Replies

We may not disagree on as much as we might think.

Let's see how much we agree on.

1) I believe that the PC police have tried to hijack free speech, and the idea of sending someone to "rehab" is absolutely asinine, and is a harbinger of really bad things in the future if we don't nip it in the bud. I really do believe that.

2) I believe there is a radical homosexual agenda which threatens to destroy the fabric of society, and which threatens to undermine us as a nation. I honestly believe that as well.

3) I believe our so-called conservative leadership has failed us in representing the conservative base, has ignored us, and fails to give voice to our concerns. I believe this also, and it makes me boiling mad. All too often they have been cowed and wanted to be "liked" and "politically correct." And as a result, the Republican party is not at all what it once was when I began voting (starting with Ronald Reagan).

I believe this enormous frustration is reaching groundswell proportions, as it should. Almost revolutionary proportions. I share in this frustration, I can't tell you how much.

Part of this frustration is why I created the Lindsey Graham graphic. To me he epitomizes weak leadership in so many ways.

Along comes Ann Coulter, and makes the remark we know so well.

Here is the problem I have with it, and we can agree to disagree and save some bantering back and forth if you like:

• It is ineffective (IMHO). If she had said flat out that PC thought police will not be tolerated, that the Isaiah Washinton incident is reminiscent of Soviets sending citizens to reeducation camps , and that the homosexual agenda is what it is, I would be singing her praises the loudest. Because that's what I believe.

• Instead, she used a convoluted joke (and yes, I got it the first time I heard it) to refer to the incident.

Here is where we may disagree, but only in tactics, not in overall goals:

I believe by drawing John Edwards in the joke, (where if you strip away the substance of what was being *rightly criticized*, did not relate to him), she made an unfair accusation, and it was below the belt and bad form. I can't STAND John Edwards politically. I believe he is a charlatan and a danger to our nation. But her joke was not grounded in truth about his sexuality...it's like she she just put him in there because she needed a placeholder.

And I believe Ann is bombastic in order to get herself noticed, which is fine and dandy. But (IMHO) therer is a time and place for everything, and again (IMHO) this wasn't it.

There is so much SUBSTANCE we can use against them. That's all.

I think we only disagree on tactics, not the final goal. Am I far off?

And I believe Ann is bombastic in order to get herself noticed, which is fine and dandy. But (IMHO) therer is a time and place for everything, and again (IMHO) this wasn't it. There is so much SUBSTANCE we can use against them. That's all. I think we only disagree on tactics, not the final goal. Am I far off?

When you get to the 2+million mark in books sold (10 times the readership of this forum) perhaps you can comment about tactics. Until then the banal assertions you proffer to "prove" your point show you to be quite an insipid debater.

When I see Malkin, Medved, Hewitt, and the other 'conservative' gnats trying to gain publicity at the expense of Coulter; I never suppose they claim to speak for "conservatives." I've never bought a Malkin, Medved, or Hewitt book, while I've got all of AC's. Too bad she never appealed to you--I suppose then she should give up writing to satisfy your sensibilities? Or perhaps wear a poster board indicating that anything she says is her opinion and she does not speak for ironically-challenged "conservatives"?

Writing off her readership as a bunch of horny men belies her support among women even on this thread. Cant on, dude, your mopey attacks on Miss Coulter obviously feed your delusions of grandeur. Glad we can be here to help.

I agree with your numbered paragraphs and the rest up to but not including the paragraph starting: Here is the problem....

I would observe that Ann's suggestion that Edwards is a faggot is not true in the sense of Edwards being a practicing homosexual or switch hitter (at least to the best of my or any commonly suspected knowledge) but then again, Lindsay Graham, straight or not, is not known to be a woman either. I honestly believe that you are at least as inaccurate in depicting Graham as she is in depicting Edwards. If you want to take the high ground on such inaccuracies, it is not unfair to call you to account over the Graham photo alteration or to expect revision.

I would also observe that I am very glad that the GOP has changed since I started voting (for Nixon in 1968).

First bullet point. Ann is making fun of married father Edwards on a secondary meaning of "faggot" (weak-kneed, limp, etc) just as you are with Graham but she is not using graphics. She was speaking at CPAC and some are concerned that it reflects negatively on conservatives as a whole. I think that the ritual behavior of the left calling conservatives nazis, fascists, murderers, etc., is quite objectionable. OTOH, this is America where society's enemies have rights. Some say that society's friends have rights too. The point is well taken that this is not truly a Freedom of Speech issue but rather than a discretionary speech issue in which the speaker (Ann in this case) while having the right to speak ought to exercise the discretion to refrain from disturbing speech.

Very garish aborted baby pictures are offensive to many people. I have represented people who have distributed them to people at random or held them up for public display particularly so that junior high and high school students will see the pictures. Does this coarsen our society? Of course it does. Are many parents outraged? Of course they are. Are some of the outraged parents the same ones who will take 14-year-old Suzy down to the abortion mill by the twisted ear to kill their grandchildren for their own prideful purposes and call it "freedom of choice" for resistant Suzy???? You bet. Another example of justified poor taste. One murder by abortion thwarted suffices as an excuse.

Ann's short jab was a lot more effective than the long form you suggest. Think of the Roman gladius or short sword deftly wielded that conquered a world of soldiers and tribesmen with long swords clumsily wielded.

David Keene is the head of the American Conservative Union nowadays. I am personally acquainted with him and do not respect him for various reasons. If he calls the shots on CPAC, I am more offended by that than by anything that Ann said. YAF is not the very effective group that it was when Keene was National YAF Chairman. Republican groups increasingly are seduced by money obsessives. Tax cuts are nice but not at the top of my list.

In 1972, I was part of a group of YAFers who were relentlessly tailing McGovern with bullhorns wherever in New England he went. We baited McGovern, Frank Mankiewicz who was as close to campaign manager as anyone with him and anyone with a known name daring to accompany them. We were mean. We were nasty. We were personal. McGoo carried only Taxachusetts. With Reagan, we even took Taxachusetts from Cahtuh and from Mondale, although I was busy being a lawyer by then. We owed McGovern, et al., no more and we owed America no less.

We probably agree on the goal. We certainly disagree on the tactics. There is room for both sorts of tactics. If you insist on scholarly analysis, footnotes, formal method, gentlemanly courtesy, there is and always has been room for that. If Ann and others want to operate in the fashion of the YAF/CR/YR organizations of decades past that was the incubator and nursery of the conservative movement back when we actually had one, there is ALWAYS room for that.

You have actual and plausible deniability to say that Ann's style or tactics are not yours. Bill Buckley said some awfully rough things at YAF conferences: "Betty Ford, having achieved her high office in American life by a concatenation of events felonious and romantic...."

In the last several decades, we have lost that cherished sense of the usefulness of being brats. Our being brats drives the left wild which should be among our goals. Also try to find leftists willing to actually engage on substance and intellect since McGovern's nomination beyond the level of "Bush lied, kids died." Good luck.

Summation: We agree on most goals and disagree on tactics. As those ancestors of mine who were Scots sang: "You take the high road and I'll take the low road....." and let us each remember where we bury the bodies of the bad guys.