A silly response to the silly West

Given how smart Ann Coulter is, it’s always been disappointing that her basic political philosophy is so terribly shallow, simplistic, and partisan: Republicans are the source of all good; Democrats the source of all evil. In her latest column she takes her Republican worship—and her frivolousness—to new heights. George W. Bush, she announces, “will go down in history as one of America’s greatest presidents.” Coulter, while capable of doing good work, is not a serious person. She lives to shock and provoke. Basically she’s decided that the dominant liberal culture is so silly and false that the only thing to do is make comments cynically designed to outrage liberals. So, liberals issue one hyperbolic smear after another about Bush? Fine, Ann will do them one better. She’ll say Bush is one of the greatest U.S. presidents. She makes herself as silly as the liberal culture she mocks.

- end of initial entry -

Jeff in England writes:

What Coulter doesn’t mention is that Iraq is now an oppressive Islamic state where many women are the target of honour killings, gays are underground and Sharia law is in force in many areas. Etc..

This is what we fought for?

James P. writes:

If Coulter considers Dubya one of America’s greatest Presidents, what does she think about Wilson and FDR? They too embarked on grandiose crusades to remake the world order that ultimately proved unachievable. They too won their wars but fumbled the peace. Somehow one doubts that she considers them heroes, though.

From: Jeff in England
Subj.: Crimes of Freedom

The mistake Coulter and lot of the neocons made was to think democracy would bring something better to Muslim countries. Too often it brings a barbaric version of Islam. Democracy enables people in Muslim countries to make their country worse, something the Muslims worldwide are historically very good at doing (check out recent Palestinian history). Muslims love to make things worse!

So their new democracy may even lead to the banning of future democratic elections….how ironic.

How stupid and naive of the neocons to think that democracy would bring in something better for Iraq’s people. Not that liberals and leftists are any better, with their calls for the people of Muslim countries to control their own destinies as if those people are not going to end up creating some Islamic basketcase. Give Middle Eastern Muslims their own country and their own government, (whether you call it democracy or not) and they are guaranteed to create something barbaric. They are very good at that.

So perhaps we should invade Iraq and other Middle East Muslim countries again to restore dictatorships like Saddam’s. Women (are you listening Ann Coulter?) were surely treated better under Saddam and so were Christians. People were better educated. Extreme Islam was not tolerated. Crime was negligible. People were relatively prosperous. Even gays were better off.

Obama, are you listening?

Mark A. writes:

Ann Coulter, like much of the “Right” today, is quite intelligent, but tragically ignorant. She and George W. Bush fail to understand that the Founding Fathers feared democracy for our own nation, not to mention democracy for an Islamic nation. America was intended to be, not a democracy, but a federal republic led by what Jefferson called the natural aristoi, the best. Rule by the demos, the people, will yield to rule by the lowest common denominator of the people. The characteristic of the natural aristocrat is that he holds himself to a higher standard. To pretend that a democracy will yield anything of value above the base desires of the masses, whether those desires be pornography and video games or public beheadings of non-believers, is a delusional belief in something that never was and never will be.

Adela G. writes:

You write: “Coulter, while capable of doing good work, is not a serious person. She lives to shock and provoke. Basically she’s decided that the dominant liberal culture is so silly and false that the only thing to do is make comments cynically designed to outrage liberals.”

Coulter is not serious because she’s not a grown-up. She’s capable of doing good work in the same way a precocious teen is—based on her whims and primarily to gratify her ego. She lives to shock and provoke adults silly enough to take her seriously. Like many bright but immature teens, she thrives on showing up the hypocrisy, venality and failings of the adult world. Like many verbally adept teens, she thinks a clever turn of phrase is the equivalent of serious thought. Like many willful teens, she’s against something (in her case, liberalism) because she’s as contrary as she is principled (if not more so).

The first few of her columns I read impressed me and left me wanting more. The next few left me wanting more and realizing I wasn’t going to get it. I stopped reading her years ago; stylistic flourishes and cheap hyperbole are no substitute for clear thinking clearly expressed.

Richard O. writes:

While we’re all over at Wikipedia parsing the nuances of the practically meaningless term “neocon,” Ann’s busy producing books that skewer liberals and try to shore up our resolve. She does so with many a rhetorical flourish and flaming barb that are witty and insightful. Why … off with her head! Mencius tried the same approach in ancient China—seeking vivid and startling imagery to make a point. He was a Chinese sage but she’s just a frivolous twit?

If she’s so darn partisan regarding the Republicrats, why was she touting Hillary over McCain? Say what you will about the Republicrats, they are the only game in town in a PRACTICAL political world that has to deal with the realities of coalition building AND inevitable journeys down blind alleys. The Republicrats should be horsewhipped for a host of reasons but since when was it established that they and only they are the ones who are floundering in the search to deal with unpleasant new realities and America’s 50-year love affair with illusion and hedonism?

I have no doubt that Ann understands the pathetic performance of the GOP in the last eight years as much as anyone. [LA replies: Where is Richard’s evidence for this statement? Does he base it on Coulter’s writings? Or is he reading her mind? The reality is that she has done nothing to encourage self-criticism or a renewed intellectual and political seriousness among Republicans. She just mocks Democrats’ silliness. She calls a Democratic presidential candidate a “faggot.” I guess that’s an example of the rhetorical flourishes and flaming barbs for which Richard admires her.]

When it comes crunch time each year in the voting booth, just what party is it that comes closest to representing “our” views? Lord knows I’ll have to take a clothespin in with me this year where the presidential ballot is concerned. With luck, in future years, our choices in the giant presidential sweepstakes won’t include the likes of the 2008 crop of bozeaux. But disdain for Republicrat partisanship THIS year will get us nowhere.

LA replies:

That Coulter opposed McCain and said she was for Hillary is an exception to the rule. The fact is that in column after column, she does reduce virtually all issues to: Democrats are horrible and ridiculous, Republicans are the depositories of virtue. And by doing so, she has not gotten Republicans to clean their own house, but the opposite: she encourages the mindless Republican triumphalism and winning-for-the-sake-of-winning mentality which has assured that the Republicans would end up in the pathetic position they are in now: emptied of all principle, standing for nothing, having a GOP nominee who is running against the GOP.

And how can Richard take seriously someone who calls G.W. Bush one of the greatest presidents in American history? Does he regard that ridiculous and insulting comment as an example of “shoring up our resolve”? Shoring up our resolve to do what? Our resolve reflexively to defend Bush from all criticism? Oh, yes, that attitude has produced a really intellectually vital Republican party, hasn’t it?

The fact is that their support for Bush, their phalanx-like defense of Bush,has destroyed the GOP, removed any principle and character from it, so that now they feel pressured to move even further to the left. I said in 2004 that if Bush were re-elected he would, by continually pulling the GOP to the left, destroy the GOP and the conservative movement. And events show that I was right. Coulter by contrast has been a knee-jerk supporter of Bush. She has thus been among those leading the GOP and conservatism into extinction.

Adela G. writes:

Oh, good grief. I will do Richard O. the favor of not suggesting that he’s susceptible to long, flowing blonde locks. But evidently he can’t resist Opinion Lite.

Her tone was needlessly hyperbolic and her argument stretched so thin, it was essentially meaningless. George Bush is one of the greatest American presidents because things didn’t happen that he couldn’t have prevented happening even if he’d known about them in advance?

I suppose we could give Bush credit for forestalling Armageddon, too. But frankly, I’d be a lot more impressed with him (and with Ann’s hyperbolic description of him) if his presidency had been such that Obama had not been able to slither so easily into the vacuum left by lack of real leadership.

I’ll try to fisk her column later but have a lot on my plate today.

P.S. You will note that I used the traditional feminine version of “blonde” when referring to Ann Coulter’s hair. Spellcheck cited this as a misspelling. Increasingly, it seems tradition is not merely outmoded but just plain wrong. So irritating.

Richard O. writes (sent June 20; posted July 16):

I’m going to find, Mr. A, a quote from Ann that shows she understands the limitations of the Republican Party and boy will you ever be sorry when I do.

Adele G.’s forbearance is appreciated but she would be quite justified in positing an explicit link between flowing blonde hair and logical meltdowns on my part.

Yes, yes. It is a very great stretch to say Bush is one of the great presidents. His fawning over the Saudis and complete indifference to the establishment of Wahhabi outposts in the Homeland; his inability to provide intellectual leadership of ANY kind; and his unwillingness to seal both the Iran-Iraq border and our southern border make me crazy. I get it. I get it.

So Ann is given to hyperbole, occasionally climbs too far out on a limb, and commits 1st Degree Rhetorical Excess. (The “faggot” remarks was a mistake. No argument.) That said, there is nothing lightweight about her book on McCarthy. It was a brilliant choice of topic on her part in order to attack one of the Foundation Myths of modern liberalism, which myth was devised precisely to cover up the enormity of the liberal complicity in communist subversion and liberals’ moral failure to understand Stalin and his crimes and embrace those aspects of Western civilization that give protection against such excesses. Hardly a frivolous undertaking and yes, I do take her very seriously for having turned over that rather large rock.

In her more topical writing and speaking she’s highly polemical but never, ever not entertaining and I am always glad to know she’s on the ramparts somewhere notching another arrow to her bow. Yes, she does mock stupid liberals and I relish every bolt she sinks into each loony forehead. She serves with distinction in Our Cause—which has many combatants, each of whom contributes his or her arrows or cannon balls. Where is it written that the only effective warriors are George Will lookalikes who never put quill to parchment but that they ponder The Topic at Hand as soberly as a surgeon’s suggestion of immediate bypass surgery? [LA replies: Talk about a straw man! As though the only alternative to liking Coulter is to like Will! As though any serious conservatives take Will seriously or have done so for many years.]

Okay. Ann is single-handedly responsible for the implosion of the Republican Party. That much is obvious. Notwithstanding that, what I’m driving at in all of this is that it is a useful insight in life to bear in mind that no one is as good as the best thing he ever did and no one is as bad as the worst thing he ever did. In life there are statistical outliers. So she screws up occasionally. Up against the wall!

Am I glad that Ann is on my flanks somewhere, or closer to the front, as the case may be? Yes. And she gets a heck of a lot more mileage out her rhetoric than I do out of mine. While I’m brewing the coffee, buttering my toast in the morning, and thinking about a screamingly funny two-paragraph post I’ll make to one of the world’s most obscure blogs unknown to man, she writes another book or another syndicated column that’s read by thousands

Not bad, as things go.

LA replies:

I notice that while Richard brings forward evidence of Coulter’s seriousness on certain issues and her ability to skewer liberals, he doesn’t reply to my request for evidence supporting his statement that “”I have no doubt that Ann understands the pathetic performance of the GOP in the last eight years as much as anyone.”

Further, I never said that Coulter was responsible, let alone “single-handedly” responsible, for the imposion of the Republican party. I said that she is part of the non-self-critical Republican gestalt that has allowed this to happen, and that she has never done anything that would prevent it from happening.

Thus Richard either fails to answer the question I posed to him, or he answers with straw men.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 16, 2008 08:22 AM | Send