Greenwald nails it re: Coulter

[ginnyinWI]

The reason the Right loves and needs her is that she repeatedly tries to de-masculinize Democratic leaders with her slanderous speech. They want to stand out as the "strong" party and their leaders are actually not strong, either morally or in a military-background sort of way. Since they have little they can point to about their own strength, they try undermine the other side's.

This is why they attacked Kerry's heroic military service, and why Coulter called Edwards a f*****. It's also why they wanted to paint him as elitist and all of that other crap--French--as if French men aren't quite as masculine as regular Americans. (huh?) And Edwards was the "Breck girl" of course.

Since when does criticizing the other side automatically give you the opposite trait? It's craven and cowardly--and all of those insecure chickenhawks repubs who were too afraid to ever join the miliary or even live morally strong lives just eat it all up.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/06/cult/index.html

Coulter insisted last night that she did not intend the remark as an anti-gay slur -- that she did not intend to suggest that John Edwards, husband and father, was gay -- but instead only used the word as a "schoolyard taunt," to call him a sissy. And that is true. Her aim was not to suggest that Edwards is actually gay, but simply to feminize him like they do with all male Democratic or liberal political leaders.

For multiple reasons, nobody does that more effectively or audaciously than Coulter, which is why they need her so desperately and will never jettison her. How could they possibly shun her for engaging in tactics on which their entire movement depends? They cannot, which is why they are not and will not.

The converse of this is equally true. As critical as it is to them to feminize Democratic and liberal males (and to masculinize the women), even more important is to create false images of masculine power and strength around their authority figures. The reality of this masculine power is almost always non-existent. The imagery is what counts.

This works exactly the same as the images of moral purity that they work so hard to manufacture, whereby the leaders they embrace -- such as Gingrich, Limbaugh, Bill Bennett, even the divorced and estranged-from-his-children Ronald Reagan and Coulter herself -- are plauged by the most morally depraved and reckless personal lives, yet still parade around as the heroes of the "Values Voters." Just as what matters is that their leaders prance around as moral leaders (even while deviating as far as they want from those standards), what matters to them also is that their leaders play-act as strong and masculine figures, even when there is no basis, no reality, to the play-acting.

A good read--worth reading the whole thing.

Oh and by the way--I guess only Repubs are allowed to make jokes--when a Dem tries to make one, and misses one little word, the heavens come crashing down. But Coulter is allowed to say whatever and be defended by the likes of Sean Hannity. :eyes:

[Mass]

1. May be, but it once again shows how blogs are ineffective.

May be Coulter will take some heat, but this does not hurt at all the Conservative Agenda.

If anything, this totally obscured anything substantive that was said during CPAC, including Newt Gingritch blaming the Katrina victims because they were not able to get out of the way (a much better example of where the problem is with conservatives).

A few months ago, Paul Waldmann posted an article titled : "It is the Conservatism, stupid".

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Mass/52

The problem is not Ann Coulter's insults (except if you want to talk about media bias). The problem stands with conservative ideology. Insults are just the media.

(Not barking at you - It is just that I am getting tired of blogs barking at the wrong tree. Ann Coulter is the media of an ideology. Without Ann Coulter, conservatism would still be bad. Without conservatism, Ann Coulter would be nothing).

[ginnyinWI]

2. that's true--conservatism doesn't work in government

If they all hate government so much, they should just get out of the way and let liberals and progressives handle it--because we do believe in good government.

But back to Greenwald: I think he's not so much bashing Coulter as explaining how very important to the conservative movement she is, because she serves as a way for them to verbalize their own hidden insecurities about themselves. He says that many of them are "needy, confused and scared" and gravitate to an authoritarian political movement in order to feel strong. And when Coulter attacks every Dem male on the left as feminine and weak, they all feel even better.

[MarjorieG]

4. Blogs barking up wrong tree, planted to misdirect.

Same as any debate with George, like the one where Dick Cheney's daughter claimed false outrage at being mentioned as gay, changing the focus from a bad GW performance. She's a professional gay, planning not so kosher gay parties for Coors.

As Dems say another slam dunk in 2008, like 2004 was supposed to be, and not taken as seriously, we haven't discredited the Conservative ideology as phony and not working, or talked enpough about the fascist form we have today: the PNAC, the shadow governments from Reagan, Norquist's leaky tub, enough to sink them.

Now we have "libertarian" Rudy, who was always just authoritarian to me.

[whometense]

3. Some good news, anyway.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/03/two_more_papers.php

Two More Papers Drop Coulter's Column
March 07, 2007 -- 11:24 AM EST // View Comments (18) // Post a Comment

And then there were three -- three papers that have decided that they don't want to publish the work of someone who likes calling people "ragheads" and "faggots" in public, that is.

Following up on yesterday's decision by a Pennsylvania daily to drop Ann Coulter's syndicated column, Editor and Publisher reports that two more papers have decided to follow suit:...

[ginnyinWI]

5. good.

The more papers that reject her, the fewer independents will read her. But then the right will just love her all the more--she being the poor victim of a "liberal" media. But that's ok--their kind is becoming more and more of a minority.