Jane Smiley: Coulter, Cheney, Bush: What's the Difference? (HuffPost)

[marmar]

Coulter, Cheney, Bush: What's the Difference? (12 comments )

There was a time when Coulter, Cheney, and Bush could consider themselves in the majority. They could say of themselves that their ideas and policies had found public favor, and so they must be right, or at least popular. Those times are gone. Bush's ratings are in the twenties, Cheney's are around fifteen or so, and Coulter has been criticized over and over by her own allies for going too far with her trademark hate-speech. But Coulter, Cheney, and Bush just stick with what they know. They do the very thing that gets them in trouble over and over, and, if possible, they intensify or expand it. We know of Bush that he is no longer looking for the approval of us, his contemporaries. Now he is looking for the approval of history--somehow, someday, he plans to be vindicated, and he reads plenty of presidential biographies to bolster his nerve. Talk about betting on a longshot!

Cheney, who is reported to carry a hazmat suit with him everywhere, seems positively delusional. As the situation deteriorates even further in Iraq, he travels around the world, telling people who know better that everything in Iraq is great, and that the administration's policies are a big success. And you have to agree with him--the war on terror is certainly working, if representatives of the Taliban can get close enough to try to assassinate him--not! Coulter, who drew serious fire last summer when she attacked the 9/11 widows, is back at CPAC using her influence to undermine any Republican presidential hopeful who supports her. McCain, Romney, and Giuliani can try all they want to distance themselves from her, but she is going to stick to them until they all go down together. No, Bush, Cheney, and Coulter haven't learned, and yes, they can't learn. What they demonstrate is that their brand of "conservatism" is beyond reason and learning, and is, in fact, an uncontrollable pathology. It will not be Cheney and Bush who refrain from attacking Iran because they have realized that it is beyond stupid and well into suicidal to do so, it will be others who prevent it. As for Coulter, she will continue to invite her supporters to mock and disdain those she disagrees with until she has no more supporters and becomes simply a freak show.

If you look Coulter up in Wikipedia, you will see that she makes a revealing remark about her "faith": she believes Christ's message is that "People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it." "According to liberals," though, "the message of Jesus ... is something along the lines of 'be nice to people.'" In other words, Coulter embraces Christianity as an expression of absolute shame and humiliation and Christ as primarily a victim. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/coulter-cheney-bush-wh_b_42765.html