Coulter “baffled” by Bush’s support for open borders

Ann Coulter is interviewed by the Jewish Press. VFR reader Ben is not impressed. He starts by quoting from the interview:

TJP: “Many conservatives have been increasingly disappointed with President Bush’s performance on issues like immigration, the economy and of course the war in Iraq as it drags on. Do you share their dismay?”

Ann Coulter: “Like most, I am utterly baffled by Bush’s position on illegal immigration (amnesty for illegals, no serious wall at the border). But President Bush has fought the war on terrorism magnificently, completely ignoring liberal naysayers who want us to capitulate to savagery. For that, he deserves our support.”

Magnificently? You have got to be kidding me. Her statement is oxymoronic. Forget for a second the total debacle of how he is handling this war. How can he be fighting the war on terrorism magnificently if the borders are wide open? The fact that she said in the same sentence that she disagrees with his immigration policies (which go beyond just disagreeing with him, he is trying to destroy America and merge us into some North American Union), but at the same time calls his war on terrorism magnificent is beyond anything I can type. This is beyond ridiculous. It shows the mindset of the conservatives today. She also seems to be implying that we need to support him regardless of his trying to make America the North American Union because he is good on the war on terror.

One thing I have always noticed about Coulter is how everything to her is summed up as liberal vs. conservative. Like her reaction to the question, “How do you explain the phenomenon of so many American Jews identifying with liberal views and policies that often go against Jewish interests?” She gives no explanation like you do on this subject. She sums it up with:

“Absolutely baffling. But it is changing. I believe about 40 percent of Jewish males under 30 voted for Bush in the last election.”

Baffling? That’s it? Nothing else to say but baffling? They should have given you this interview. Also, I don’t see how this makes them “becoming conservative” just because they voted Republican or Bush.

I found this question and answer session to be shallow and meaningless with no real answers or solutions to any of the questions they asked her. If I had been the editor at The Jewish Press, I would have thrown this interview in the garbage can. I got the sense she really didn’t have an opinion on Israel or never really thought about it which is amazing considering she has an opinion on everything.

Everything in this article is just summed up as liberal vs. conservative. I know she is an intelligent woman but her interviews are always terrible in my opinion. I’ve noticed the same thing when I have seen her on Hannity and Colmes. By trying to always make a joke out of liberalism, she never makes any statements that offer anything of significance.

Some of her books and articles aren’t bad but her interviews are always terrible. I thought these were serious questions that she didn’t take seriously. She brushed them off by making jokes and other inane comments.

Maybe I expect too much substance from the mainstream conservatives and I am too hard on her.

LA replies:

I agree with Ben that it is totally unacceptable for a supposed leader of conservative opinion to say she is “baffled” by Bush’s support for open borders. How much respect would we have for a prominent conservative journalist who, if asked during the Cold War why so many Westerners were attracted to Communism, replied that she was “baffled” by it?

The fact is that Bush is deeply committed to open borders and the Hispanicization of America. Apparently this fact has not occurred to Coulter. Instead, with her neat division of the world into conservatism-good versus liberalism-bad, she simply assumes that Bush is a conservative, and therefore he ought to oppose open borders. But since he supports open borders, and since he’s a “conservative,” well, this is just a contradiction that makes no sense, and all she can say is that she is “baffled” by it. The comment reveals a complete failure or refusal to think and to examine her own premises, namely her premise that Bush is a conservative.

Her equation of electoral support for Republicans with conservatism also shows astonishing superficiality. Does she consider Susan Collins and Arlen Specter conservatives?

So now it’s my turn to say I’m puzzled. How can Coulter, who is so smart and insightful, be so thoughtless and superficial? But unlike Coulter, I have an answer. It’s not a question of intelligence, but of character. Her entire persona and career are based on her slick dichotomy between “conservative” and “liberal,” and she is unwilling and unequipped to go beyond it.

Ben writes back:

“Her entire persona and career are based on her slick dichotomy between ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal,’ and she is unwilling and unequipped to go beyond it.”

This is it. This also sums up the entire “conservative” movement.

I have to admit I was really shocked when I read that interview. I have seen her stupidities before on Fox news but thought she might be different if serious questions were thrown her way.

You talk about shallow and empty. It was pathetic. The questions they asked we’re really good for a change beyond…”what do you think about Howard Deans recent comment…” like you get from Fox News.

Jeremy G. writes:

I think there is a fundamental difference between your role and Ann Coulter’s. You are on the margins, with almost no mainstream attention. You are free to think clearly and criticize the conservative leadership. Ann is in the limelight. She is helping the Republican party win elections. She energizes the conservative base by focusing her attacks on the left. In the public eye, there is a need for the appearance of a general consensus amongst conservatives. Think of what would happen if she repeated your comment that Bush is really not a conservative, but is out to destroy America as a nation and merge it together with Mexico. This would certainly harm Republican prospects in the November election. Do you really think it would help us? The current strategy of the Republican leadership in the House is to attack amnesty without attacking Bush. This is a difficult position to be in. It has been my continual experience that real thought and new ideas are not coming from the conservative leadership but from the margins, such as from your web site. Far from mainstream attention, this is where the right can be criticized without harming us politically. These new ideas gradually work their way into public discourse. I think we just have to accept this situation.

LA replies:

I appreciate Jeremy’s point. It’s sort of the political equivalent of “hate the sinner, not the sin.” Thus a Coulter or a Limbaugh will strongly oppose the Miers nomination or Bush’s amnesty-for-illegals policy (hating the sin), without saying that Bush is a liberal traitor who seeks the Hispanicization of America (hating the sinner).

I appreciate the point, but, respectfully, I still don’t agree. A much stronger conservatism is needed, and that can only come about by conservatives publicly speaking the truth about the currently existing conservatism.

If not now, when?

Also, by criticizing mainstream conservatives such as Coulter I am in fact doing the very thing that Jeremy says I ought to be doing: I am calling attention to the fact that Bush is a liberal, and that mainstream conservatism is fundamentally liberal. What more useful way to disseminate that idea than by criticizing mainstream conservatives who consider Bush a conservative? As Jeremy sees it, if Coulter heeded my points and called Bush a liberal, that would harm Republican prospects. But the reality is that Coulter is not going to change her message and her modus operandi because of anything written at VFR. What harm, then, from Jeremy’s point of view, am I doing by criticizing her? If it’s good for me to criticize Bush, why is it bad for me to criticize Coulter?

Jeremy replies:

There is an important difference between your criticisms of Coulter and of Bush. With regards to Bush, you are pointing out his intense liberalism that leads to his treason against America as a nation. The goal of these criticisms is for conservatives to recognize his liberalism so as not to be seduced or demoralized by Bush’s actions and statements, but in fact to oppose them with genuine conservative principles. Thus, your criticism of Bush is very constructive. Coulter is not a liberal. She has openly criticized Bush on immigration. She openly criticized him on the Miers nomination. What is your goal with respect to Coulter? Does Coulter need to be opposed? By what conservative principle? Is your criticism here constructive?

LA replies:

In my original reply to Ben, I agreed with his criticism of Coulter for saying she was “baffled” at Bush’s support for amnesty. I said it was not acceptable for political pundits to throw up their hands whenever Bush does something they don’t like, and repeat ad infinitum, as Rush Limbaugh does, “I can’t understand it, I just can’t understand it.” Limbaugh is being paid millions for explaining politics, and he doesn’t even attempt to understand Bush’s beliefs and motives? There is such a thing as minimal intellectual probity. Constantly repeating that one “can’t understand” why a president is pursuing some highly objectionable course fails that test.

I was not saying that Ann Coulter is required to mimic my own views on Bush or to denounce him in the same terms in which I denounce him. But if she is to be considered as anything more than a shill for the Republican party (which—see above—she equates with conservatism), she is required to say something more than that she’s “utterly baffled” by Bush’s support for open borders. She is required to show at least some intellectual seriousness and curiosity on the matter. And I think that for me to say this about her is constructive criticism.

Jeremy writes:

I entirely agree that it is reasonable for you to criticize the unspoken strategy among conservative leaders (including, I might add, Tom Tancredo) to attack amnesty without going after Bush. This is clearly an unprincipled political decision, made for the advantage of the Republican party in the upcoming elections. If, after the elections, these leaders play the same game, then I would agree with your “shill” charge.

Jeff writes from England:

Subject: IF YOU SEE ST.ANNIE PLEASE TELL HER THANKS A LOT

As far as I understand, Coulter is not against legal Hispanic immigration; or if she is (please correct me if I am wrong), she doesn’t mention her opposition to it (and therefore Bush) often enough to grab my attention. I was surprised you didn’t mention this point. I’ve already said that Coulter’s shock-a-minute insult-laced writing is nasty and not very intelligent at all. Her support of Bush is ridiculous in the light of the open borders problem and certainly not linked to real conservatism.. She is a media creation of the American decadent mainstream as is Michael Savage. Not enough real serious thought; instead we get bombastic simplistic “liberalism as the devil himself” like scenarios replayed in slightly different form in every new book. With personal insults thrown in to sell the books. Ironically her conservatism is at least partially a kind of liberalism in disguise as is much of the neo-con kind, which undercuts the insightful view views about liberalism she does have. Mainstream conservatism is in many ways more dangerous than the so called liberalism it criticises because it doesn’t realise or acknowledge what it really is. Nor can many of its adherents admit what they are.. We’ve recently seen those problems with the likes of Spencer, Phillips (who does proclaim she is a liberal), Steyn, Bush and many other people putting forth conservative views. Coulter may not be a neo-con/liberal per se but certainly overlaps with them far too often. Again, from my point of view the worst thing about this sort of scenario is not that she may have some “liberal” views (I repeat that I think some liberal ideas may be or have been good for society) but that she doesn’t want to acknowledge them in her political self. This sort of subconscious political crossdressing needs to be looked at in a thorough way.

Alex K. writes:

My guess: The “I just don’t understand it” reaction of so many mainstream GOP cheerleaders is a combination of:

1) Having invested so much emotionally in Bush, in supporting him as their leader against those awful liberals/Democrats, and in having little or no disillusionment about him with regards to Iraq, they can’t bring themselves to accept that he’s not a champion with flaws but an outright enemy.

2) Not having a clear position on legal immigration, whether because they only oppose the illegal kind on narrow security/rule-of-law grounds, or because they simply have not thought enough about the issue, or whatever.

Between these two points, most mainstream “conservative” or even actually conservative commenters who don’t agree with Bush on amnesty/border security are unable to see the truth about him.

LA replies:

This is a key point. They are unable to form a clear conception of Bush’s motivations in supporting open borders, because their own position is not fundamentally different from his. His position is but a more thoroughgoing and fanatical version of their own, therefore it seems irrational and inexplicable: “Why take things to such an extreme? It makes no sense.” In order to see clearly and critically what Bush is up to and why he is up to it, they would have to stand on different ground from Bush, but they don’t, so they don’t.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at July 05, 2006 07:18 AM | Send