(Update) From the Department of Boo-fvcking-Hoo, the Get a Clue Committee, Sub-committee on No Cheap Grace
By Mona
First, these happy tidings from OlbermannWatch, about a news anchor I love:
…we have come to the conclusion that we have done more harm than good over the past 2+ years in keeping [Keith] Olbermann in the public eye at a time when few were watching his show and even less cared about his assault on the journalistic standards we hold dear. So, after careful consideration and consultation with the entire staff, we have decided the time has come to retire OlbermannWatch.com.
It’s been a great run. We certainly had a lot of fun running the site but it’s just been increasingly difficult to maintain our enthusiasm as Olbermann’s ratings have increased and a compliant media has done everything to boost Olbermann and his show.
We wish all of you the best over the next four, painful years.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Cox
Managing Editor
OlbermannWatch.com
(via TBogg )
.
Second, there is a genius at Red State who has decided that, alas, it is time for the right to ostracize Ann Coulter, but righties ought to take heart:
You know, the conservative movement features a lot of brilliant men and women. Erick Erickson, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Ann Althouse, Glenn Beck,Laura Ingraham – these are names all of us know, and there are so many more.
Now to the real points in all this. Sane people are beginning to penetrate the old and new media and take over the public discourse. Olbermann’s rating are indeed climbing, and many non-Bush-supporting blogs (like this one you are reading) are thriving and coming to dominate the political conversation off- and online, as well as to be employed as a resource by old media journalists. (Fire Dog Lake’s Libby trial coverage made the front page of the NYT — but it is Times Select, so no link.)
.
And here’s a clue for Red State and others: Moral and political sanity are not demonstrated merely by admitting that Ann Coulter is vile, a truth for which her recent comment about John Edwards being a “faggot,” delivered at a huge right-wing event, is only the latest evidence; no amount of rhetorical distancing or denunciation of her by tsk-tsking on a blog or such is sufficient (and was not asked for here) from a movement that continues to pay her handsome fees for speeches at college campuses and the most significant of their venues. Politicians, candidates and movement faithful who attend these events knowing full well what Coulter is — that she is a hate-mongering, flame-throwing bigot — should refuse to appear with her or participate in events that sponsor her filth. Conservative movement media conglomerates like Townhall that host her column and thereby lend her much legitimacy should be shunned and abandoned. When a conservative sees her prominently advertised on the promotional literature for an event, a decent one will boycott and explain why to the organizers.
.
Coulter unchains the right from the strictures of its coded language, and it is that cathartic, rhetorical freedom that causes hordes of them to love her, cheer and applaud her, and keeps her books on bestseller lists; her frank hate-mongering liberates them. Those who continue in a conservative movement or to defend it — much less to participate at its events — where Ann Coulter is frequently on the podium, are promoting hate. And when they adopt the coded language that Ann Coulter translates (to the approval of many a cheering audience), they promote hate, too.
.
And let’s be quite clear: Coulter is hardly the only problem for a hate-riddled, febrile right. Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Dinesh D’Souza & etc are also vile, and representative of the fundamental, unAmerican ugliness so pervasive in the contemporary conservative movement. Coulter is merely more brazen (honest) than these others. But they are not different in kind, only in (slight) degree.
.
Bush sympathizers and GOP-friendly folks are not called on to “denounce” these people — what cheap grace that would be! Rather — and if reality can ever penetrate their having become numb to the filth in their own milieu — they are called to abandon the movement Coulter, Beck, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Malkin et al. represent and largely embody, and to thereby cease promoting and/or validating hatred, warmongering and the complete corruption of civic virtue and conversation that these vitiated pundits have engendered.
.
But the foul rhetoric to which many on the right have become numb has poisoned their souls, and many can no longer recognize the moral sickness in their midst. Or that they are infected with it. The voices who expose the ideological decay and corruption of the modern right-wing will never convince those who are too far gone in their diseased state of the fact of the illness, but we may well wake up a complacent media, and the independents in the electorate. There is some evidence in metrics like Keith Olbermann’s growing ratings, and in the petulance of his online “watchers” who have given up, that we are succeeding.
.
The more angrily the Bush-movement “conservatives” and their fellow travelers squeal — and squealing they are — the more that voices advocating reason and decency can be confident they are rendering illegitimate the foulness that has become the standard, casual MO of the contemporary right-wing and GOP. Their Wurlitzer can be monkey-wrenched; we are doing it.
*********
Update: CPAC: The Unauthorized Documentary. Do go hear Coulter deliver her “faggot” comment at the Conservative Political Action Conference, the gasps turning to delighted laughter and then cheering. Also, Max Blumenthal’s video includes some very amusing footage of Michelle Malkin declining to give an autograph under the, uh, circumstances, as well as other right-wingers becoming — in Malkinese — unhinged. And my stars and garters (!!), some conservative young men wearing Tancredo buttons (one of whom seeks to hide his Confederate Flag lapel pin from the camera ) use very, very naughty words, just like, you know, librul bloggers and their comments sections.
Comment by John Emerson —
March 4, 2007 @ 10:49 am
Increasingly liberal-hatred plus machine politics has apparently become the whole substance of the conservative movement. Conservativism no longer seems to be a community within which students of Hayek (who?) debate students of Burke (who?) or anything like that.
People who call themselves conservatives are increasingly just the most aggressive, least ethical, least intellectual branch of the Republican machine. (I occasionally meet College Republican types, and they all do seem to be ratfuck specialists who plan to get on the gravy train).
Disclaimer: back in the day, I didn’t like the old conservatives either. But I do miss them now.
Comment by John Emerson —
March 4, 2007 @ 10:50 am
Delete first “increasingly”.
Comment by Gsnorgathon —
March 4, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
John Emerson:
I dunno. Y’all must be an awful lot older than I am, because I keep seeing statements about what the Republican party has become, and from where I’m sitting it became all that about 30 years ago.
Comment by John Emerson —
March 4, 2007 @ 1:52 pm
During the Nixon era, for example, Nixon and his crew were thugs, but the whole Republican Party wasn’t. I think that the turning point was Gingrich and Limbaugh in 1994, and since then it’s just been solidifying control.
Look at the 49 Republican Senators. You have 5 or so moderates, and then you have 3 or 4 rational hard-right-wingers (Lugar, Hagel, people used to say McCain, maybe Warner), and after that you have 40 braindead hard-right zombies.
Comment by Mithras —
March 4, 2007 @ 3:56 pm
“You know, the conservative movement features a lot of brilliant men and women. Erick Erickson, Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Ann Althouse, Glenn Beck,Laura Ingraham – these are names all of us know, and there are so many more.”
I just love the fact that fake moderate Althouse is named as part of the “conservative movement”. Conservative, of course, is a misnomer. The real title is right-wing radical.
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
March 4, 2007 @ 4:49 pm
John, I think that Nixon actually set the Republicans on their current path, with the southern strategy. He decided to use racist nativism to win votes, and that tendency eventually ate out the Republican party from the inside– Barry Goldwater couldn’t remotely win a Republican primary anymore, and even Ronald Reagan would have a lot of trouble. That’s why I get worried when I read about Democratic “strategists” start talking about using populism to win votes — can’t they see the danger in yolking their cart to xenophobic nationalism?
Comment by Neel Krishnaswami —
March 4, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
John, I think that Nixon did set the Republicans on their current path. His southern strategy — use racist nativism to win votes — eventually ate the GOP from the inside out. There is, as you note, very little left of the old Republican party. (That’s why I cringe whenever I read Democratic “strategists” suggest using populism as a tactic to win votes; don’t they realize how dangerous it is to yolk your horse to xenophobic nationalism?)
Comment by Mona —
March 4, 2007 @ 6:14 pm
You got that right. Barry Goldwater was already livid about the GOP’s growing authoritarianism and religion-dominated insanity at the time of his death in ‘98. Reagan was a disappointment to libertarians, in many regards — not least of whihc being his obscene ramping up of the drug war.
The GOP is now so much worse, into full-blown hatefulness and proto-fascism — there just is no alternative but to make common cause with the left, as once so many of us did with the right. The ideological Venn Diagram no longer overlaps enough libertarian/GOP. It now does much more so libertarian/Democrat.
This dynamic is fluid, of course, and could change again, but I don’t see that happening until the hate-mongering filth and authoritarianism in the GOP that I and many write of is scoured away.
Comment by John Emerson —
March 4, 2007 @ 8:48 pm
“Right-wing radical” is accurate, but doesn’t catch the pork-barrel graft aspect. Hard-right ideology plays second fiddle to vote-buying and favors to contributors and insiders.
Comment by Thoreau —
March 4, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
The greatest sin that the Republican Party ever committed was forcing me to vote for Democrats.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 4, 2007 @ 9:10 pm
Coulter unchains the right from the strictures of its coded language, and it is that cathartic, rhetorical freedom that causes hordes of them to love her, cheer and applaud her, and keeps her books on bestseller lists; her frank hate-mongering liberates them.
Mona, you rock.
Comment by Fledermaus —
March 4, 2007 @ 10:37 pm
Look at the 49 Republican Senators. You have 5 or so moderates, and then you have 3 or 4 rational hard-right-wingers (Lugar, Hagel, people used to say McCain, maybe Warner),
That’s because in the last 20 years or so the GOP has created a ready to wear do-it-yourself congressman kit.
You just had to say all the right things and people would flock. When all those things you said don’t work out as planned. Well, then we have a problem.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:04 am
Mona, you rock.
Allow me to chime in with the kudos. Coulter isn’t the story here–the story is the iceberg of which she is only the visible tip. The voices saying “Don’t give her the publicity/condemnation she craves” are missing the point entirely.
From an unrepentant faggot: Thank you, Mona.
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:49 am
Exactly right. Coulter repeatedly has come frankly out with it and spoken of “faggots,” or claimed that Bill Clinton’s promiscuity makes him essentially homosexual. (Yeah, whatever.)
But those on the right who run around screaming that Nancy Pelosi is a “San Francisco liberal,” are merely speaking in code what Coulter says overtly, to wit: Nancy Pelosi is a fag hag beloved by all the Castro Street queers. Unless, of course, they mean the trolley system makes SanFran super-duper liberal. [eyes rolling]
Comment by xheight —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:00 pm
What exactly is wrong with balance. I think for most of the hard right imagine Coulter is the equivalent of the Left Comment-ariat.
Wherein:
_______unchains the Left from the strictures of its coded language, and it is that cathartic, rhetorical freedom that causes hordes of them to love __, cheer and applaud ___, and keeps __ books on bestseller lists; ___ frank hate-mongering liberates them.
Fill in the blank with Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann or even Stephen Colbert.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
Nothing is wrong with balance. More please.
Along those lines, I have no problem acknowledging the mirror role played by folks like Stewart, Olbermann and Colbert.
Although, it should be noted, Coulter was first – so it’s an interesting thing to balance out people who haven’t yet assumed the role needed to balance.
Further, the main difference is that the three people you mentioned don’t generally trade in bigoted, hate-filled language like “faggot,” don’t lament the fact that terrorists didn’t blow up building X in American city Y instead of some other building (because it is associated with an American political group), don’t regularly discuss the desirability of killing, deporting and/or imprisoning roughly one half of the American population, don’t openly accuse roughly half of the American population of treason, etc.
(in a sense Colbert does this, but as a parody of people like…Coulter herself, who is intent on pushing the envelope so far as to render parody meaningless)
What makes Coulter odious is not necessarily her role as speaker of the shadow persona, but what exactly that shadow comprises.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
You can’t blame Republicans for your having been a liberal, dude. That’s just a cross guys like you and me have to bear.
Myself, I just hope this finally kills Coulter’s career. I’ve been tired of the woman since she was a dumb generic Republican on Politically Incorrect.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:32 pm
“I think that Nixon did set the Republicans on their current path. His southern strategy — use racist nativism to win votes — eventually ate the GOP from the inside out.”
The Republican Party has so far had 3 main eras. The initial phase was a grand alliance of (classical) liberal forces, plus business interests, against slavery and in favor of allowing individuals to freely negotiate contracts. The second phase started in 1912 when Roosevelt was defeated, and the party was taken over by conservatives, though still operating in alliance with those of libertarian sentiment. The 3rd phase began, as you say, when Nixon began using the Southern strategy in 1968. This opened the door for the possibility of the Republican party becoming a party of pure reaction. Which it has.
What America needs is a political alliance that can remove the Southern states from power. The South has been part of America’s ruling coalition since 1932, and that is exactly the period that we’ve seen unrestrained growth of the Federal government. The South is in favor of big government. The South may change political parties, but its preference for big government remains unchanged. The only time the South ever complained about big government was when it was resisting desegregation, but at all other times it has been the main political force in the country pushing us down a path of ever greater Federal power.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:34 pm
(emph. added)
Well, crap. Michael Moore’s career only got better after he did that… One can only hope her using that slur will be more objectionable to fans of Team Red than wishing the 9/11 plot had hit Red states was to fans of Team Blue.
…Nah, not feeling optimistic, either.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
Did Michael Moore actually say that he wished 9/11 had happened in the Red States? I’m admittedly not up on everything he has said or done, but I would be interested in evidence of that.
Also, do you really think his career has gotten better? Better than what, and using what criteria?
Further, do you think Moore has been embraced by the mainstream Democratic Party establishment the same way Coulter has?
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
What coded or overt hate-filled and bigoted messages are Stewart, Olbermann and Colbert sending? When have they lamented that the terrorists failed to kill the people they dislike politically? Or that it would be so cool if a Supreme Court justice was poisoned to death? Or that all conservatives are guilty of a capital offense and hanging ought to be considered?
IOW, where is the violent and eliminationist rhetoric on the left?
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
Re: Michael Moore — As I recall, what he said in substance was that bombing people in NYC was to bomb that part of the American population least likely to hold the views that piss off Muslims.
I’ve pitched fits at the left and others for standing up for Moore before, but he is not violent and doesn’t “joke” about killing people he doesn’t like, much less judges. He’s a jackass, but he is not evil and vile like Ann Coulter.
Comment by Jaybird —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:54 pm
He didn’t say “I wish they attacked Republicans!” but something like “Why did they attack NYC? NYC voted for Gore! Why didn’t they attack someplace that voted for Bush?”
I don’t see this as hate-mongering as much as yet another “If I had attacked the US, here’s why I would have done it” speech… and we saw no shortage of those in the days following 9/11 before Osama’s letter showed up explaining that he did it because of fornication, intoxicants, homosexuality, gambling, and lending with interest.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
Heaven forbid I suggest that anyone on Team Blue is remotely analogous in any way to the utter, unprecedented evil of the current Team Red.
Are you kidding me? Failed TV shows and some relatively minor documentaries to the success and Oscar of Fahrenheit 9/11?
I wouldn’t say he’s as embraced – he’s less polished and more of a loose cannon – but he’s embraced.
He’s certainly similar enough to Coulter – another disgusting, vapid blowhard raptly followed by idiot, partisan fans who hate hate hate the other side and love that their genius idol “sticks it to them” – that I have to suspect that she’ll avoid rejection among her fans for something that should cost her, as he did when his remark should have cost him.
If you doubt that Moore is vile, google his actual remarks about 9/11 or his praise of the Iraqi “minutemen” as the insurgents started killing American soldiers. Does that make him better or worse than Coulter? I don’t know – does bile taste worse than urine?
As I’m not a bile or urine partisan, I’m not going to go about how bile is so vastly more icky or urine is far nastier – or really care if someone does a taste test and concludes that, yes, bile has a harsher mouthfeel. Bile and urine are things I consider beyond the pale of beverages – just as I consider Coulter and Moore to be beyond the pale of decent Team Red and Team Blue members (and symbols of what’s horribly wrong with partisan).
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
That should end “with partisan politics”
Comment by John Emerson —
March 5, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
Eric the Half, you should consider that “both sides are equally bad” parity is an old, tired game.
You seem to think that it’s an original, penetrating insight, or perhaps a self-evident truth. But what it really is is a thoughtless cliche.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
You should consider rereading what I wrote, as I didn’t say that in the least. I voted for Team Blue last year because I didn’t think the sides were equally bad at this time.
Rushing to justify and minimize Moore (he’s not that bad! he’s not that popular!) when someone suggests “Gee, Moore and Coulter are both assholes who are similar in this significant way” is just absurd, though.
And incidentally, the whole “Oh, no, you’re criticizing someone on the left when the right is so bad – you suck, libertarian!” shtick is downright dead of exhaustion.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 2:15 pm
shtick. I can’t type today…
Comment by Marc —
March 5, 2007 @ 2:32 pm
Failed TV shows and some relatively minor documentaries to the success and Oscar of Fahrenheit 9/11?
.
Moore won the Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, which is probably his high-water mark in terms of public reception. Fahrenheit 9/11 wasn’t nominated for anything. But don’t let the facts get in your way.
Comment by Leonard —
March 5, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
Mona, this is democracy, and bigots’ votes count just as much as yours does. (Really theirs count much more that yours, given that they are represented in one of the two national parties and you aren’t.)
Put more concretely: the set of states in the old Confederacy have 153 electoral votes, or 172 if you count Kentucky and Missouri. 270 are needed to win. It is mathematically possible to win without the South, but nobody has done so. Winning these states may be possible without pandering to racists; I don’t know. But clearly it is much easier to win them by race politics. The Democrats did that up through the 60s, when they became identified as the party of welfare, civil rights, and soft-on-crime. Then the Republicans did. Do you seriously think that neither national party will attempt to appeal to racist voters? Why?
Again, in democracy the votes of racists count, too. Are you seriously saying that you think the major parties should attempt not to represent them? Or are you saying that it is OK for politicians to vote in ways to pander to the race-related issues, but never to talk about it?
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 2:42 pm
Leonard, I do not understand your point. I hold some views that racists find palatable, albeit I hold the views for non-racist reasons; I prefer to hear politicians advocate and vote accordingly, for example, I oppose most (not quite all) affirmative action and prefer legislators who do too. But how does that translate into a “need” for politicians to speak racist rhetoric?
Comment by Derek Copold —
March 5, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
The whole “Blame Bubba” theme is getting pretty trite. Did Nixon take white voters from the Democrats? Of course he did. So did Saint Barry Goldwater, in case no one noticed.
But unlike St. Barry, Nixon didn’t just win southern states. He carried the country. He did it narrowly in 1968 (with George Wallace in the running), and he did it overwhelmingly in 1972–Massachussets being the only state he didn’t get.
Reagan did pretty much the same thing in the eighties. That’s because the issues they addressed didn’t just resonate with southern whites, but with almost all Americans, excepting blacks. He even won 39% of Hispanic votes in 1984, something no other GOP candidate did until W in 2004, and that through the most blatant of pandering.
If you come right down to it, exactly what did Nixon say about law and order that a liberal Republican like Guiliani isn’t saying? Or what Bill Clinton himself was saying in the 90s?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 4:13 pm
Oops, my error.
The facts like “Bowling for Columbine came out in 2002 and won an Oscar, after his Oh-no-why’d-they-have-to-hit-a-blue-state remark failed to impair his popularity with his fans.”?
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
But that’s two more comments of mine on Moore than I wanted to make. I think my point is sufficiently clear for anyone not trying to misconstrue it out of liberal or misplaced libertarian defensiveness.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
Heaven forbid I suggest that anyone on Team Blue is remotely analogous in any way to the utter, unprecedented evil of the current Team Red
Why “heaven forbid”? Did I sound overheated in my response? I was calm and asked measured questions.
Are you kidding me? Failed TV shows and some relatively minor documentaries to the success and Oscar of Fahrenheit 9/11?
Actually, no I wasn’t “kidding you” – it’s just that I haven’t followed the career of Michael Moore that closely, and I wasn’t sure about the timing of the intemperate remarks. Maybe you haven’t followed his career that closely either?
…google his actual remarks about 9/11 or his praise of the Iraqi “minutemen†as the insurgents started killing American soldiers
See, I tried to google his remarks about 9/11 and I couldn’t find them. That’s why I asked you. As for the “minutemen” comment, I found it to be in poor taste.
I have no problem criticizing Michael Moore. But sometimes the critics themselves can get carried away and level unfair attacks. So I asked some questions.
Rushing to justify and minimize Moore (he’s not that bad! he’s not that popular!) when someone suggests “Gee, Moore and Coulter are both assholes who are similar in this significant way†is just absurd, though.
Interestingly, you injected Moore into this conversation sort of non-sequitur. I think the original comment was about Colbert, Olbermann and Stewart.
I don’t think I rushed to defend him, rather my point about his relevance to mainstream Democrats was to contrast the way both sides treat their respective blowhards.
There is no doubt in my mind that Coulter is many times worse than Moore, though, but that doesn’t mean I have a ton of affection for Moore.
Comment by Jaybird —
March 5, 2007 @ 4:45 pm
It’s true that you think that Moore is bad, it’s that you don’t think that Moore is bad ENOUGH!!!
Just like the Republicans who were the point of the original post. Sure, they think the Coulter should be repudiated… they just don’t think that she should be repudiated enough.
And If you apologize for not thinking that Moore is bad enough, please apologize enough or we will suspect that you are insincere. Insincere enough to be suspected of really being a supporter.
Just like the Republicans who aren’t repudiating Coulter. Well, enough anyway.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:02 pm
No, I was reacting more to Mona and Jaybird’s responses. Sorry for not being clear, especially when I only quoted you.
No, I thought of and referenced Moore after I read your post #16 above. Up to that point, I was in complete agreement – comparing Coulter to comedians like Stewart and Colbert and commentators like Olbermann is absurd, because they’re not outside of some semblance of rational political dialogue and they don’t try to inspire hatred of the other half of the country. But when you mentioned “[those people didn't] lament the fact that terrorists didn’t blow up building X in American city Y instead of some other building”, referring to Coulter, I remembered that remark and this one by Michael Moore:
This, of course, was after Bush had been in office for a bit over eight months and hadn’t done much at all that anyone but the most partisan of people could have serious positive or negative feelings about. Huge national tragedy inspires a partisan rage reaction – “it’s because they hated Bush – but they killed people who voted against Bush instead of those dirty, ignorant red-staters!” Just like Falwells “God let it happen because we tolerated the gays!” or any number of other bits spouted off by reprehensible partisan slimes, including Coulter herself.
That’s why I have no trouble leaving the “Moore is worse!/Coulter is worse!” arguments to partisans trying to dig knives into each other. I’m not equating them, I’m suggesting that they pass a threshold beyond which it’s not worthwhile to try to compare their behavior and rhetoric. They’re both hideous blots on their respective political associations – and those who cling to either of them after things like what they’ve said show themselves to be the lowest sort of mindless partisans.
(Which, incidentally, I’m not saying about anyone here. I objected to the apparently perceived need by some to demonstrate Coulter as worse or more influential.)
Sorry about that. For some reason, it didn’t occur to me that googling a director’s name with a phrase that was part of one of his movies’ titles would turn up thousands of useless results. :p
If the minutemen remark was “in poor taste”, what does that make Coulter’s disgusting little quip, “a touch off-color”?
Comment by Leonard —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:15 pm
Mona, the question of racial rhetoric is one of representation. Do you think that racists deserve representation? If so, then do you think that politicians should appeal to racists if they are an important voting bloc?
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:26 pm
Leonard, I think child molesters deserve representation. But people/candidates who are pro-molesting children should be exposed as such, even if they speak in careful code, so that those who don’t approve of child molesting can be fully apprised and then opt to oppose molestation supporters.
Comment by xheight —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:30 pm
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 12:43 pm
Fill in the blank with Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann or even Stephen Colbert.
What coded or overt hate-filled and bigoted messages are Stewart, Olbermann and Colbert sending?
—–
Actually I was trying to point out that the Left coding is joke and irony in the case of Stewart and Colbert whereas Olbermann has been pretty naked in his hate for the Bush/Cheney admin. for one, Christian conservatives for another, the war….sometimes this veil slips or is crass like the What if video on the assassination of GW. For years this lazy style of disparagement never reached actual Hate speech because of the cultural hegemony whereby it could regard the Right as Dinosaurs needing a push to extinction and chalking it up to ignorance like good enlightenment believers should and must.
A quick scan through http://www.crooksandliars.com will pop up the above face in clip after clip. A recent one caught my attention http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/02/26/special-comment-secretary-rice-get-your-facts-straight/#more-14750 a pretty close to vile and hate-filled just in transcript the video has the roar though.
Keith’s bile cup spil over methinks – that is just a pile on to depict Rice as ignorant which apart being steady drumbeat about the Redstate horde invasion
When have they lamented that the terrorists failed to kill the people they dislike politically?
That you see the very word HATE as itself the clef to the category ‘not to be done’ is where of course the sides part.
As to where is the violent and eliminationist rhetoric on the left? It is in the very implication – YOU WILL BE EDUCATED>PROGRAMMED AND NEUTERED
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Twaddle. Olbermann told it like it was about Rice’s idiocies. I wrote about it (reveled in it, actually) with strong approval at this very site. Olbermann is pugnacious, and it is about fucking time the non-Bushbots had an effective such voice. If he’s “left” based on his anti-Bush, anti-Rice, anti-religionists-run-amok commentary, then I guess I must be too. Mass numbers of people in my life will be shocked to learn that.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 6:16 pm
If the minutemen remark was “in poor tasteâ€, what does that make Coulter’s disgusting little quip, “a touch off-colorâ€?
OK, worse than poor taste. It was outright offensive.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
xheight: You make many vague and generalized critiques of Olbermann, but do you want to actually cite the offending text so that we can assess?
Again, honest question.
Comment by Marc —
March 5, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
Eric, your comments at 24 implied Moore was more popular since or possibly even because of his comments about September 11, citing the nonexistent Fahrenheit 9/11 Oscar as evidence.
.
This, of course, was after Bush had been in office for a bit over eight months and hadn’t done much at all that anyone but the most partisan of people could have serious positive or negative feelings about.
.
This completely abuses the term partisan. (I’m also not sure what is has to do with why al Qaeda attacked America, which is what Moore was speculating about.) You don’t have to be a partisan of one party or ideology to care about federal money going from secular social programs to faith-based initiatives, about education reform, about taxation, about disengagement from the Middle East peace process, about any of the other things Bush had done or tried to do in his first eight months. You just have to have a set of values and an opinion. Implying that only partisans care about these issues licenses disengagement from politics, another part of the everybody-but-me-is-wrong-ism that so bores John Emerson above.
.
Also, while Moore’s comment was entirely wrongheaded, it’s qualitatively different from Falwell’s. Moore speculates, stupidly, that 9/11 was an attack on a politician for his policies; Falwell blames it on the existence of a class of people.
Comment by Marc —
March 5, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
That would be Eric the Monty Python reference I’m addressing, not Eric Martin.
Comment by Jaybird —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:02 pm
Eric the .5b, allow me to clarify. I am not, particularly, a Michael Moore fan (I was in the days of Roger and Me and The Awful Truth, and I bought his books… but I don’t tend to see his name and feel anything one way or the other.)
That said, I read his post 9/11 comments a hair more charitably than you do.
“Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes destination of California — these were places that voted AGAINST Bush!”
I don’t see him as saying “THEY SHOULD HAVE ATTACKED RED STATES!” but “I have no idea why anyone would do anything like this. The one reason that might make sense to me (namely, getting back at the US for Bush’s election… and, yes, I do feel guilty pushing for Nader now that I think about it) is not the case because they attacked places that didn’t vote for him. None of this makes sense.”
I’m not reading him as saying “if they were gonna attack, they should have attacked Utah” but “the only reason I can think of doesn’t fit the methodology”.
I put his rant in the same category as pretty much every “if this country had followed my advice for the last X years, this wouldn’t have happened” rant written by everyone from Pat Robertson to Harry Browne in the days that followed.
Was it ill-advised? Sure. Was it malicious? Hardly.
This is not to say that Michael Moore didn’t turn into a malicious person in the days following, mind. Just that if you want to compare Coulter to Michael Moore, you can probably come up with many more downright despicable quotations than that one.
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:28 pm
I have to agree with that. Believe me, I find Moore repugnant, and have had pissing matches with several individuals I otherwise am pretty closely allied with over their decision to make the honor and dignity of Michael Moore a big deal in attacking Chris Matthews for the latter’s perceived journo sins. I found that whole outrage-o-rama from the left bloggers preposterous, and even sabotaged it by finding and feeding to right-wing blogs some commentary from Moore that totally undermined the left-wing whining.
So, nobody has better street cred than I do for detesting Michael Moore. But he is not as vile as Ann Coulter, and he was not advocating that terrorists kill red staters. I read his remarks about their choosing NYC as a target the same way you did, Jaybird.
If, however, a Moore-worshipping left controlled or greatly influenced a Democratic Party that in turn had had political hegemony over the nation for years, and was transforming us into a nightmare state, then I’d be all over Moore and the left. But that isn’t happening; we have instead Coulter/Malkin/Beck/Limbaugh & their ilk mainstreaming vicious tropes and memes in a politically dominant right. So, I focus on them and that.
Comment by Jaybird —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:42 pm
Mona, once the Democrats are back in power in both the House and the Senate *AND* the White House, you can start hating them more than the Republicans again.
(Honestly, I think that the only way that the Democrats can lose come 2008 is to run Hillary/Not-Obama against Guiliani/Generic Republican. I think that any other matchup will result in a win for the big D)
But I get ahead of myself.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
March 5, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
“It is mathematically possible to win without the South, but nobody has done so.”
It used to be common to win without the support of the South. It needs to become common again. Someone needs to find an alliance that can keep the South out of power. Perhaps northeast liberals can find common ground with people out west who have libertarian sentiments.
The South has been part of America’s ruling coalition since 1932. This is a period of time that has seen massive growth of the Federal government. It doesn’t matter if people in the South call themselves Democrats or Republicans, they tend to push for bigger government no matter what.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
March 5, 2007 @ 10:16 pm
“Mona, once the Democrats are back in power in both the House and the Senate *AND* the White House, you can start hating them more than the Republicans again.”
It takes 20 to 30 years. I agree with your basic idea, that any party that is in power long enough becomes odious, but it is not an instantaneous thing. The Republicans have been in power for most of the period since 1968, but it took them more than 30 years to become as corrupt as they’ve now become. A party has to have the Presidency, the Senate and the House and to hold more than one of those branches for several years, before it becomes as corrupt as the Republicans are now.
Comment by Leonard —
March 5, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
Lawrence, yes I meant in modern times. The New Deal and onwards.
However I would disagree that the South tends to push for bigger government. This has rather the function of Northern elites. The South has opposed it, ineffectively, but then serves up a backlash in electoral terms. But in terms of state power the Southern elites are the people that consolidate the gains made in the previous cycle of expansion.
Thus, crazy-like expander FDR gave way to consolidator Ike. Then Democrats expanded the state again dramatically in the 60s, setting the stage for our modern run of mostly Republican presidents, all of whom have made their peace with the welfare state and tinkered about the edges of it, at most.
This may finally be changing, though, with the end of the cold war. The South is finally moving to push its own big government vision, namely, the warfare state. Thus the ‘initiative’ as it were may have finally passed to the Republicans as the new purveyors of radical increases in state power. It is to be hoped the backlash can be libertarian at least in terms of de-invading the world. However, we have yet to see how the Democrats will react in terms of Presidents. Their initial attempt was not encouraging.
Comment by xheight —
March 6, 2007 @ 10:46 am
Comment by Mona —
March 5, 2007 @ 5:40 pm
Twaddle. Olbermann told it like it was about Rice’s idiocies. I wrote about it (reveled in it, actually) with strong approval at this very site. Olbermann is pugnacious, and it is about fucking time the non-Bushbots had an effective such voice.
Comment by Eric Martin —
March 5, 2007 @ 6:18 pm
xheight: You make many vague and generalized critiques of Olbermann, but do you want to actually cite the offending text so that we can assess?
Again, honest question.
Mona – welcome to the hate-club section left. The offending text while cumulative and why I posted the link never stoops right down to hate speech but slides right into it.
Note the switch from Secretary Rice to Dr. Rice as if her degree were under assault by the scholar Olbermann.
“On the Sunday Morning Interview Show of Broken-Record on Fox, Dr. Rice spoke a paragraph, which if it had been included in a remedial history paper at the weakest high school in the nation, would’ve gotten the writer an “F” – maybe an expulsion.”
On the whole his is only opinion asserted about History – Like Perfesser Olbermann knows squat all? What Is being said about an accomplished woman of color here? Mona pretty much confirms this with her phrasing “Rice’s idiocies” – Don’t like the analogy, that is one thing; invalidating via character assassination that is what Coulter does all the time.
Comment by Uncle Kvetch —
March 6, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
What Is being said about an accomplished woman of color here?
That she’s an idiot. Unfortunately for your point, xheight, it is being said in a way that makes no reference whatsoever to Rice’s being a woman, nor to her being African-American. Thus it is in no way comparable to Coulter’s “faggot” remark.
And without knowing anything about your gender, ethnic background, or eye color, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that based on your contributions to this thread, you’re an idiot too.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 6, 2007 @ 3:09 pm
I said nothing to suggest his popularity increased because of his remarks – that’s your own interpretation. And I corrected my error and attribution of Oscar to that of his prior Oscar-winning, post-9/11 movie.
Now, if you’d like to dispute the claim that Moore has not gotten greater popularity since 2001, be my guest.
I love to abuse partisans, but the word itself is unmolested.
Someone commits a terrorist act, and the very first thing in his head is “OMG, they did this because the president I don’t like pissed them off! But why did they kill people who voted against him?!” If that doesn’t strike you as a scarily partisan reaction…maybe you’re scarily partisan.
No, one doesn’t, and I did care. However, these were small potatoes, and on 9/11, it didn’t pop into my head that anyone had attacked the WTC and the Pentagon with hijacked planes because of faith-based initiatives or a tax cut or anything else a very new president had done.
(And as it turned out, gee whiz, they hadn’t.)
Comment by xheight —
March 6, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
your opinion is about is just as valid as Olbermann’s Uncle Kvetch. Which is to say just blather which isn’t in the MSM.
What I’m saying that that we didn’t see or hear the Cheney, Rumsfeld… credentials attacked but “Dr.” Rice is a problem for the side claiming intellect, reason and diversity for their side. It is of a piece; which was the point here when talking about codes in use.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
March 6, 2007 @ 3:15 pm
I don’t agree with your interpretation, but fair enough.
Comment by Lawrence Krubner —
March 6, 2007 @ 8:29 pm
“Thus, crazy-like expander FDR gave way to consolidator Ike. Then Democrats expanded the state again dramatically in the 60s”
This is a period of time when the South was politically referred to as “The Solid South”. It was the core of the Democratic party. It was the base from which the Democratic party drew its strength. It also shaped Democratic policies. When the Democrats spoke of progressive taxes to shift wealth from rich to poor, they were talking about progressive taxes to shift wealth from the NorthEast to the South. Even now the NorthEast is wealthier than the South, but the gap was much, much wider back in the 1930s.