It seems that Ann Coulter can dish it out, but she can’t take it. After years of spewing some of the most hateful, venomous speech to be found in modern American politics, Coulter is beside herself with the frustration of being asked once, by one person, if she could please be nicer. John Aravosis expounds on this at AmericaBlog.
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Ann Coulter’s an embarrassment – a right-wing Michael Moore. Like him, she’s in it for the buck, and they’ve both found a large group of nitwits to milk.
That said, the exchange initiated by Elizabeth Edwards on Hardball the other night was hardly done for high-minded purposes of “raising the level of discussion” or whatever. Coulter’s as much of a cash cow for the left as she is for herself, and, predictably, an Edwards campaign mailer went out the day after their dust-up asking for money to help John Edwards “fight back against Ann Coulter.”
No, Smails, she’s not a right wing Michael Moore. Moore doesn’t call for people’s deaths, fantasize out loud about genocide, or get his giggles out of calling people faggots. Not even close, and you’re a dishonest hack for even attempting the comparison. So it’s not surprising that you can’t wrap your reptilian brain around what Elizabeth Edwards was trying to do with that phone call.
I can’t recall Michael Moore calling for the assasination of a Supreme Court Justice.
Ann Coulter made the remark about Justice Stevens.
I dare say that if some shrill harpie was selling books and making book tour appearances by questioning the Edwards’ right to talk about their dead son, and that person’s name wasn’t Ann Coulter, the uproar would be deafening.
If Ann Coulter wasn’t making herself a target, then nobody would have to call her on it. As it is, she appears to be severely mentally ill, or totally off key in her reasoning and her ‘act’, or both.
You have missed the point here, JS, and that comparison of yours sucks, frankly.
And, more recently, she called for the death of Sen. John Edwards in a terrorist attack.
I am not aware of an equivalent to Ann Coulter on the left. While I understand that many conservatives see Michael Moore as a fabulist or a propagandist, that’s a great distance away from declaring a fatwa on the lives of our nation’s leaders.
Coulter’s distasteful joke about Edwards being killed in a terrorist attack was a riff on Bill Maher saying the country would be better off if Cheney died in an attack when he was visiting Afghanistan. It was a stupid thing to say, but she was merely following where the left had already tread.
I must say I didn’t realize that Michael Moore was held in such high esteem by you guys. You’re not all “Truthers,” are you? So, now he’s the Solon of the left, eh? Have fun at the cineplex tonight.
Michael Moore isn’t exactly a saint, but if you think that saying things you disagree with and sometimes making unsubstantiated arguments is anywhere in the same ballpark as mocking the dead and calling for political assassinations, you must be blinded by ideology.
As far as this goes:
That doesn’t do anything to prove your point. All it shows is that we’re pointing to the most cancerous parts of political discourse and saying “lets beat this.” Sure, it helps raise money, but if you’re going to make the claim that she’s just as helpful to the left as to the right, I’d like to see more than an assertion.
All in all, this whole “Sure Republicans are bad, but Democrats are(/have been) bad too” line of thought is harmful. We have to expect more from our politicians than what the worst our oposition does. This goes for “But Clinton tried to use execututive privelege” as well as “Michael Moore is as bad as Ann Coulter.” The left does this as well, but I’m not coming up with a good example of it right now.
Honestly, I feel like Bill Maher is a more likely candidate for “Coulter of the left,” though I’m not exactly familiar with his “body of work.”
“I wasn’t aware that you held Ann Coulter in such high esteem. You’re not a member of Stormfront are you? How’s the solon of the right? Have fun at the book burning tonight.”
Fun, sure, but I don’t think this is getting us anywhere.
(Sorry for the triple post. In the above post, I got “Stormfront,” a neo-nazi website, mixed up with “Minutemen,” a racist anti-immigration vigilante justice group, but honestly, I was going for hyperbole anyway.)
What makes Coulter even more disgusting is the premeditation of her slurs. Note that she never said John Edwards is a faggot and never called for his assassination. She said that she couldn’t call him a faggot, and that she should have called for his assassination instead. It’s all a game–she can claim that she never actually said anything inappropriate. I could almost have respect for someone who, in the spur of the moment, lashes out and says something stupid. But the precision with which she speaks in order to keep herself in the spotlight and give her deniability at the same time. . . If I were a mean person, I might wish her some unfortunate accident. :-)
Note that I have no idea what the context of Bill’s statement was, but I think he’s a despicable, unfunny buffoon.
Kathy Griffin speaks for me…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P17w0RWTew
You’re not all “Truthers,” are you?
Oh Smails, you sage…do expand. Lipstick up this pig for us! What is a “Truther”? Im sure it cant be as simple as someone who either strives or looks for the truth because your logic usually has a tortured twist.
And if someone is not a “Truther” using the rights patented ‘your either with us or against us’ formula….does that make them a “Liar”?
I’m open to criticism that I could have been a little less glib, but it seems to me like you guys have blinders on about much that it’s in the whole Coulter-Edwards dust-up. First, anyone who thinks that Elizabeth Edwards’s call to Coulter on Hardball wasn’t done with the knowledge of the Edwards campaign staff and wasn’t intended to serve as a fundraising appeal doesn’ know very much about politics. Coulter’s a fantastic fundraising tool for Democrats and has been for years. Does anyone believe that E. Edwards expected Coulter to become weepy, apologize to her, and swear off her patented brand of vicious attacks? The reason the call worked for Edwards is that Coulter is so fantastically predictable.
Second, Michael Moore is a scumbag who traffics in half-truths, distortions and outright lies. The fact that he’s a tremendously successful filmmaker is irrelevant. Afterall, Ann Coulter has at least 3 best sellers. He recently speculated that 9/11 was inside job – hell, that’s what half of Farenheit 911 was about. Frankly, my friends on the left ought to be ashamed he’s such a hero to so many on that side of the aisle – just as I am w/ Coulter.
Finally, John Edwards is a little creepy. I mean even if you can live with all that pseudo-science trial lawyer shit he pulled on the medical malpractice cases that made him rich, there’s this:
For example, Mr. Shrum says Mr. Kerry had qualms about choosing Mr. Edwards to be his presidential running mate in 2004, but grew “even queasier” after Mr. Edwards said he was going to share a story with Mr. Kerry he had never told anyone else — that after his son, Wade, had been killed, he climbed onto the slab at the funeral home and hugged his body and promised that he would do all he could to make life better for people.
“Kerry was stunned, not moved, because, as he told me later, Edwards had recounted the exact story to him, almost in the exact same words, a year or two before — and with the same preface, that he’d never shared the memory with anyone else. Kerry said he found it chilling, and he decided he couldn’t pick Edwards unless he met with him again.”
Mr. Shrum says that, in the end, Mr. Kerry “wished that he’d never picked Edwards, that he should have gone with his gut” and selected former Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri.
Call me crazy, but perhaps Coulter’s not the only one deserving of contempt, derision, and scorn.
Understand, though, that these two people have entirely different relationships with the parties with which they’re respectively affiliated. Moore has often skewered Democrats, and rightly so. He enjoys no relationship (that I’m aware of) with the national party, he does not speak at Democratic events, and no major elected Democrats (again, that I’m aware of) even want to be so much as photographed with the man. He’s a liberal, but he’s not a Democrat.
All of that stands in stark contrast to Coulter. She stands with her party, and her party stands with her. She’s a regular top-of-the-marquee guest at Republican events, and hobnobs with top party officials and officeholders.
Moore’s relationship with Democrats is that some Democrats are fans of some of his work. Coulter is of the Republicans, and is able to speak for them — and does she ever.
Michael Moore sat next to Jimmy Carter in the President’s Box at the 2004 DNC.
I don’t doubt that it’s possible to name some instances in which Michael Moore existed in close proximity to prominent Democrats. But the man is a pariah — even elected officials who like him know that he’s trouble, and they rightly keep their distance. Precisely the opposite is true with Coulter.
“Doubt,” “possible,” “some,” and “proximity,” eh? Jesus Christ, Waldo! He was in the frickin’ President’s Box at the biggest, most prestigious meeting of Democrats – the political Olympics.
Call me when Coulter sits next to Laura Bush at the SotU.
The same could be said about the office of the President, or Fox News, or any number of people and institutions. That doesn’t make your “Michael Moore is the Ann Coulter of the left” bit of equivalence true.
Agreed.
Yeah, the Loose Change people are idiotic, and if Michael Moore buys into that, then he’s an idiot as well. Wake me up when he’s calling for assassinations on political grounds or proclaiming that the right–all of the right–are guilty of treason or murder.
Lest my point get missed: I think there’s a bit of a gap between believing an idiotic theory and calling for people’s deaths based on their political beliefs. Michael Moore seems to be on one side of that fence, and Ann Coulter is on the other.
The day when I start respecting or believing Bob Shrum will be the day that the sun will rise in the south.
He is a pariah (since we are throwing that word around) to many in the non-DLC Democratic Party. He has such a horrible track record he can’t get a job advising or managing a campaign anywhere in the country. (0-9, I believe)
As for Michael Moore, he is seen as being somewhat of a necessary evil in most of the Democratic Party, simply because he will say things that most people don’t have the stones to say. Things that sometimes need to be said.
As for Ann Coulter, I won’t dignify her behavior by even commenting on it beyond this: I don’t understand why the media heathers fawn all over her. She is clearly off her meds or insane.
Did you just really call for shame from someone besides yourself? You, the Pee Wee Herman of commenting (I know you are, but what am I?), who can’t go for more than two sentences without whinging about Clinton or some figure completely irrelevant to the matter at hand? Successful trolls are either funny or smart, Smails. What are you going for, resident feeb?
To give Smails some credit – Coulter and Moore do have one thing in common. They piss off the other side to about an equal degree. But that’s where it ends. Coulter’s brand of insanity is hate rhetoric and death talk. Moore’s is trying to make arguments that have at least some basis in fact, but probably omit a few important facts in the meantime.
Me – I’ll take Moore’s brand. Coulter is delusional and insane. And, really, she’s just mean for the sake of it – or because she gets off on it in some way. She’s indefensible if you are a rational human being.
And I saw Bill Maher’s comment about Cheney (or heard it afterwards) and I remember thinking “Ooooohhh, that went too far. Please don’t say that kind of crap. You make non-Republicans look bad.” But at the same time, as some have said that Coulter’s remark was a parody of Maher’s (implying that it then is OK), Maher’s show often portrays itself as the same – an equal time broadcast against the harsh talking right wing media. So if you think it’s OK for Coulter (or at the least defensible in some way) then it’s OK for Maher.
But there is nothing OK about making some joke about anyone’s dead kid. Or even bringing itup. That’s sick.
I’m throwing in with Judge Smails regarding Coulter. If it’s okay for a Democratic comedian to spout off then it’s okay for a shrill Republican harpy (yes and vice versa). I think Maher’s defense of his comments would probably extend to Coulter’s comment and their right to make them.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard some variation of Ms. Edwards comments (“lowering the political discourse at a time when it needs to be raised.”) somewhere else before she made them on that show to Anne Coulter (I think perhaps on a Larry King show just after Anne Coulter’s- gay joke take off- again a variation on a prior notable Democratic’s comment- I forget which).
I think she made some valid points about how her comments have been used by the Edwards for fundraising. And she succeeded in making Edwards look less presidential by appearing thin skinned. By making a big to do about the comments it elevated Anne and her comments to a level of importance that she doesn’t deserve.
Personally and in spite of his inconsistencies (and/or factual errors? I don’t know if they are or not) I enjoy Michael Moore’s material.
Everybody here so far has said that, in fact, it’s not OK. But, again, Maher is no more affiliated with the Democratic Party than Moore is. They identify with liberals (not so much Democrats), but the Democratic Party certainly doesn’t identify with them.
Man, that O’Reilly/Maher interview was painful to watch. O’Reilly blathering on about his “enemies,” and about how he and Maher are “probably two of the most hated people in the country.” Such visions of grandeur.