Coulter

Coulter Strikes Back

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, demagogues, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, lying, media, Shepard Smith
Ann unloads some righteous fury on her richly-deserving detractors. I do disagree with Ms. Coulter in one area, though—I would make one change to this sentence (in red): “I’m a little tired of losers trying to raise campaign cash, Web traffic, or TV ratings off of my coattails.”
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Meanwhile, it’s noteworthy that Fox News’ Shepard Smith embraced the Left’s smear. Is FNC still a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy ™?

Target: Ann Coulter

Calvin Freiburger blogosphere, conservatism, Coulter, demagogues, Edwards, Hackbarth, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, hypocrisy
Another day, another liberal lie about Ann Coulter:
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Elizabeth Edwards pleaded Tuesday with Ann Coulter to “stop the personal attacks,” a day after the conservative commentator said she wished Edwards’ husband, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, had been killed by terrorists.
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This is an utter mischaracterization of what Ann actually said (video at the sidebar here). In no way did she express a desire to see John Edwards murdered. No honest observer could even think she even found the prospect of Edward’s death amusing. Her actual point was that, since around the same time of Ann’s CPAC snafu Bill Maher got away with seriously expressing a desire to see Dick Cheney dead, the apparent lesson was: death threats against politicians fine, crude words against politicians intolerable.
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Be sure to check out the video of Elizabeth Edwards’ ambush on “Hardball. Methinks Mrs. Ambulance-Chaser’s plan backfired?
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Then came the obligatory anti-Coulter whining from Sean Hackbarth (it’s a shame when conservatives act like liberals, isn’t it?).
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A note to the hacks on both sides: get over it. Ann doesn’t have a single word she should retract or be embarrassed about.
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(Oh, and Ann’s full ABC interview—not the dishonest video snippet Hackbarth got from a left-wing blog—is actually quite good.)
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UPDATE: Thanks to Mark Levin’s good memory for exposing Elizabeth Edwards’ phoniness and hypocrisy:
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Elizabeth Edwards is blasting second lady Lynne Cheney for objecting to John Kerry calling her daughter “a lesbian” during Wednesday night’s presidential debate.
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In the ugliest outburst yet in the Kerry-lesbian contretemps, the woman who wants to replace Mrs. Cheney told ABC Radio network news Thursday morning, “I think that [Mrs. Cheney’s complaint] indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter’s sexual preferences.”
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These people are despicable.
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UPDATE 2: By the way, here’s the column Mrs. Ambulance-Chaser was referring to.

Ann Nails Amnesty

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, immigration
IMPORTING A SLAVE CLASS
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Apparently, my position on immigration is that we must deport all 12 million illegal aliens immediately, inasmuch as this is billed as the only alternative to immediate amnesty. The jejune fact that we “can’t deport them all” is supposed to lead ineluctably to the conclusion that we must grant amnesty to illegal aliens — and fast!
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I’m astounded that debate has sunk so low that I need to type the following words, but: No law is ever enforced 100 percent.
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We can’t catch all rapists, so why not grant amnesty to rapists? Surely no one wants thousands of rapists living in the shadows! How about discrimination laws? Insider trading laws? Do you expect Bush to round up everyone who goes over the speed limit? Of course we can’t do that. We can’t even catch all murderers. What we need is “comprehensive murder reform.” It’s not “amnesty” — we’ll ask them to pay a small fine.
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If it’s “impossible” to deport illegal aliens, how did we come to have so much specific information about them? I keep hearing they are Catholic, pro-life, hardworking, just dying to become American citizens, and will take jobs other Americans won’t. Someone must have talked to them to gather all this information. Let’s find that guy — he must know where they are!
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How do we even know there are 12 million of them? Why not 3 million, or 40 million? Maybe we should put the guy who counted them in charge of deporting them.
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If the 12-million figure is an extrapolation based on the number of illegal immigrants in public schools or emergency rooms and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood, then shouldn’t we be looking for them at schools and hospitals and well-manicured lawns in Brentwood?
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I believe that the shortage of unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans we experienced in the ’60s has been remedied by now.
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Since Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Act, more than half of all legal immigrants have been unskilled, non-English-speaking Mexicans. America takes in roughly 1 million legal immigrants each year. Only about 30,000 of them have Ph.D.s. Why on earth would any rational immigration policy discriminate against immigrants with Ph.D.s in favor of unskilled, non-English-speaking immigrants?
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Say, don’t Ph.D.s and other skilled workers have more influence on government policy than unskilled workers? Aren’t they more likely to bend a president’s ear? Yes, I believe they are! Noticeably, the biggest proponents of the government’s policy of importing a huge underclass of unskilled workers are not themselves unskilled workers.
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The great bounty of cheap labor by unskilled immigrants isn’t going to hardworking Americans who hang drywall or clean hotel rooms — and who are having trouble getting jobs, now that they’re forced to compete with the vast influx of unskilled workers who don’t pay taxes.
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The people who make arguments about “jobs Americans won’t do” are never in a line of work where unskilled immigrants can compete with them. Liberals love to strike generous, humanitarian poses with other people’s lives.
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Something tells me the immigration debate would be different if we were importing millions of politicians or Hollywood agents. You lose your job, while I keep my job at the Endeavor agency, my Senate seat, my professorship, my editorial position or my presidency. (And I get a maid!)
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The only beneficiaries of these famed hardworking immigrants — unlike you lazy Americans — are the wealthy, who want the cheap labor while making the rest of us chip in for the immigrants’ schooling, food and health care.
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These great lovers of the downtrodden — the downtrodden trimming their hedges — pretend to believe that their gardeners’ children will be graduating from Harvard and curing cancer someday, but (1) they don’t believe that; and (2) if it happened, they’d lose their gardeners.
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Not to worry, Marie Antoinettes! According to “Alien Nation” author Peter Brimelow, “There is recent evidence that, even after four generations, fewer than 10 percent of Mexicans have post-high school degrees, as opposed to nearly half of non-Mexican-Americans.” So you’ll always have the maid. As New York mayor Michael Bloomberg said, our golf fairways would suffer without illegal immigrants: “You and I both play golf; who takes care of the greens and the fairways on your golf course?”
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We fought a civil war to force Democrats to give up on slavery 150 years ago. They’ve become so desperate for servants that now they’re importing an underclass to wash their clothes and pick their vegetables. This vast class of unskilled immigrants is the left’s new form of slavery.
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What do they care if their servants are made citizens eligible to vote and collect government benefits? Aren’t the fabulously rich happy in Venezuela? Oops, wrong example. Brazil? No, no, let me try again. Mexico! … Well, no matter. What could go wrong?

Remembering Rev. Jerry Falwell

Calvin Freiburger Armstron Williams, atheism, Christianity, conservatism, Coulter, demagogues, Falwell, Hitchens, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Medved, religion, RIP
What Was It About Falwell That’s Supposed to be “Little”?
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Michael Medved, 5/17/07
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Secular militants have provided no shortage of intemperate, vicious, mean-spirited reactions to the death of Jerry Falwell but perhaps the most revealing came from Christopher Hitchens (author of a new book attacking religious delusions, “God is Not Great.”)
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Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on CNN, Hitchens seemed oddly obsessed with repeatedly applying a single—and singularly inappropriate — adjective to the late Dr, Falwell.
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In the course of the interview, Hitchens decried “the empty life of this ugly little charlatan…” and then asked “who would, even at your network, have invited such a little toad….” Shortly thereafter, he declared, “The whole consideration of this horrible little person is offensive to very, very many of us…” He also concluded that Dr. Falwell even counted as insincere in his religious faith, suggesting, “He woke up every morning, as I say, pinching his chubby little flanks and thinking, I have got away with it again.”
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In what possible sense did Jerry Falwell count as a little man?
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In the most obvious, physical sense Hitchens’ attempt to belittle Falwell might reflect the common envy of a small guy for a larger, stronger specimen. Aside from the late pastor’s obvious girth, he stood well over six feet tall. I’ve shared refreshments with both Falwell and Hitchens, and the Brit’s not bigger in any sense of the word.
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Of course, Hitchens and his apologists might respond that describing Falwell as “little” denotes his ultimate insignificance, his limited intellectual, spiritual dimensions, not his physical size, but even here the dismissive term hardly applies.
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As the driving force behind the emergence of the modern Christian conservative movement in U.S. politics, Falwell changed history – as even his most vitriolic critics concede. “The Moral Majority” which he founded played a crucial role in the Reagan landslide of 1980, and even more conspicuously led the way to the stunning, unpredicted Senate sweep that gave the GOP control of the upper house of Congress for the first time in 26 years. Twelve Republican challengers – most of them outspoken Christian conservatives – seized the seats of twelve highly entrenched Democratic incumbents (including such luminaries and former Presidential candidates as George McGovern, Birch Bayh and Frank Church). Liberals may lament the outcome of that watershed election but it’s impossible to dismiss its importance.
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In other words, this purportedly “little charlatan” Jerry Falwell, managed to bring about a big shift in American politics – thereby qualifying as a major figure in all the battles of the Reagan Presiency and beyond. Everything about the man actually counted as big – big ambitions, big plans, big ideas, big impact. In addition to his well-known role in politics and media, Falwell qualified as a spectacularly successful institution builder. His Thomas Road Baptist Church, which he founded from scratch in 1951, now draws 22,000 members, and booming Liberty University (founded in 1971) educates nearly 8,000 students (more than Dartmouth or Princeton). Emerson once said that “any durable institution is nothing more than the lengthened shadow of one man.” In that context, Falwell counts as a big guy, with a big shadow.
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There is one possible sense in which a major figure might be described as “small” – if even this powerful, influential individual comes across as petty, obsessed with trivialities, nursing grudges and slights.
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Falwell possessed none of these characteristics of smallness, and managed to strike up unlikely friendships even with his political and religious adversaries. Opponents as diverse as Jesse Jackson and Larry Flynt remembered him on his passing as a “friend,” praising his graciousness and geniality while emphatically rejecting his ideology. Falwell engaged in frequent, sometimes furious battles in politics and pop culture but he did so, for the most part, as a proverbial happy warrior. The New York Times wrote in their obituary: “For all the controversy, Mr. Falwell was often an unconvincing villain. His manner was patient and affable. His sermons had little of the white-hot menace of those of his contemporaries like Jimmy Swaggart. He shared podiums with Senator Kennedy, appeared at hostile college campuses and in 1984 spent an event before a crowd full of hecklers in Town Hall in New York, probably not changing many minds but nevertheless expressing good will.”
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The fact that some of Falwell’s critics displayed so little good will on the occasion of his passing (“Ding Dong, Falwell’s Dead!” exulted a typical headline at CommonDreams.org) reflects their insecurity and bitterness, not their certainty. Religious believers feel no need to sneer and celebrate when a noted atheist leaves this life. If, as the skeptics believe, there’s no fate awaiting any of us beyond a future as worm food, then deeply religious people have no more reason to worry than their irreligious counterparts.
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If, on the other hand, there’s a watchful God who’ll ultimately judge us all by Biblical standards, then the non-believers may face significant reasons for concern. No wonder an angry atheist like Christopher Hitchens reacts with such defensive fury to the very idea that Falwell (and, ultimately, the rest of us) will go on to some form of eternal reward.
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Despite the effort to disregard him as “little,” Falwell qualified in every sense as a large figure– big hearted and cheerful, secure and sincere in his own faith, with enormous dreams and major impact. He never would have stooped to a cruel, small-minded, petty and pathetic publicity stunt like smearing one of his ideological adversaries on the very day that opponent died.
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So who, then, is the real “little toad,” Mr. Hitchens?
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Other remembrances: Ann Coulter, Zev Chafes, Armstrong Williams

Coulter Tells It Like It Is

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, Duke rape case, Imus, morality, scandal, sex
I really haven’t felt like weighing in on the Don Imus flap. Fortunately, Ann does it for me. (By the way, about a year ago she wrote a piece about the now-absolved Duke lacrosse players that remains a must-read for this important, oft-overlooked point:
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Yes, of course no one “deserves” to die for a mistake. Or to be raped or falsely accused of rape for a mistake. I have always been unabashedly anti-murder, anti-rape and anti-false accusation — and I don’t care who knows about it! -But these statements would roll off the tongue more easily in a world that so much as tacitly acknowledged that all these messy turns of fate followed behavior that your mother could have told you was tacky.
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Not very long ago, all the precursor behavior in these cases would have been recognized as vulgar — whether or not anyone ended up dead, raped or falsely accused of rape. But in a nation of people in constant terror of being perceived as “judgmental,” I’m not sure most people do recognize that anymore.
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It shouldn’t be necessary to point out that girls shouldn’t be bar-hopping alone or taking their clothes off in front of strangers, and that young men shouldn’t be hiring strippers. But we live in a world of Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern, Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” Democratic fund-raisers at the Playboy Mansion and tax deductions for entertaining clients at strip clubs.
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This is an age in which the expression “girls gone wild” is becoming a redundancy. So even as the bodies pile up, I don’t think the message about integrity is getting through.

Quote of the Day

Calvin Freiburger Coulter, environment, global warming, liberalism
“It took the Catholic Church hundreds of years to develop corrupt practices such as papal indulgences. The global warming religion has barely been around for 20 years, and yet its devotees are allowed to pollute by the simple expedient of paying for papal indulgences called ‘carbon offsets…’

“…But for questioning the ‘science’ behind global warming, [Danish statistician Bjorn] Lomborg [author of The Skeptical Environmentalist] was brought up on charges of ‘scientific misconduct’ by Denmark’s Inquisition Court, called the ‘Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.’ I take it Denmark’s Ministry of Truth was booked solid that day.

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“The moment anyone diverges from official church doctrine on global warming, he is threatened with destruction. Heretics would be burnt at the stake if liberals could figure out how to do it in a ‘carbon neutral’ way.”

Hey Hackbarth! Am I a Bad Conservative?

Calvin Freiburger bureaucracy, Coulter, military, scandal, Walter Reed
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Ann Coulter, 3/14/2007

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Democrats have leapt on reports of mold, rats and bureaucratic hurdles at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as further proof of President George Bush’s failed war policies.
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To the contrary, the problems at Walter Reed are further proof of the Democrats’ failed domestic policies — to wit, the civil service rules that prevent government employees from ever being fired. (A policy that also may account for Robert Byrd’s longevity as a U.S. senator.)
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Thanks to the Democrats, government employees have the world’s most complicated set of job protection rules outside of the old East Germany. Oddly enough, this has not led to a dynamic workforce in the nation’s capital.
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Noticeably, the problems at Walter Reed are not with the doctors or medical care. The problems are with basic maintenance at the facility.
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Unless U.S. Army generals are supposed to be spraying fungicide on the walls and crawling under beds to set rattraps, the slovenly conditions at Walter Reed are not their fault. The military is nominally in charge of Walter Reed, but — because of civil service rules put into place by Democrats — the maintenance crew can’t be fired.
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If the general “in charge” can’t fire the people not doing their jobs, I don’t know why he is being held responsible for them not doing their jobs.
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You will find the exact same problems anyplace market forces have been artificially removed by the government and there is a total absence of incentives, competition, effective oversight, cost controls and so on. It’s almost like a cause-and-effect thing.
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The Washington Post could have done the same report on any government facility in the Washington, D.C., area.
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In a typical story from the nation’s capital, last year, a 38-year-old woman died at the hospital after her blood pressure dropped and a D.C. ambulance took 90 minutes to pick her up and take her to a hospital that was five minutes away. For 90 minutes, the 911 operator repeatedly assured the woman’s sister that the ambulance was on its way.
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You read these stories every few months in Washington.
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New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum also died in Washington last year after being treated to the famed work ethic of the average government employee. Rosenbaum was mugged near his house and hit on the head with a pipe. A neighbor found him lying on the sidewalk and immediately called 911.
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First, the ambulance got lost on the way to Rosenbaum. Then, instead of taking him to the closest emergency room, the ambulance took him to Howard University Hospital, nearly 30 minutes away, because one of the “emergency medical technicians” had personal business in the area.
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Once he finally arrived at the hospital, Rosenbaum was left unattended on a gurney for 90 minutes because the “emergency medical technicians” had completely missed his head injury and listed him as “drunk” and “low priority.”
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Months later, the deputy mayor for public safety told The Washington Post that “to the best of his knowledge, no one involved in the incident had been fired.”
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No one has any authority over civil service employees in the nation’s capital. Bush probably lives in terror of White House janitors. The White House bathroom could be flooding and he’d be told: “I’ll get to you when I get to you. Listen, fella, you’re fifth on my list. I’m not making any promises, just don’t flush for the next week.”
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It’s especially adorable how Democrats and the media are acting like these are the first rats ever sighted in the Washington, D.C., area. There are rats in the Capitol building. There are rats in The Washington Post building. Bush has seen rats. But let’s leave Chuck Hagel out of this for now.
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On “ABC News” last year, a CBS radio reporter described a rat jumping off the camera in the White House press briefing room in the middle of a press conference. (And a shrew sits right in the front!) The Washington Post called the White House press room — located between the residence and the Oval Office — “a broken-down, rat-infested fire trap.” During David Gregory’s stand-up report on MSNBC about the damage done to Republicans by conditions at Walter Reed, rats appeared to be scurrying on the ground behind him.
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Instead of an investigative report on the problems at Walter Reed, how about an investigative report on what happens when the head of janitorial services at Walter Reed is told about the dirt, mold and rats at the facility? If it’s before 2:30 in the afternoon and he’s still at work and he hasn’t taken a “sick day,” a “vacation day,” a “personal day” or a “mental health day,” I predict the answer will be: “I’m on my break.”
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The Democrats’ response is: We must pass even more stringent rules to ensure that all government employees get every single break so that public-sector unions will continue giving massive campaign donations to the Democrats.
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This was, you will recall, the precise issue that led to a partisan battle over the Homeland Security bill a few years ago: Whether employees at an emergency terrorist response agency could be fired — as Republicans wanted — or if they would be subject to civil service rules and unfireable — as the Democrats wanted.
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HELLO? HOMELAND SECURITY? THERE’S A BOMB IN THE WELL OF THE SENATE!
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Sorry, not my job. Try the Department of Public Works.
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When Republican Saxby Chambliss challenged Democrat Max Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, he ran an ad attacking Cleland for demanding civil service protections for workers at the Homeland Security Department. Naturally, Republicans were accused of hating veterans for mentioning Cleland’s vote on the Homeland Security bill.
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Now that the Democrats are once again pretending to give a damn about the troops by wailing about conditions at Walter Reed, how about some Republican — maybe Chambliss! — introduce a bill to remove civil service protections from employees at Walter Reed and all veterans’ hospitals? You know, a bill that would actually address the problem.
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And don’t worry about the useless, slothful government employees who can only hold jobs from which they cannot be fired. We’ll get them jobs at the EPA and Department of Education.

Ann Coulter, Rudy Giuliani, & the Republican Crossroads

Calvin Freiburger 2008, conservatism, Coulter, GOP, homosexuality, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, PC
The 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference has concluded, and by now you’ve heard all about Ann Coulter’s joke that she couldn’t talk about presidential wannabe John Edwards because you have to go into rehab if you say “faggot.”

In Ann’s defense, there wasn’t any homophobic intent behind the joke. It was something comics do all the time: insult someone by referencing a recent headline (actor Isaiah Washington’s gay slur). It was as much a commentary on the politically-correct silliness of rehab for simply letting a crude word slip as it was a dig against Edwards. Ann explained this on Hannity & Colmes Monday night, as well as that she didn’t intend at all to suggest that Edwards is secretly gay—rather, that he’s precisely the kind of sissy sleaze that make prime targets for such sophomoric insults.

(And for what it’s worth, the whole affair produced one of the most priceless examples of liberal hypocrisy we’ll ever see—the same guy who tried to hold onto two actual bigots in his employ suddenly pretended to care about bigotry…as long as he could make a quick buck.)

Ann is no homophobe; in fact, half the time she references gays, the context is something like this:

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“Curiously, these proponents of tolerance always choose ‘gay’ as their most searing epithet. Joe McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, Matt Drudge,[Ken] Starr’s prosecutors, Linda Tripp’s lawyer, Christopher Hitchens, Mel Gibson—all these have been denounced as homosexuals at some point by liberals. The New York Times’s Frank Rich (now there’s someone who would never be called a homo) outed David Brock when he was still on the right. Rich favorably cited Christopher Hitchens—who himself was called a fag by liberals when he crossed them—for calling Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ an exercise in ‘sadomasochistic male narcissism.’ Arguing with liberals instantly becomes a game of gay-baiting musical chairs. We just don’t think they should get married. Liberals actually hate homosexuals.” (How To Talk to a Liberal, p. 15)

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In Treason, Ann delves into the Left’s fascination with McCarthy staffer Roy Cohn’s sexual orientation, as well as their homophobic smear campaign against ex-Soviet Whittaker Chambers. Furthermore, as Sean Hannity pointed out in the above interview, she wasn’t exactly Fred Phelps when gays came up during the Q&A.

“So Ann’s joke was fine?” Not so fast. Though insensitivity rehab is certainly a worthy target for skewering (I mean, come on: just repeat that phrase a few times: INSENSITIVITY REHAB), Ann didn’t deliver it in a way that conveyed the nuance (probably impossible as long as the word was in there at all). As long as it was about that and Edwards, it was completely eclipsed by “Edwards is a fag.”

Conservatives will always be likened to racists, fascists, and homophobes, regardless of what we say. The Left proved that when they misrepresented Ann’s commentary on the Jersey Girls in Godless. But the insults against them were justified because Ann put together a strong case against their character along with them (to recap, 1: “[The Jersey Girls] first came together to complain that the $1.6 million average settlement to be paid to 9/11 victims’ families by the government was not large enough”—p. 103, emphasis added; 2: the Jersey Girls had selective moral outrage—they weren’t nearly as interested in finding the truth behind, for example, Jamie Gorelick’s actions during the Clinton years).

At CPAC, Ann didn’t have that. It pains me to say it, but in making the joke, Ann was reckless. She should have dropped it entirely (besides, the line wasn’t important enough to warrant a new battle, and Ann is capable of so much better; I’m sure she could’ve had a field day with Bloggergate). Instead, the fallout has overshadowed a lot of good that came out of CPAC—not the least of which was the strong showing of Mitt Romney, perhaps conservatism’s best hope for 2008 (some video here). (Although, to be realistic, the mainstream media never would have given us credit for the good anyway.)

So Ann deserves some criticism. Michelle Malkin got it basically right on the Factor. The GOP Big 3 distanced themselves and moved on. Fine.

Apparently that’s not enough for a segment of the conservative blogosphere. Enter the “Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors and Organizers Regarding Ann Coulter:”

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“Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her ‘raghead’ remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?
“One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses—where they often feel alone—at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter’s mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.
“CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.”
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We’re not going to let one of conservatism’s most vibrant voices speak at all? (I guess they think a stage full of old guys is good enough to repel the usual stereotypes of American politics.) This is not just rejecting an insensitive joke. This is political grandstanding. “Hey! Look at us! We’re better than Ann Coulter!” These people want Ann gone from the conservative movement. The apparent leader of the grandstanders, Sean Hackbarth seems to have a long-standing grudge against Ann, including peddling lefty plagiarism smears that have been debunked by others. Nice.
Wisconsin’s own Owen Robinson said “Coulter has already lost most mature conservatives. Hopefully [her fans] will grow out of their hero worship of Coulter and begin to take their espoused philosophy seriously…She has no place in the serious conservative community.” It’s curious, then, that this “mature, serious conservative,” this professional, responsible blogger, felt justified in dropping the other f-bomb TWICE just days earlier. Why? He was “ticked off.”
Robinson isn’t the only hypocrite signatory. Kevin McCullough apparently suspended his belief in “mainstream appeal” when he authored such non-inflammatory columns as: “Why Liberals Channel Lucifer”, “Why Liberal Feminists Support School Shootings”, “Why Liberals Love Pedophiles”, and “Why Unions Are Like Terrorists”. Can’t you just see McCullough fume with jealous rage each time a new Coulter book hits the NYT bestseller list?
But there’s a bigger problem here. Listening to these conservatives, you’d think Ann Coulter was the greatest threat to conservatism we’ve ever seen. Hardly. There was a serious threat to the credibility of the conservative movement at CPAC. And you know what, folks? Many of you clapped for him.
Meet Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani’s liberal stances outweigh his conservative ones. His best appeals to the Right—solid judges and wartime leadership—are trumped-up. He lacks the basic moral comprehension to stand against abortion, the slavery of our day. His choice of personnel shows either incompetence or ethical bankruptcy. If he is our nominee, the Democrats will accuse his Clinton-bashing supporters of hypocrisy on personal morals—and the Democrats will be right.
All this, yet he’s our party’s frontrunner, and he won second place in the straw poll of an event professing to be a conservative gathering. Why? Because he’s “electable,” character and values be damned. And even that assumption is highly dubious. As John Hawkins writes (first link two paragraphs up):
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“[Giuliani] offers almost nothing to social conservatives, without whom a victory for George Bush in 2004 wouldn’t have been possible. If the choice in 2008 comes down to a Democrat and a pro-abortion, soft on gay marriage, left-of-center candidate on social issues—like Rudy—you can be sure that millions of ‘moral values voters’ will simply stay home and cost the GOP the election.
“The other issue is in the South. George Bush swept every Southern state in 2000 and 2004, which is quite an impressive feat when you consider that the Democrats had Southerner Al Gore at the top of the ticket in 2000 and John Edwards as the veep in 2004. Unfortunately, a pro-abortion, soft on gay marriage, pro-gun control RINO from New York City just isn’t going to be able to repeat that performance. Even against a carpetbagger like Hillary Clinton, it’s entirely likely that you’ll see at least 2 or 3 states in the South turn from red to blue if Rudy Giuliani is the nominee.”Also, the reason why George Bush’s approval numbers have been mired in the high thirties/low forties of late is because he has lost a significant amount of Republican support, primarily because his domestic policies aren’t considered conservative enough. Since that’s the case, running a candidate who is several steps to Bush’s left on domestic policy certainly doesn’t seem like a great way to unite the base again.”
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I would add this: Many agree that President Bush’s mismanagement of the Iraq War contributed heavily to our ’06 loss. So why on God’s green Earth does the Republican establishment think the answer is a candidate whose public statements on Iraq consist of nothing but Bush cheerleading? Consider that we’re being told Rudy-the-Terror-Warrior trumps all his other stances, and it’s even more maddening. Logic like this makes me expect to see Rod Serling pop up any minute now and explain what parallel universe he’s got in store for us this week.
This Coulter letter shows that the blogosphere knows how to get active when it wants to, so why choose this brouhaha to take a stand? Where was the “Open Letter to CPAC Sponsors & Organizers Regarding Rudy Giuliani” demanding that the mayor be disinvited? You guys say you care about the conservative movement, so why is a tasteless joke more important than a presidential frontrunner whose positions are, for the most part, a direct repudiation of conservatism and whose record raises serious character and competence questions? I know some of the signatories have raised questions about Giuliani, but his presence in the party & at CPAC seems tolerated far more than Ann Coulter’s—an obscene misplacement of priorities.
I have a question for all of the conservatives who are open to the idea of Giuliani ’08: Do any of you have the slightest clue what the term “standard-bearer” means? Anyone? It means our presidential candidate sets the standard for our party to follow. He’s our number-one representative. He’s supposed to be among the best our party has to offer—not merely average, and definitely not among the worst. Does anybody want to seriously argue that a liberal Republican leader would not move the party Leftward?
George W. Bush would not be president today if not for the support of religious Americans who saw the chaos wreaked upon society by the secular Left and were crying out for a leader to stand up to it. Many of us devoted countless hours to his reelection primarily in the hopes of stopping the slaughter of defenseless babies, the radical redefinition of marriage, and the ideological rot in our courts—not simply because we wanted another point for the GOP’s scoreboard.
Our efforts have been rewarded in disappointment: Bush has been silent on the Culture War, inept on the Iraq War, and part of the problem for Americans who value our national sovereignty. So to say the conservative base is wary of trusting the Republican establishment again would be an understatement.
What are the odds that a candidate worse than Bush in nearly every way can repair that damaged trust and reignite that squandered passion?
It’s not the Ann Coulters of the world who are guilty of sacrificing the conservative movement in the name of success. The Fred Barnes’s, the George Wills, and the Sean Hannitiys are. Ann’s full CPAC speech doesn’t show some attention whore willing to destroy conservatism for book sales. It shows the same fearless, straight-talking, rambunctious-yet-intellectual, genuine conservative she’s always been. She makes mistakes. She made another one at CPAC (yet some “conservatives” are rewriting history—the “faggot” joke got more than its share of laughter & applause, and Hackbarth’s Hacks probably won’t mention her sincere appeal to gays regarding criminal protection). But her commitment to America’s future and to the viability of conservatism are the real deal—which is more than can be said of many on the “respectable” Right.
This election cycle is a crossroads for conservatism. In this nomination process, we are choosing what kind of entity we want the Republican Party to be: a serious crusader for our Constitution and values, or a cheap cabal whose highest value is power (ironically, power they’ll end up losing, like a Greek or Shakespearean tragedy come to life).
My fellow Americans, make your choice. Just don’t be surprised if the “electable” guy proves instead to be the GOP’s death knell.