomb throwing because when your side throws bombs you think the other side deserves it and you think there’s some truth to it.

    Anyone who really thinks any particular group is sainted and kind in the days of the internet is really fooling themselves… everybody’s nasty out there, at least sometimes.

    I think it’s odd for the left to claim politeness, though–what happened to the correctness of rage against Bush and all that? I thought the left was out there cursing and speaking truth and everybody else is all clutching pearls and hiding. Or maybe I’ve read Pandagon too much lately. 😉

    David N. Scott (71e316)

  10. Bradley,

    Don’t blame Patterico. I’m the hang-up on the Border Patrol front and I’ve had a touch of Spring Fever. In the meantime, Patterico’s on a roll and I say enjoy the ride.

    DRJ (0c4ef8)

  11. We are preaching to the choir. Greenwald and his ilk are not interested in reasonable discourse. They didn’t sign up to follow rules of civil debate.

    They will distort and manipulate our response, then they will distort and manipulate our response to their phony response. They are playing with us, pushing our buttons to get us to respond in our predictably reasonable fashon. Then they will trash us again with another unreasonable response. And their audience loves it.

    It’s time to stop feeding the trolls.

    Amphipolis (fb9e95)

  12. I think Greenwald’s “sycophant’s” point was that you hear much more so-called hate speech on the right than you do on the left. Do some people that are on the left of the spectrum say hateful things quite a lot? Of course. You’d be a fool to deny that.

    But if you’re using Louis Farrahkan as evidence that leftists are as hateful as rightists, then I think your case is weak.

    And a hearty AMEN to Mr. Fikes above. This has gone on far too long.

    Russell (a32796)

  13. I’m bettin that DRJ is enjoying a bit of a break as well. MY GAWD can you imagine the traffic boost this subject has gotten?

    I put on a couple lat posts and links to the end of DRJ’s latest, you might find them interesting as well.

    In the meantime, gawd this is sooooo funny! Put yer feet up, sort the tackle and sharpen yer hooks, the spawn is about to happen!

    TC (b48fdd)

  14. While I haven’t been following the Border Patrol shooting analyses, I have to say that the amount of work DRJ has put into it has been impressive. Kudos.

    Leviticus (3c2c59)

  15. Bush + Hitler in Google results in 2,740,000 hits which is about an average week of DNC press releases.

    Except they’re not (the majority of them, on the first few pages, seem to be conservative sites talking about Bush+Hitler references, or historical references to Prescott Bush, but regardless). The DNC doesn’t go on about how Bush=Hitler. Meanwhile, CPAC [“an annual political conference attended by some 5000+ conservatives, activists, and elected officials from across the United States . . a large event attracting members of Congress and other political celebrities”] continues to invite Ann Coulter, who can be counted on to rail about “ragheads” (CPAC ’06) and “faggots,” and who has wished for NY Times writers/Supreme Court Justices/Liberals in general to be killed/poisoned/beaten/be intimitated through the knowledge that they too can be killed.

    The message they send? Coulter is a spokesperson for the conservative movement. Coulter is one of the faces of the conservative movement. They’re fine with what she says.

    jpm100 (comment #4) helps reinforce this message, that many conservatives are fine with it, and see the other conservatives repudiating her remarks, and disassociating themselves with Coulter’s work as suckers for giving liberals the chance to score points and take advantage, not as people fulfilling some sort of pragmatic and/or ethical obligation.
    _________________________

    Patterico: telling folks that “Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation” – the death of 299 million Americans, and most of the world – isn’t actually innoculous. (Flogging global warming denial isn’t that cool either, but that’s a different issue.) We’ve said some mean things about conservatives, but we don’t actually accuse conservatives of wanting to wipe out most of the earth’s population on a regular basis (I’ve never heard such a thing, but no doubt someone on a vaguely-defined “left” has said it within the last 30 years). I’ve certainly never seen it dribble from the keyboard of someone who’s a popular face of liberalism, fresh from being a featured speaker at a major liberal movement conference.

    Conservative = Coulter. That’s the message. Do you want to make it stop?

    Dan S. (265333)

  16. For the record, I don’t think I’ve seen one single person (well, any conservative) ask that Coulter be “censored.” She can say anything she likes. But those of us with a little maturity and integrity have asked HER, directly, to consider showing similar maturity in the future.

    If that can’t happen, we’d at least like serious conservative organizations not to associate with her.

    Censor her? God, no. I would – and have – fought for her freedom of speech. It is ironic that some conservatives now seem determined to prevent other conservatives – the grownups – from exercising their right to condemn the indefensible.

    And for the record, I don’t give a rats ass what liberals think about Coulter. I condemn her comments because I have integrity. I have principles. Embracing bigots, even if they’re on “my team,” doesn’t square with my principles.

    If you don’t understand what I just said, if you screech “PC! PC!” every time someone shows a little dignity and class … you’re no better than the liberals. In fact, you are them.

    And Patterico: I loathe Greenwald. I avoid Greenwald. I don’t read Greenwald. Or his sockpuppets. I already know he’s a clueless idiot with a crew of sycophantic hangers-on.

    So could you please consider maybe posting on something besides Greenwald? He’s just not that interesting. You’re arguing ad nauseum with a moron, you won’t let it go, and frankly, the whole time you’re in the mud with him it’s you who’s losing credibility. He has none. Why waste energy proving it? The whole thing reminds me of the old saw about arguing on the Internet being like the Special Olympics … even if you win, you’re both …

    Bob Dole (c65bfa)

  17. Can you explain how it causes me to lose credibility to rely on facts to debunk things written on an influential site like Salon.com?

    Patterico (04465c)

  18. Personally, I’m very tired of this hyper-alienation. As a teenager growing up in SoCal in the 50’s, I was an advocate of civil-rights, and thought that Brown was correct, as was Ike in sending the IIRC 82nd Airborne to Little Rock.
    Now, after being accused for 40-years of being a racist just because I’m a Conservative Republican:
    Guess What? I’m a racist!
    Just like Harry Callahan, I hate everybody.
    Now, if you can’t bring anything constructive to the discussion, and be civil about it; just STFU!

    Another Drew (8018ee)

  19. Yeah, such a non-hateful bunch here:

    I hope and pray we don’t get hit again, like we did on September 11. Even one life lost to the violence of terrorism is too much.

    But on the other hand,

    What if another terror attack just before this fall’s elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

    The Ace (ea76c3)

  20. Bob Dole –

    a) I certainly don’t want Coulter censored either (although I do genuinely believe many of her remarks are in essence a slow-motion incitement to violence). She should be perfectly free to say or write anything she wants – it’s just that ideally, her books would be sitting on bookstore shelves, rather than being bestsellers, at least until she stopped with the hate speech and eliminationist rhetoric.)
    And b) while I suspect we agree on very little else, I respect your principled stand. It’s sad to see some of the conservatives rebuking Coulter give mainly pragmatic reasons – it makes them look bad, etc. – whatever they might actually feel. Good for you, and thanks.

    Dan S., sycophantic hanger-on (ce5c13)

  21. I think Greenwald’s “sycophant’s” point was that you hear much more so-called hate speech on the right than you do on the left. Do some people that are on the left of the spectrum say hateful things quite a lot? Of course. You’d be a fool to deny that.

    Surely, it’s easy to get the impression that the right is more hate-filled. “You hear much more” because the media in this country is so far left that it will gloss over the quite hateful things that the Left says, meanwhile giving us a whole week over one line in Coulter’s speech.

    Fact: if I was not on the internet, didn’t have access to it, I would never had known about Ward Churchill’s “Little Eichmanns” comment. Add that to your list, by the way, P.

    otcconan (2bddc8)

  22. Yeah, such a non-hateful bunch here:

    Hey, Ace – it’s interesting to read the reactions in comments from the crazy HuffPo crew – seems to most have been lots of ‘you’re crazy/stupid/offensive/need medical help/thanks for giving the Republicans ammo/that’s what they would do (disagree, sure, but at least it’s a rejection)/Goebbels wants his ideology back/ “There is something horribly wrong with you.”/repulsive/Idiot!/”You are truly a sick, sick, sick human being.”/Count me disgusted as a human being.’, etc.

    I’ve tried to only include reactions that either were from obvious liberals or at least people without any indication that they were conservatives, too.

    Dan S. (ce5c13)

  23. How about we get back to a discussion of something that’s important to the future of the country: the war, the troops, waar on terror, the government etc.

    anomalous (400cbc)

  24. the media in this country is so far left that it will gloss over the quite hateful things that the Left says, meanwhile giving us a whole week over one line in Coulter’s speech.

    One line (paraphrase:Edwards = faggot! Hahaha! {Cheers, applause from the audience, which included front-running Republican presidential candidates}) in Coulter’s speech at CPAC, a major and high-prestige conservative convention. The year after she rambled on about ragheads at CPAC – and got invited back. It’s positive reinforcement for negative hatefulness.

    Fact: if I was not on the internet, didn’t have access to it, I would never had known about Ward Churchill’s “Little Eichmanns” comment.

    And neither would anyone else! Churchill was so obscure that his 2001 remarks didn’t get any attention until 2005. When I started hearing about the uproar, my first thought was to wonder why we were suddenly condemning Winston Churchill – I had never heard of any other W. Churchill. Everybody slammed his stupid and hateful garbage. People who defended his right to free speech & tenure on principle (including O’Reilly) nevertheless referred to him as a “repugnant . . . asshole” whose work is ” hateful, unforgivable and demented, frankly,” and ” some of the most moronic nonsense ever to emanate from the mouth of an alleged academic.” Democratic presidential candidates would probably gnaw off limbs to escape being seen near him, but lucky for them, it’s extremely unlikely they’ll be in that situation. His main political activity is leading a local breakaway faction of the American Indian Movement. They wouldn’t even invite him to their conventions.

    This is probably how Coulter should have been treated when she started coming out with comments about wishing that McVeigh had blown up the New York Times building, etc. Some people tried, but too many folks on the right – not all, no – just loved her stuff too much. So yes, Patterico should add this to the list. Ward Churchill: obscure, reviled, and rejected. Ann Coulter: best-selling author, invited to CPAC year after year, gets to give a speech in front of Cheney and Republican presidential candidates.

    Dan S. (ce5c13)

  25. Death to all the hate-speechers!

    Psyberian (de47c4)

  26. Leftist media mogul Ted Turner (h/t Roger H.):

    What are you? A bunch of Jesus freaks? You ought to be working for Fox.

    This (referring to employees with ashes on their foreheads for Ash Wednesday) is quite hostile and offensive – harassment, basically. Unacceptable. (He did, at least, issue an ‘apology’, after the outcry – An opposite-Coulter would have insisted that “Jesus Freak” has nothing to do with Christians and isn’t insulting to them. (Or possibly, that she’s sorry – for insulting Fox News). She never actually apologizes; it’s always a new slur. However, the fact that one of the most popular spokespeople for the modern conservative movement is worse that he is doesn’t in any way make this sort of ignorant and hateful bigotry any less gross. Unfortunately, billions will buy you a lot of excuses) Did he speak at the DNC? (I’m honestly asking).

    Dan S. (ce5c13)

  27. Sorry to tell you this, Patterico, but your new site is not working as good as your old one.

    [It’s been down the last couple mornings. Is that what you mean, or are you referring to something else?

    Whatever it is, let me know — but be patient. There are often bugs when things like this happen. — P]

    nk (db0112)

  28. It’s also eating my comments which it has never done before. And darn right I will be patient. I am very tempted to make this my home page. 😉

    nk (db0112)

  29. In any event, I just wanted to one-up Psyberian with this poem.

    nk (db0112)

  30. What do you mean when you say it’s “eating” your comments? What is happening?

    I checked the first five pages of the Akismet spam filter and saw no legit comments stuck there.

    Patterico (04465c)

  31. Dan, there are plenty of people on the right side of the blogosphere reviling Coulter for her comments. She’s by no means mainstream. There were plenty of LEFTISTS at CPAC, or maybe you missed Mike Stark’s stalking of Michelle. Just because someone speaks at an event does not mean that that person is ENDORSED by the event.

    The cheers and laughter sounded forced and nervous to me. And nobody on this blog has jumped to her defense; the whole point of this exercise is that Greenwald said we couldn’t find examples of prominent leftists spouting hate. Patterico destroyed it. Not to defend Coulter, but dispute Gleen. Yet your only rebuttal is “but Ann said this.” We aren’t disputing that. Stop giving us that. Admit your man was defeated and move on.

    otcconan (acead2)

  32. Dan, you haven’t read my links to the posts, where I criticized Coulter, have you?

    Do me a favor and do so. Pore through the comments and watch me fight with my regular commenters on the issue.

    I have criticized her for some time now. Harshly.

    Patterico (04465c)

  33. I tried to do my Comment #30 at about the same time as Dan S.’s Comment # 27. Dan S.’s comment showed up and mine didn’t, thus prompting my #28. Maybe if two comments are posted simultaneously …?

    nk (db0112)

  34. NK,

    I think the new site is running faster. However, it seems like it resets or jumps when someone posts. If you are writing a comment when someone posts a comment, it knocks the cursor out of the comment box and you have to use the mouse to get back. And if it happens while you are hitting “Submit Comment,” you may think you posted when you didn’t.

    That’s my best guess.

    DRJ (0c4ef8)

  35. otcconan: “Dan, there are plenty of people on the right side of the blogosphere reviling Coulter for her comments. She’s by no means mainstream.
    Patterico: “Dan, you haven’t read my links to the posts, where I criticized Coulter, have you?

    I know, otcconan. I have, Patterico. That’s the point.

    Look: Patterico, yes, you’ve conclusively demonstrated that Greenwald was literally wrong when he wrote, in a late-Feb update to a post on comment-trawling, that:

    The difference is that right-wing authors, talk radio hosts and bloggers — read and listened to by millions of people — traffic in such sentiments regularly (as several commenters noted, Dave Neiwert’s superb series on the use of eliminationist rhetoric, starting here, has documented this as well as any other resource). But to find such sentiments outside of right-wing circles, one must go where right-wing bloggers went today — digging into anonymous blog comments (or e-mails allegedly received).

    As you show, such sentiments can be found (outside of right-wing circles) beyond anonymous blog comments (and not all of them are merely the real-world functional equivalent). And it must be satisfying to keep adding counter-examples. But this entirely misses the point that folks like Greenwald, Neiwert, Digby, etc. have been making over the last week. It’s a forest-trees, speck/beam kind of situation.

    Let me paraphrase part of a post by Dave Neiwert:
    :Ann Coulter really crossed the line at CPAC the other day. Her comment was “received with warm applause,” of course. However, many voices on the right have finally been raised in objection, including Malkin’s. While some were honestly disgusted, though, many seemed more concerned that it would reflect badly on the movement and give cover to liberals.:

    The punchline? It’s a post from February 19, 2006, after last year’s CPAC, when she went on about “ragheads” and (as Patterico noted at the time) joked about assassinating Bill Clinton. There was a real reaction – CPAC apparently had to reassure one sponsor that she wouldn’t be back next year – but it quickly faded away. Malkin didn’t complain, didn’t protest, when it turned out Coulter would be attending – as far as I know, no one did. Greenwald writes:

    Anyone who went to this event . . . knew exactly what they would be getting. Coulter’s face was prominently plastered on the promotional material . . . No right-wing supporter (that I know of) complained when they learned that Coulter would be a featured speaker at this event. No prominent “conservative” (that I know of) refused to be a part of the event because Coulter was a featured speaker.

    And then she called Edwards a faggot, and there was applause, and then a backlash, and indeed, many voices on the right spoke up, including Malkin,some with honest disgust, others seeming more concerned with the movement looking bad or helping lefties smear the right as bigoted, but they even wrote an Open Letter to CPAC . . .

    And I’d love for it to matter this time. Ann herself doesn’t think so, saying on March 5th that:

    And, this is the same thing we go through every six months. I say something, the same people become hysterical, and that’s the end of it. I mean I think the lesson young right-wingers ought to draw from this is: it’s really not that scary to attack liberals. . . .This is my 17th allegedly career-ending moment.

    Now, perhaps, just perhaps, she’s wrong this time – but it’s understandable why she’d think this, and why we’re all rather doubtful.

    Patterico, you’ve consistently – having a brain, some common sense, and decency – documented and harshly criticized remark after remark from Coulter in those links you mention, slamming her for ‘jokes’ about killing NY Times reporters, Justice Stevens, and Bill Clinton, among other comments. Think about that: time after time you’ve criticized her. Time after time after time. It just keeps coming. You talk about having to “fight [your] regular commenters on this issue.” When Captain Ed posted the Open Letter to CPAC, along with some perceptive remarks of his own, he ended up having to close comments because so many people were slamming him (he talks about how “Some may not want to generate that kind of storm, and after today, I don’t blame them a bit“) that he didn’t feel he could keep ressponding in a civil manner. Blog comments may not count for much, except in the aggregate, but invitations to CPAC and bestselling books do.

    You keep adding new examples to trash that one (literally incorrect) claim of Greenwald’s. But while I’m sure this isn’t your intention, one function this serves, for some of the folks reading and linking to and repeating hem, and asking for a collected list, is, perhaps, reassurance. See? The left is just as bad, or worse!

    And while you proved Greenwald wrong on that particular detail about blog comments, you haven’t addressed the far more important point. This isn’t true. Your lists even seem to emphasize this, searching back three decades now (a then all-but-unknown 25-year-old Saturday Night Live writer named Al Franken talking to the Harvard Crimson in 1976) to find a very uneven handful of very-to-hardly offensive comments.

    This time? Need I go through them? A state senator blurting out “cracker”. Sharpton back in the ’80s. A truly repulsive remark by a “radio personality” (Crockett) nobody’s ever heard of. A Washington Post.com blogger (and NBC military analyst) who called our troops “mercenaries” – in a major departure from how almost everyone on the left’s been responding to this whole situation – and was roundly, rightly slammed for it, responded, and was apparently “advised” by his editors not to post anymore on that subject. Ted Turner, who I discussed above, who at least was made to apologize. Rhodes, who was investigated and had to apologize – Randi Rhodes, who in a 2006 NewsMax top 25 came in at #18, after a long list of conservatives like Limbaugh and Savage, levened with shock jocks and a single specifically liberal voice (Al Franken), barely beating out someone described as the top alternative to late-night UFO shows. And Maher, whose remarks are both disgusting (he didn’t wish that Cheney was killed, but to go on about wouldn’t it be better is not an improvement!!) and simply wrong – but to imagine the libertarian anti-PC Maher as a major spokesperson of the left being invited to, say, a major DLC event is just absurd.

    Many of these remarks are genuinely disgusting, and reserve all the condemnation they got, and more. It is good that they get this reaction. But as I and others have to tried to point out, these lists, padded out with unknown names and British newspaper tv columnists and 30-year-old comments, just emphasize the difference Greenwald was talking about, even though he was wrong, oh so wrong, about the blog comment angle. Yes, we have haters. But they’re pathetic. As I’ve been saying: Ok, we have Malveaux, who in 1994 hoped that Justice Thomas would die young of a heart attack. A little Coulter-in-training, right? Except that she never said anything else like that, just spent the next decade+ writing non-homicidal pieces, while Ann wishes that NY Times writers were killed, and Patterico complains, and Ann wishes that Justice Stevens be killed, and Patterico complains, and Ann jokes about assassinating Bill Clinton at CPAC ’06 and Patterico complains, and Ann is invited to CPAC ’07 and – lather, rinse, repeat.

    Look, this is the point: the remarks that dribble (unfortunately) from across the left over thirty years barely compare to the outpourings from one individual (of many similar ones) who is constantly rewarded for them. So far, all your (and others’) complaints have been useless, ignored, essentially mocked. You wrote after CPAC ’06 that “ . . . it’s our job to call her out on this . . . people like Coulter are simply an embarrassment, and should be shunned,” as did Malkin, and others, and what happened? A few months later her new book sold almost 50,000 copies in its first week, and she kept on slurring, like some hateful Energizer Bunny, and they invited her back for CPAC ’07 without, apparently, a peep of complaint. (Can you imagine Democratic presidential candidates showing up at a major liberal conference where Ward Churchill was advertised as a speaker? Can you imagine a major liberal conference letting Ward Churchill handle the valet service? Or take out the trash?)

    How do you explain this? Does she have some sort of blond-sugar-sex-magick thing going on that compelled the organizers to invite her against their will, and the presidential candidates to sit there nodding while inside they were screaming ‘no, no, I must get out of this place . . .’? In your post responding to her ’07 “faggot” remark, you briefly address part of the broader argument that Glenn and others have made, quoting him as saying that “They love Ann Coulter” and instantly dismissing it as “a lie . . . like virtually everything else that guy says”, with a list of outraged conservatives. Of course, one could also make another list of conservatives – but really, we’re been through this all before. Last I heard, the CPAC folks haven’t said anything to make one think she won’t be right back up there next year, with all the fuss died down just like she said, and with another best-selling book under her belt. And instead of following up, of trying to disprove the broader argument, it’s just post after post of ‘look, Greenwald’s wrong, it’s not just comment threads, you loser!’ – which serves to reassure people that the left is just as bad, nothing to see, move along, don’t worry (although that’s not your point). I’d love to see you address the actual argument. Here – Glenn says:

    She is the face of what the hard-core Republican Party has become, particularly during the Bush presidency. That is why she holds the position she holds in that movement. That’s why Mitt Romney was giddy with glee when her name passed his lips. He knows that her endorsement is valuable precisely because she holds great sway within the party, and she holds great sway because the hard-core party faithful consider her a hero for expressing the thoughts which they themselves believe but which [in their minds, this seems to say –DS] other, less courageous Republican figures are afraid to express. This is not about a single comment or isolated remark. The more Ann Coulter says these things, the more popular she becomes in this movement. What this is about is that she reflects exactly what sort of political movement this is . . . If that were not the case, why would she continue to receive top billing at their most prestigious events, and why would she continue to be lavished with rock star-adoration by the party faithful?

    In a more recent post, he quotes Malkin admitting that Ann is “very popular among conservatives . . . there is a divided opinion among grass-roots conservatives about what she did” and then adds:

    “This is why — the only reason — Coulter’s remarks are so significant. And the significance lies not just in this specific outburst on Friday but in the whole array of hate-mongering, violence-inciting remarks over all these years. Its significance lies in the critical fact that Malkin expressly acknowledged . . . The focus of these stories should not be Coulter, but instead, should be the conservative movement in which Ann Coulter — precisely because of (not “despite”) her history of making such comments — is “very popular.” (Note, too, that Malkin urges that Coulter be shunned not because her conduct is so reprehesensible [sic], but because her presence “is not going to be a help” win the 2008 election). . . There may be . . . decent (though largely inconsequential) conservatives who genuinely want to disassociate the movement from her, but that is not going to happen, because it cannot. And Sean Hannity — whose fans, like Coulter’s, number in the millions, not the thousands like the anti-Coulter-bloggers — made that very clear as he defended her comments as obvious “humor,” claimed the comments were taken out of context, etc. etc. The real conservative leaders, the people to whom millions of conservatives actually listen — the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys and Ann Coulters and the CPAC itself — are going to continue exactly as they were, and Coulter is going to continue to play exactly the central role she has played in this movement.

    I hope he’s wrong. But this is the argument. Not how many nasty comments, in ones or twos, mostly (though not entirely) by marginal figures, can one find across the entire Left in the whole time since Frampton Comes Alive! was released. Yes, you proved that there are people on the left in this time frame that have said mean, bad, or even seriously offensive and hateful things. You won that bit, even through in winning you’ve demonstrated that doing so is wildly more prevalent, rewarded, and institutionalized among the right. Will you now address the wider – the real – argument?

    Dan S. (265333)

  36. I submitted a ridiculously lengthy comment which is presumably clogging up some filter or other. Anyway, this is interesting:

    “Those few abortionists were shot, or, depending on your point of view, had a procedure with a rifle performed on them. I’m not justifying it, but I do understand how it happened….
    – Ann Coulter, March 3, 2007, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, the Reclaiming America for Christ Conference.

    Dan S. (265333)

  37. Hey, Ace – it’s interesting to read the reactions in comments from the crazy HuffPo crew – seems to most have been lots of ‘you’re crazy/stupid/offensive/need medical help/thanks for giving the Republicans ammo/that’s what they would do

    Which has little to do with whether or not prominent leftists engange in the (redefined) hate speech.

    The Ace (ea76c3)

  38. Ace, the redefined hate speech was Coulter saying that global warming is a hoax cooked up by liberals who want to wipe out 299 million of their fellow Americans – and most of the world – so they can relax in their solar-powered mansions without needing to put up with tacky middle-class folks. Patterico thinks this is silly and over the top, ’cause he’s an educated fellow and realizes this is insane nonsense, and so rationalizes it as ‘silly’.

    The equivalent would be,hmm, let’s say – Moore or perhaps Obama writing a widely distributed piece (and talking about it on CNN) saying that while you may have known about vaccines and autism and big pharma, you don’t grasp how bad it really is, because vaccination is really a conservative plot to not just make tons of money for drug companies, but to sterilize all the non-whites and Jews, so that conservatives would finally, one day, be able to relax in their all-white, all Christian communities, with a few immune survivors kept around to cook and clean and chauffeur.

    That doesn’t actually happen, though. That’s the difference.
    And the fact that whats-his-name who said that (what you quoted) isn’t a prominent lefty. He’s a tech guy – according to his bio and horrible-looking web page – with some books about internet stuff who does technology blogging along with some posts for HuffPo. Trust me, we are not not talking prominent lefty here. And also that – while conservative bloggers who criticize Coulter’s crap seem to get attacked in their comments by Coulter supporters who are fine with it, the reaction to this guy’s crap was a big pile-on along the lines of ‘how sick/stupid are you?!’

    I should stress that what I’m talking about above isn’t an attempt to get folks to say ‘I guess you’re right, conservatism is horrible, I’m gonna be a liberal!’ It’s a probably useless attempt to get you folks to realize that the the conservative movement has become sick. Us liberals can only do so much – fixing it is your job. (The country works better when the two major parties, and the broader movements behind them, are both healthy and reasonable). Conservatism has an addiction, and like with all addictions, the first step is to admit that you (your movement) has a problem. These posts, though, are really just more denial.

    Dan S. (b3c28a)

  39. – and this isn’t to say we’re perfect angels – these posts do point out evidence to the contrary. While there are some underlying differences that would make it more difficult, the left could end up like you guys are right now – you can see the seeds in the last few posts. The thing is, they don’t really get to grow, right now – with the right, they’ve sprouted and spread roots all through over the last two-three decades especially, towering over and shading out the rest . . .

    Dan S. (b3c28a)

  40. Here you go Dan S. Let’s see if this cures your leftist blindness. Not that I’m expecting it to as you are blind by deliberate choice.

    Hillary Clinton -”This administration is waging war on poor children,”

    Jim McDermott: the U.S. military could have found the former Iraqi dictator “a long time ago if they wanted. There’s too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing.” and “I don’t know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they’ve been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they’d find him. It’s funny, when they’re having all this trouble, suddenly they have to roll out something.”

    Dennis Kucinich-“This administration is saying we’re going to establish an American imperium, and nobody is going to stop any of our efforts to advance economic interests or military interests. This Bush administration is trying to achieve the militarization of thought in our culture. They’ve achieved a level of fear with Orwellian overtones.”

    Howard Dean-”I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.” Dean later said the statement referred only to Republican leaders, not Republican voters.
    Dean charged that some in the Republican Party did not understand the lives of hard-working Americans because they “never made an honest living in their lives.”

    “the Republicans are all about suppressing votes.”

    “I’m tired of the ayatollahs of the right wing. We’re fighting for freedom in Iraq. We’re going to fight for freedom in America.”

    Dick Durbin-If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime–Pol Pot or others–that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners

    Charles Rangel- (on the reasons for invading Iraq)”It’s the biggest fraud ever committed on the people of this country. This is just as bad as six million Jews being killed.”

    “George Bush is our Bull Connor.”

    Rangel said he would like to think Cheney is “sick rather than just mean and evil,”

    Maxine Waters-Called the Elder Bush a racist.

    Also refered to the Republican party as the enemy.

    “I know a racist when I see one. Sen. Ashcroft acts like a racist, walks like a racist and talks like a racist.”

    Al Gore-”While President Bush likes to project an image of strength and courage, the real truth is that in the presence of his large financial contributors, he is a moral coward,”

    Ted Kennedy-“…we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management – US management.”

    Now before you demand links, just cut a portion of what was said and psate it into Google to search. I’m too tired to play the links game.

    Hard Right (e7c1a7)

  41. Hard Right – what do you think your contributions – strong partisan remarks mixed with the rather ah, unique time we’re going through – prove? If all of these folks were repeatedly talking about assassinating or (literally) beating conservatives, to great excitement and profit, and joking about how this or that Republican was a faggot, I’d say you had a rather big point about how the Democratic Party had gone off the rails and – well, basically, needed to go into rehab, in a sense. But it ain’t so.

    You folks can keep trying to prove how bad the liberals are – it doesn’t change the reality that Ann Coulter – whose remarks so offend our host here, time after time after time, CPAC after CPAC – is a star of the GOP and the conservative movement more generally, because of what she says.

    But Durbin’s remark especially . . . the fact that it’s offered up as something we should renounce or be ashamed of, I do not understand why this is. It’s hyperbolic, but that’s actually a good reaction. It’s not that America is good because we are America, and thus what we do is good: it’s that we are a good nation insofar as we live up to our best ideals. When we begin to deviate from them, a strong, shocked reaction is admirable. This stands in contrast to Limbaugh, who chuckled and chortled over prisoner abuse, comparing it to frat hazing and described it as harmless ‘letting off steam’. That way lies very, very bad stuff.
    Really, could you explain to me why many folks on the right were so incredibly offended by it? What did you hear him say, what was the meaning of it for you?

    Dan S. (b3c28a)

  42. FFS Dan…

    GG, someone who is about as leftist as one can get without shaking hands with Stalin, is NOT an authority as to what is or is not “the face of conservatism”. I know it makes you feel good to think that he’s this genius, but sadly you and he are 100% mistaken.

    For the record: I think Ann’s “hawt”, and would “do her” as the kids say these days.

    Ann was wrong in her statement. Wrong.

    There’s no two ways about it, and those who don’t say that out loud are either morons or 100% sick and tired of appologizing to people who call us racism because we think illegal immigration should be stopped at the border. Or because we think Affermative Action is just another way of saying “you’re too stupid to do as well as the white kids, but we’ll let you in anyways” (I’d slap a man that suggested the same to me about white, so why does it fly for blacks?). I’ve stopped condeming her because at this point if you’ve missed the mountain of people saying it was wrong, you won’t notice me doing it either.

    You and your party are VERY sellectively hearing what you want to hear. You know why there are so many more examples of Conservative “hate speech” (gods that a bad term for it, and it’s not remotely accurate as a discriptor)? It’s because that is what the media focuses on. I’m very, very sure that if it was actually 50/50 reporting, it would be 50/50 on the offensive statements.

    You know why? Because people are people, and people will say stupid things from time to time.

    I’ve seen listed maybe 2 people who have verbalized a wish for death to befall liberals or liberal institutions. I have seen (and heard) innumeral instances where liberals have called for death or serious harm upon conservatives. Cheney is just the latest.

    If you think that we’re the party of hate and intollerance, then that’s that. I’ll never change your mind, no matter the evidence. I could walk you into a room filled with every single prominent liberal in the world, standing there plotting the violent death of every conservative in the world, and you’d not believe us.

    You’ve convicted us. So be it.

    I for one am tired of the hateful politics on both sides. I see one negative add from the Republican Nominee for the 2008 election, and I’ll become an anarchist. I’m tired of it. It lowers the level of debate to idiocy. It’s hate from both sides, non-stop.

    But I will be god damned if I’m going to stand idlely by and allow you (or any other lacky of the party of “tolerance”) suggest that I hate gays, want the elderly to starve, want the poor to die, and want to poison the Earth. I’m sick of it, damnit, and the fact that you accept, without a single moment of hesitation, that Ann speaks for every single conservative because of one line in a speech, proves to me that you are not worth further conversations with.

    By your logic, you must loath the military and want Cheney to die in an explosion.

    And frankly, I don’t talk to people like that…

    Scott Jacobs (a1de9d)

  43. Dan, thanks for proving exactly what I said about being deliberately blind. I gave you examples and you claimed they weren’t “true” examples. The moonbats have brainwashed you well.

    Sorry, but it’s been proven beyond a shadow of doubt that your “leaders” engage in hate speech too. You’ll have to come off your high horse now.

    Hard Right (e7c1a7)


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