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Ann Coulter and the Myth of Liberal Tolerance
The American Thinker ^ | June 13, 2006 | Marc Sheppard

Posted on 06/13/2006 5:41:32 AM PDT by Quilla

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To: Quilla
Playin' by the rules.

More like Sinking To Their Level.

I am sorry, folks. I agree with Coulter's substance 85% of the time, but I can't agree that there is a net gain in the way she deliberately taunts to draw leftist fire to demonstrate how easy it is to make them violate their own principles.

Take her Jersey Girls statement in the book. I was in a bookstore yesterday and read it in context, and Matt Lauer did a serviceable job blowing it out of proportion. Coulter's remark about the JG's 'enjoying' their husbands deaths was part of a much larger point. She spent several pages discussing the kid glove treatment of the likes of 9/11 widow Kristin Breitweiser -- who blamed Bush Administration figures for the deaths of that day repeatedly to the exclusion of the terrorists -- as opposed to Debra Burlingame, who also organized surviving family members for media fights, but was marginalized and insulted by the New York Times editorial page when she fiercely fought against the placing of a pan-cultural Blame America First museum on the Ground Zero grave of her husband.

There is no doubt that Coulter has a valid point: There is a liberal tendency to send authentically tragic but self-serving, intellectually dishonest spokespersons like Breitweiser, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg out before cameras and microphones, hoping they will inspire in fence-sitting observers their same distrust of everyone and everything right of center. But Dorothy Rabinowitz, an excellent Wall Street Journal writer who years previously broke the major print media embargo on Juanita Broaddrick's allegation of rape against Bill Clinton, wrote a lengthy treatise on the Jersey Girls that made the same point, but didn't come close to suggesting that they were somehow delighted they had traded their spouses for celebrity.

Rabinowitz, however, wasn't invited on Today or put on the cover of Time. Why not? IMHO, because the left-leaners who run those outlets didn't see any benefit in promoting someone whose opposing view did nothing but make sense. No, they needed someone who would be seen not as a counterbalance, but as an wild-eyed, scattershot display of the reasons why nobody but they in the MSM should be taken seriously. Enter Ann.

Haven't some of you Coulter Cheerleaders wondered why she gets more ink and face time than conservative females like Mona Charen, a pre-Reagan revolution columnist whose book Useful Idiots was everything Treason should have been, or Laura Ingraham, a former CBS News reporter and nationally syndicated talk show host? I believe it is because Coulter can be counted on to deliver a foot in the mouth spew that makes the less attentive say, "If you have to be that cruel/silly/tactless to be a conservative, I don't want to be one."

I speak from experience regarding that idea. Before the age of Rush, the only guys I read, heard or saw representing conservatism on a regular basis were the caustic columnist Jeffrey White, John Lofton, and Wally George/Morton Downey Jr. (same act, different coasts). Eventually, the more I learned, the more rightward I drifted -- no thanks to those guys.

41 posted on 06/13/2006 7:36:27 AM PDT by L.N. Smithee (New popular baby names for daughters of liberals: Fallujah, Haditha, Murtha)
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To: Graybeard58

You are correct. Freepers are frequently guilty of the same thing. Just look at the comments on Helen Thomas. There is plenty of substance on which to comment, with the attacks on her appearance.


42 posted on 06/13/2006 7:43:20 AM PDT by knuthom
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To: Psycho_Bunny
"I've met my share of right-wing lunatics whom I consider dangerous - especially here at FR..."

Remind me never to flood your inbox with pictures of Hillary and Bill in North Korea.

Okay?

43 posted on 06/13/2006 7:45:05 AM PDT by Reactionary (The Barking of the Native Moonbat is the Sound of Moral Nitwittery)
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To: knuthom
There is plenty of substance on which to comment, with the attacks on her appearance.

That should have read "without the attacks on her appearance

44 posted on 06/13/2006 7:45:12 AM PDT by knuthom
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To: garyhope

You're right and I actually do use "so called" when I refer to "so called-liberals" many times. If I must.


45 posted on 06/13/2006 7:45:52 AM PDT by garyhope
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To: Amos the Prophet

yes - in male form. It's equally bad. Life got much better when he decided to split.

I understand your point but what we don't know is, were their political views the same as their husbands, ie might their husbands have approved of their use of this opportunity ? I sure don't know and I'm pretty sure Ann doesn't either.

That said, nothing Ann wrote detracted from the truth of her observation about unasssailable spokesmen from the left.


46 posted on 06/13/2006 7:52:55 AM PDT by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: outlawcam

Sensitivity is just another word for political correctness, the breastwork the Jersey Girls hide behind. Strip them of that protection and they are exposed as the shrill, anti-American harpies that they are. We're at war and these people are as much the enemy as bin Laden. Nice does not win wars or insure security. Ask the Canadians.


47 posted on 06/13/2006 8:04:16 AM PDT by Dionysius
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To: L.N. Smithee

I imagine there were a lot of military people during WWII who said many of the same types of things you are when the idea of the now infamous Dirty Dozen came up.

Fortunately, the Dirty Dozen did their thing in spite of the detractors. We were lucky to have them and have much to thank them for.

In much the same way Coulter has taken on a job that many have attempted, though few have made much progress.

She's out there in the muck, where the others were afraid to go. With great gusto she's taking bullets and it looks like shes getting the job done.

Like the Dirty Dozen, we're lucky to have her and have much to thank her for.


48 posted on 06/13/2006 8:07:47 AM PDT by Balding_Eagle (God has blessed Republicans with really stupid enemies.)
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To: Quilla

Bump for later reading.


49 posted on 06/13/2006 8:08:14 AM PDT by thirst4truth
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To: sirchtruth

I hurt my back a long time ago...I like em light.


50 posted on 06/13/2006 8:11:39 AM PDT by TET1968 (SI MINOR PLUS EST ERGO NIHIL SUNT OMNIA)
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To: Balding_Eagle
She's out there in the muck, where the others were afraid to go. With great gusto she's taking bullets and it looks like shes getting the job done. Like the Dirty Dozen, we're lucky to have her and have much to thank her for.

You're comparing Ann Coulter to actual soldiers? That's a stretch Plastic Man wouldn't attempt.

51 posted on 06/13/2006 8:13:47 AM PDT by L.N. Smithee (New popular baby names for daughters of liberals: Fallujah, Haditha, Murtha)
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To: L.N. Smithee

I'll readily admit that we are fighting for ideas, not land, and we are using words, not bullets.

That you are unaware that we are involved in a battle................I'll let that speak for itself.


52 posted on 06/13/2006 8:21:25 AM PDT by Balding_Eagle (God has blessed Republicans with really stupid enemies.)
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To: Dionysius
Ask the Canadians.

I thought we supplied Canada's security...?

53 posted on 06/13/2006 8:25:28 AM PDT by outlawcam (No time to waste. Now get moving.)
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To: Notwithstanding

Me too.


54 posted on 06/13/2006 8:44:26 AM PDT by MarkeyD (Make Love, Not Cartoons. I really, really loathe liberals.)
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Comment #55 Removed by Moderator

To: poindexter
I've been complaining about this tendency for years...unfortunately it's some of my fellow Freepers who are guilty. I daresay if you tune into just about any Hillary thread, you won't get far before the "She so ugly" comments show up. Ditto any liberal woman.

I have to agree with you there. I see this a lot on FR. It's particularly bizarre when the liberal woman in question clearly ISN'T ugly. I do wonder about those whose first or most persistent argument is "She's ugly." Surely there are far better arguments than that.

I've made it my personal mission to even things out, though. Whenever a male lib is being discussed, I'll try to inject, "What an ugly, fat pig," regardless of how attractive the man might actually be. ;-)

56 posted on 06/13/2006 8:56:00 AM PDT by Glenmerle
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To: cinives

The violent death of a loved one can make harridans of any of us.
My father was murdered many years ago. I used his death by building tributes to him in the form of service agancies and resource centers dedicated to the people he served. There is a natural progression in this that is appropriate and normal. Becoming a partisan hack, however, does nothing to elevate the memory of a loved one lost to tragedy.


57 posted on 06/13/2006 10:41:09 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Here come I, gravitas in tow.)
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To: randita

Ah yes, we have. But the difference is we are not pretending to be "objective journalists" like those who trash conservative women.


58 posted on 06/13/2006 8:49:47 PM PDT by massfreeper
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