Basically, Mossad is much scarier than the Iranian Republican Guard. Sorry, big guy, but you'll just have to grin and bear it.
For a moment she forgot about the bogus Judeo-Christian religion upon which this nation was founded after the Sinai War. She must be getting tired of her routine, or maybe her free-association nastiness just got out of hand.
Deutsch has enabled her to slime various other people, but for some reason felt the need to draw the line when she slimed him and his family.
Probably fears the wrath of Ezra Klein after seeing what happened to Malkin.
"I'm sorry if you misinterpreted my remarks", while more conciliatory than Coulter's typical "all my critics are obviously fags", is the classic non-apology. Nothing in the MSNBC piece even indicates that she thinks she should have phrased her statement differently.
DEUTSCH: You said -- your exact words were, "Jews need to be perfected." Those are the words out of your mouth.COULTER: No, I'm saying that's what a Christian is.
DEUTSCH: But that's what you said -- don't you see how hateful, how anti-Semitic --
COULTER: No!
DEUTSCH: How do you not see? You're an educated woman. How do you not see that?
COULTER: That isn't hateful at all.
DEUTSCH: But that's even a scarier thought.
Coulter thinks she's a Jew. What's more anti-Semitic than that?
But perfected! Chosen, then honed, like a knife! Zing!
I also find it disturbing that she insist things "will be easier" for Jews when they inevitably become Christians. In what future context does she mean? Armaggedon? Because, okay, yeah, if you believe that, then sure, that's doctrine, but I don't think that's what she means. I think she means when the Christofascist state comes fully into being. You can convert the easy way, or the hard way, God's people!
She means when Armageddon comes and she is left to rule what remains of our world after the faithful have been raptured away.
Until her climactic battle with Jesus. Then the jews will just have to work things out with him.
The only Jews whose opinion Coulter cares about tend to have a strong political alliance with antisemites. It is interesting that MSNBC characterized her remarks as an apology. She doesn't apologize. If someone has a link to this apology, I'd like to see the actual words.
Deutsch was interesting, though. One wonders if he senses that Coulter's day might be ending. Truth is, Coulter was expressing a fairly tolerant brand of Christianity. Guess what: Christians think that non-Christians are spiritually inferior, and would be improved by conversion. This is controversial?
I would pay $50 for a line drawing by Coulter of a "perfected" Jew.
Seriously, can we just shoot her already and be done with it?
Not yet, Ann! Hang back! Hold your fire! Fucking shit.
Seriously, can we just shoot her already and be done with it?
My thoughts exactly. Yeshuva, when will someone drive a stake through that shiksa's heart?
it is odd, though, coulter saying something this stupid.
makes me think i have misunderstood her schtick.
cornell undergrad, ann arbor law, then a republican leg-breaker.
usually what this kind of background means is that you *pretend* to be a racist cretin, because it's good for the party, but in your personal beliefs you are twelve clicks further to the left.
e.g., your real social circle contains no bubbas at all, and quite a lot of educated powerful people from diverse backgrounds.
e.g. you publicly advocate killing fags, but you personally know and get along with many of them. (this seems to be more or less bush's story; publicly bubba, personally far more the connecticut blue-blood, though that's confused a bit by his deep hatred of anyone who represents the life of the mind.)
i guess i just did not think that coulter's venom reflected any of her own inward beliefs. even when she said that crap about invading m.e. countries, killing their leaders, and converting them, i had thought that was just fodder for the dittoheads.
but this seems to suggest that the rot goes further in.
sincerity is so over-rated.
Is that how you're supposed to kill a shiksa?
16: it's because she's inauthentic that she got in trouble. She doesn't know where the lines really are because she's faking it. After a while you forget that it's an act, and then you forget that you have to be self-conscious; she started to believe that she didn't care what the real limits were, and anyhow where did she have left to go?
You know what? Who gives a rat's ass if she just pretends to be a heinous asshole, or if she really is? The effect is the same.
I don't care, I'm just sort of fascinated. It's little details of reprehensible people's catastrophic declines that are the most rewarding.
19--
common, b., it makes a big difference.
in the one case, i'd use a hollow-point, in the other a wad-cutter.
She's a Deadhead, you know. And someone at Firedoglake reports that she charmed the pants off some gay opinion-leader dude.
You know what? Who gives a rat's ass if she just pretends to be a heinous asshole, or if she really is? The effect is the same.
Well, sure -- it's evil either way. But it's interesting from the point of view of explaining why she should screw up in this way. Seems like the tried to speak some version of fundietalk but she's got no ear for it. It's much more particular than hating on the faggy liberals.
9: Would involve rhinoplasty and the sanding down of horns, I'd guess.
You know, Coulter has crossed the line so many times that people treat it like it's insulation. Like, oh, we can't exile her from public conversation for eliminationist rhetoric about Jews, because it would be insulting to African Americans, or gays, who she's slandered and gotten away with it.
That's ridiculous. What makes something a "vote him off the island" moment isn't just the objective horrificness of the insult or whom it's levied against. It's a whole bunch of things lining up--not enough hard news to fill the cycle, some independent news item (like the right-wing attack on that little boy) that makes this pop big, some slightly different spin from the offender that makes the nastiness stick just a little better than it has before. And a big chunk of it is zeitgeisty popular opinion stuff nobody knows how to quantify or predict.
So, when that moment comes, you take it.
This whole nonsense about "oh, if we bust her for this, it will be a sign we're prejudiced and love Jews more than Black people, then we'll be no better than her because we'll be raaaacccciiiissstttssss..." is just total bullshit. Frankly, it sounds like self-serving bullshit she'd say.
And I'm sorry, the same way Al Capone couldn't use getting away with murder as a reason to let him get away with tax evasion, she can't use getting away with N* jokes to get away with K* jokes. And if we bust her for this, she, like Al Capone, will be sent where she belongs. Elsewheres than on my TV. I really don't care to debate whether it's the political equivalent of tax evasion or murder she's going down for. Just get her hateful, destructive opportunism out of my policy debates. Please.
Yeah, but has she ever backed down or apologized before? That's what ogged asked, and I'm curious. Anyone know?
I do think that she just forgot how to regulate her various codes. I don't think that she's an actual believing Christian, but I bet that she's a honkie nativist type who wants to make Jews secondary honkies.
18 sounds exactly right.
The thing that's real (that really can't be faked, I think) is the bone-deep meanness.
So: what about Malkin? Sincerely crazy, or just faking it?
28: right. She lost track of all the various things she's supposed to believe, all the people she's supposed to villify. It has to be pretty complicated, keeping up with the whimsical hatreds of those halfwits.
29: definitely sincerely racist. Probably also crazy.
Uh, sorry, I was apparently debating that with myself in my own head after misreading a comment.
Back to lurking, then. Sorry all.
...Elliot Ness Rules!
5: On review, I think you're right that the written article purports to be a summary of the video, and after looking at the video, it's clear that you are right that there is no apology.
Where was I reading yesterday that, whatever their true beliefs, the thing Malkin and Coulter have in common is that they both seem to genuinely enjoy making personal attacks?
I was in the process of writing "One useful indicator will be whether the Vol/okh crowd hang her out to dry or not. I'm guessing not." so I went over there to check. And sure enough here is Da/vid Ber/nstein arguing that what Coulter said was just what most major religions believe anyway -- except Jews, who are better.
19: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
It does seem that Movement Conservativism is flying apart. Coulter losing her cool about Jews is just one more thing. O'Reilly has been self-destructing in a big way, Limbaugh somewhat less so, they've been attacking dead soldiers and little kids, lots of Congressmen are resigning, the sex and corruption scandals proliferate (and sometimes even get publicity), and (most seriously) the anti-immigration Michael Savage wing has rejected Bush, and the Armageddon Christians are rejecting or doubting Giuliani, Romney, McCain, and even Thompson.
that's my dose of optimism for this year. I have trouble actually believing it.
So Ann Coulter quickly backs down when she insults people of the Jewish faith? Seriously, has she ever backed down or apologized before?
Obviously she realized she went too far this time, what with our control over the media and all.
But it's interesting from the point of view of explaining why she should screw up in this way.
The enduring secret of Coulter's success is that smart people still don't understand her schtick. She did not screw up.
It might be flying apart, but no part of it is flying left.
If this is what brings her down, doesn't that make Walt and Mearsheimer right?
I wonder if this will be like Coulter's woman suffrage remarks: not the first time she's talked like this, but maybe the first time it's gained so much attention.
If this is what brings her down, doesn't that make Walt and Mearsheimer right?
Of course this was in my mind when I wrote the post; not that it makes them "right," since their thesis is focused on foreign policy, but whether attacking the Jews really is a third rail, as Gonerill describes it. That's why I'm curious whether she's backed down before. But with the likes of Bernstein defending her, it looks like she's in the clear. You figure out what that means; I can't.
Oh, and 18 is insightful and well put. Sifu is finally banned.
The enduring secret of Coulter's success is that smart people still don't understand her schtick. She did not screw up.
Yeah, I see this line a lot. But I never get told precisely what the schtick is supposed to be, other than "skeleton in cocktail dress epater-ing les bourgeoisie, endlessly enabled by the media."
To summarize:
1. She didn't screw up.
2. She knows she didn't screw up.
3. She never apologizes because she's got a real gift for what she does, and she doesn't screw up. (If she ever did screw up and apologize, it would be the apology that would be the real error.)
4. She didn't apologize this time because she knows she didn't screw up this time.
5. Prediction: She's not going to apologize.
Thing is, a lot of Christians believe in the back of their heads somewhere that the Jews are going to be perfected and fall into line when the Messiah comes again. You're just not supposed to say so; it's rude.
But with the likes of Bernstein defending her
That's why I went over there and looked: he's an excellent weathervane for this sort of thing.
I don't see what the fuck the mystery is. Coulter and Malkin are opportunistic motherfuckers who've seen openings for conventionally attractive women to suck the cocks of the far right and get paid for it, and they've taken them. Whether they're True Believers or just sellouts is a complete non-issue.
39 is wrong. Coulter survives as long as she has access to TV. This could cost her that access.
B, we're curious about 1) the psychology of the suckers of right-wing cock and 2) how the right-wing cock-sucking machine calibrates and polices itself.
I'm wondering whether she didn't cross a line, though.
You have to wonder about the TV creeps who have enabled her. Maher for example, who will occasionally say something non-stupid and non-rightwing.
Speaking of blondes, when I hate Dana Perino I find it almost impossible to avoid sexism. I don't hate her more than the others at all, but I'm more likely to express myself wrongly.
45: you, sir, are the Moses of the backhanded compliment.
She's a Deadhead, you know.
That isn't to her credit. At least in the south, most of the Deadheads I've encountered since college have been pretty conservative politically. If people wonder why I like to talk smack about "hippies," it's because I've encountered lots of them who are happy to smoke their pot, listen to the Dead, and vote Republican.
Anyway, compared to Coulter, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are harmless. That the likes of Coulter and Malkin are taken seriously by news people shows the real rot in American media.
35: Nice call.
I don't think this will bring her down, exactly. But it seems to me she's been on her way for a while now (or is that wishful thinking on my part?). I think that business with Edwards might have actually hurt her, at least a little. Not with her base, obviously (they're beyond redemption anyway, no matter how "perfected"), but perhaps with the people who make decisions about whether or not to invite her to this or that media circus. Of course, she still circulates freely in public ... so probably I'm being too optimistic.
Why the googleproofing in 35?
Dude, because of the jews, obviously.
Hey, speaking of media, I noticed that Keith Olbermann is doing Sunday Night Football for NBC, and I really like his game summaries. (Brings me back to high school mornings watching SportsCenter.) I think this is a positive move towards mainstreaming his MSNBC rants: "Hey, this clever guy who knows a lot about sports also hates Bush? Hmm."
The shtick is that she gets a lot of attention and makes a lot of waves and people end up talking about stupid-ass bullshit instead of anything that actually matters.
If you leave the link in, it's not entirely googleproof, is it?
It's not googleproof at all. Consider it an act of symbolic violence.
Deadheads in Oregon are tremendously provincial and anti-intellectual, tending toward anti-tax libertarianism. I wouldn't be surprised if Oregon is 5% Deadhead, loosely defined.
53: Bah. So talking about education is crazy-making and a pain in the ass, but analyzing the psychology of Coulter and Malkin is important and shouldn't be dismissed.
I do not understand you people at all.
50 also serves pretty well as a response to 46. And how does this video conflict with the successful schtick B describes? It doesn't. And to say it again: That's why she didn't apologize, and why she won't apologize.
51: Walt, 39 is right precisely because this won't cost her access to TV.
54: Wonder no more. You heard it here first. She crossed no line.
Coulter will fall when the movement that spawned her falls. An optimist might think that's on the way, but this kerfluffle is meaningless.
I can't speak to Malkin (I ignore her utterly), but I can't see Coulter as simply calculating.
16, 18:
i guess i just did not think that coulter's venom reflected any of her own inward beliefs.
She doesn't know where the lines really are because she's faking it.
I don't think she's faking it. She's mad, and in that madness comes confusion.
It's not as though there's a coherent position at hand in all the things she comes out with. And to the extent that there is *supposed* to be one, her gradual breakdown is helpful: it demonstrates the fundamental incoherence of that particular breed of christian conservativism, and whatever the hell else it's supposed to be.
So what's interesting about this is that she's publicly faltering. There's enough of a reality-check still in place that she's able to register her loss of capital in the larger political arena.
On preview, a lot of this is pwned.
So talking about education is crazy-making and a pain in the ass, but analyzing the psychology of Coulter and Malkin is important and shouldn't be dismissed.
Who said anything about important? Some people are just more interested in the one than the other.
54: apparently she's extremely nice in person. I'm sure that helps you.
B, listening to you and D^2 troll one another was the crazy-making part.
I don't see how it can be meaningless. She insulted the wrong group. She also insulted a host.
67: teo, there is only a certain amount of energy people have for commenting here. If we do not adhere to strict prioritization, how will we have any chance of solving all of our nation's most important problems?
I don't see how it can be meaningless. She insulted the wrong group. She also insulted a host.
Only meaningful if it keeps other hosts from inviting her on their shows.
the likes of Coulter and Malkin are taken seriously by news people
Are they though? Malkin's got this wierd symbiotic thing with O'Reilly going on, sure, but Chris Matthews was making the NPR book tour recently and was asked about his tiff with her, and he was openly scornful. Coulter gets asked on shows, but you get the sense that the hosts are handling them with ten-foot poles. It's like the "serious" journalists (as distinct from actually serious journalists) like to have them on to remind themselves of their seriousness. "Look! Look! I'm fair and rational! She's a vicious hack, but I'm serious."
Lefties enable Coulter and Malkin too, unfortunately: by writing in angry letters and clicking on links. None of the news people know how journalism is going to make money in the digital age, but they all know how to measure pageviews...
Why the googleproofing in 35?
Dude, because of the jews, obviously.
Jewgleproofing?
apparently she's extremely nice in person
Sure, like Hollywood, the cable news circuit is an ego and flattery system--you don't get anywhere if you don't know how to flatter the right people.
70: We seem to have the granola bar problems sorted out. On to the next-highest priority!
74: oh, I hear this from utter insiders. She doesn't need to flatter them. They're the same tribe.
News shows don't take themselves seriously, which is why they let Coulter on.
St. Thomas U. around here just refused to let Desmond Tutu speak for fear of Abe Foxman, but had Coulter speak a year or two ago. The flak they got for the Coulter appearance was their justification for banning Tutu. Go figure.
She doesn't need to flatter them. They're the same tribe.
I'm not sure I get the connection. Still tons of flattery going on there, no?
What's weird is that there's apparently a substantial number of people out there who aren't afraid of a group of people who are powerful enough to kill God but are afraid of having members of that group say mean things about them on television. I don't quite get the worldview.
Reading all the comments, I have to say everyone has gone wrong, under politicalfootball's evil spell. Coulter is in serious danger here. She's going to pay a price here because while there are almost no blacks or openly gay people in the charmed circle of insiders, there are some Jews, enough to claim her scalp if they want it.
Walt and Mearsheimer have this very week been proven wrong. The Israel lobby were bullied by the government of Turkey to try to kill the Armenian genocide resolution, and they failed to do so. Instead, the White House has to resort to a full-court press to try to kill it.
Lefties enable Coulter and Malkin too, unfortunately: by writing in angry letters and clicking on links. None of the news people know how journalism is going to make money in the digital age, but they all know how to measure pageviews...
This is a real dilemma. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away, and it means you're letting it stand, not offering a counterclaim or whatever. But taking it seriously, if only to point out why it shouldn't be taken seriously, is still paying it the compliment of taking it seriously enough that you're not ignoring it. And clicking on the links increases the pageviews.
80: more self-congratulatory insiderness. The constant, ongoing DC circle-jerk.
The people I know are actually quite nice, but well inside the DC bubble.
If there is any machine you want to have finely calibrated, it would be a cock sucking machine. Otherwise it might blow a fuse.
there are some Jews, enough to claim her scalp if they want it.
Well I hope like hell they decide to crucify her.
The important thing here is not whether Coulter is removed from public discourse. Doesn't matter. What matters is that the Big Tent Right is, on all sides, pulling the camera back and showing that the tent has, like, 1% of the population in it.
Turns out, they hate the middle class! And they don't give a shit about the hispanic vote, or the black vote! And whoops, turns out bringing Friddom to all the peoples of the world is not as cool as paying mercenaries to shoot 'em up! And whoops, sorry conservative Christians; did you really think this was all about little old You? Well, at least the Zionists still know where to get their bread butte... oopsie!
All right, question for the group: I am looking at buying a car. As a Jew, do I have a moral obligation/should I feel guilty about buying a German brand? "No, of course not," I always thought. "We've moved way beyond WWII by now, and today's Germans aren't Nazis. Bygones."
But a fellow MOT harshed all over me for that, saying that the people sitting in the boardrooms of Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, etc. are in many cases the descendants of Really Bad People who supported the war machine that sent our ancestors to their deaths; no need to support them with our vehicular purchases. (This particular guy also won't wear anything by Hugo Boss, because, he says, HB designed the uniforms for the SS.)
So, will I lose my soul if I buy that sweet 6-cylinder 4WD Audi TT with the DSG transmission?
82: Oddly, Walt, I feel I am having no influence whatsoever on this thread, and that pretty much everybody commenting must be on drugs (except B, who does seem to get the whole Coulter thing.)
"do I have a moral obligation" s/b "do I have a moral obligation to avoid"
89: no.
Well that was easy!
I should be a rabbi.
So, will I lose my soul if I buy that sweet 6-cylinder 4WD Audi TT with the DSG transmission?
Ann Althouse drives an Audi TT.
And no other Jews drive Beemers.
Gaijin, you don't have a soul, remember?
they all know how to measure pageviews...
This is right, and...trolling works.
And no other Jews drive Beemers.
Not even Iranian Jews?
Gaijin, you don't have a soul, remember?
Figure of speech.
GB, I would say go ahead and buy it. The reasoning people give for not buying German cars sounds suspiciously like advice to boycott anything remotely related to Germany (which, indeed, such people sometimes advise), which I think is ludicrous at this point. It's also usually related to the ugly tribalist side of Judaism that I can't stand.
I guess I should go with a Japanese or Italian model, then. Why is it that our former enemies make all the good cars?
"But they make such bloody good cameras, eh?"
Why is it that our former enemies make all the good cars?
Revenge.
101 was in response to 98.
I actually agree with teo's 100, but a car is such a big, visible item that can magnify normally insignificant issues.
I haven't really been speculating much about Coulter's inner life and motives. I'm just wondering why she taunted Jews and whether she'll get away with it. She's not an equal-opportunity taunter.
I also wonder how well the fluffy infotainment establishment will take to her level of anti-Semitism. Taunting liberals, blacks, native Americans, Arabs, the French, the poor, etc. is her schtick, but Jews aren't supposed to be on the list.
Yeah, just because Hitler personally designed the VW isn't any reason to boycott.
This particular guy also won't wear anything by Hugo Boss, because, he says, HB designed the uniforms for the SS.
Huh. In my closet is a Hugo Boss shirt given to me by an ex who turned out to be an anti-Semite. Suddenly it all makes sense.
87 is a thing of beauty. I hope people less obsessive than we are seeing the same thing.
89: This may not be the time to get into my view that statutes of limitation and repose are not merely rules of convenience but a part of substantive justice, but no, you won't lose your soul. You're not responsible for your ancestors' acts and they (assuming the factual premise is correct, which I wouldn't bet on) aren't responsible for theirs.
PF, even ogged conceded your point way back in 44.
As a Jew, do I have a moral obligation/should I feel guilty about buying a German brand? Jewing down the dealer?
107: With expert help, John. Give poor Porsche his due.
110: And then in 45 directly contradicts his momentary flash of wisdom in 44.
I don't understand your sense that you have the answer, pf. I think Coulter did go too far, and if she isn't being publicly thrown under the bus, I'd guess that she's being told that doing this again won't fly. Calibration.
I'm just wondering why she taunted Jews and whether she'll get away with it.
There appears to be a very weird and specific set of unfogged-related biases at work here. Let's take this apart.
1. Coulter's message was very orthodox, and quite charitable by Christian standards. No Christ-killers here, just good folks who haven't quite put together all of the pieces of the puzzle. If there were more people in this thread with a serious grounding in Christianity, this wouldn't be a subject of conversation.
2. Obviously, being substantively moderate isn't enough to avoid being accused of extremism. Deutch's reaction to Coulter - the fact that he felt comfortable making this accusation - is the real headline news here. Otherwise, this incident would have gone unremarked. I wonder if he senses some kind of weakness - perhaps in the wake of that women's suffrage stuff.
3. The idea that the Jews control the media is similar in its naivete to the idea that liberals control the media. Yes, yes, there are a lot of Jews and a lot of liberals in the media, but somehow Ann Coulter keeps showing up on TV. Until people understand why this happens, they will be mystified by the fact that after this incident, she will continue to show up on TV.
89: I'm not a fellow MOT, but oddly enough, I find myself at least halfway in agreement with your friend. Not that I can justify this. But even the name Volkswagen sort of icks me out a little, given what little I know of its origins.
I'm not at all saying you shouldn't buy anything German. I basically agree with Teo (100). But the Volkswagen does seem like a special case.
And no, you're not responsible for your ancestors, but you shouldn't piss on their graves either (unless with good cause, of course).
The Hugo Boss objection strikes me as a little bit dubious.
PF, did you think your evil spell would last forever? Evil sorcerers expect everything to come easy these days. I blame TV.
If there were more people in this thread with a serious grounding in Christianity
I read the DaVinci code.
Sheesh. Next thing you people are going to tell me there's some moral problem with me commanding a panzer division.
If there were more people in this thread with a serious grounding in Christianity, this wouldn't be a subject of conversation.
Try not to be insufferable, dude.
Yes, yes, there are a lot of Jews and a lot of liberals in the media, but somehow Ann Coulter keeps showing up on TV. Until people understand why this happens, they will be mystified by the fact that after this incident, she will continue to show up on TV.
I agree with that. The contention that yes, of course Christians hate Jews, I do not agree with. God knows a lot of Christianity is pretty godawfully anti-semitic, but there are plenty of Christians who aren't into that crap.
God knows a lot of Christianity is pretty godawfully anti-semitic
I would hope he does.
And no, you're not responsible for your ancestors, but you shouldn't piss on their graves either
How is it pissing on your ancestors' graves to buy from (be friends with, etc.) the descendants of people who wronged them? And why does the degree of wrong make a difference? (I'm assuming that's part of the argument; none of the local honkies went nuts yesterday when people confessed to being Brits, or vice versa.)
I don't understand your sense that you have the answer, pf.
Because Jesus died for my sins. All Christians have the answer - the only distinction is that some of us are more gracious about discussing that fact with our inferiors.
More specifically, I have the answer in this case for the same reason Bernstein has the answer (as you seem willing to concede). Because we're paying attention.
I think Coulter did go too far, and if she isn't being publicly thrown under the bus, I'd guess that she's being told that doing this again won't fly.
Even Hillary isn't proposing a right-wing conspiracy this vast - you figure they've already called Bernstein? This is exactly what I mean about not understanding Coulter's schtick. Her entire schtick is going too far.
Look, someday I truly believe that she will go too far - and maybe that day is today. But it won't be because she crosses a line, it will be because the line moves. (Again: it should be Deutch's behavior that you should be watching here, not Couler's.)
And no, "The Jews" don't have the ability or the willingness to move the line on their own. All my previous bullshit aside (including my bullshit in this post), I genuinely find something a bit anti-semitic in this suggestion.
Try not to be insufferable, dude.
Yeah, okay. I'll work on it. But every time I try to figure out what Coulter said here that is different from orthodox American Christianity, I can only find elements that are more tolerant. Can someone give me an example, using a quote?
If there were more people in this thread with a serious grounding in Christianity, this wouldn't be a subject of conversation.
I have a Footprints in the Sand tea towel.
Bernstein doesn't matter. We all understand why Coulter gets invited on TV: she's the TV equivalent of an internet troll. But no one is moving the line -- she crossed a line that was already there.
it will be because the line moves
This is exactly what I think; I don't really see where we're disagreeing, so maybe there's some misunderstanding. I don't think and didn't mean to imply that "The Jews" will smack down X or Y, and I don't think any of this is centrally coordinated. I do know that even by the rules of Coulter's shtick, which is saying outrageous things designed to piss off liberals and gore their sacred cows, going after Jews or Judiasm is not acceptable. That's not to say that there isn't some real anti-semitism among Christians in America, but it's not as if that's Coulter's primary, let alone sole, audience. She's playing a political game, and the right-wing doesn't go after the Jews right now.
and the right-wing doesn't go after the Jews right now
Quite the reverse -- and I mean amongst the religious right.
PF, you're mixing up what orthodox Christian doctrine can be interpreted to say and what you're allowed to say on TV.
Quite the reverse -- and I mean amongst the religious right.
Heh. Indeed.
GB: It's OK for you to get a German car as long as you affix a bumper sticker that says "This machine funds fascists."
Let me totally support politicalfootball on this last point. Of all the many horrible things said by Coulter, this doesn't even move the needle. Rather, she's just saying what *any* sincere member of a proselytizing religion believes: people would be better off if they shared the true faith. There's nothing to see here. It's only, as PF notes, because there's a well-grounded expectation that Coulter will cross the line into hateful speech that this is perceived as line-crossing. It isn't.
On Gaijin Biker's Audi. The real test is: will it freak out your grandmother? If she's like mine, she knows VW, BMW, and Mercedes but probably doesn't really understand that Audi exists. You are in the clear.
going after Jews or Judiasm is not acceptable.
129: We've got two key disagreements, and they are both embodied in this phrase. First: She didn't "go after" Jews or Judaism. (If you want to see her "go after" something, listen to her talk about invading their countries, killing their leaders and converting them all to Christianity.)
Second: If she had gone after the Jews, doing so is often acceptable in this Christian nation.
Again: It was Deutch who went after her - and that bears watching.
I do know that even by the rules of Coulter's shtick, which is saying outrageous things designed to piss off liberals and gore their sacred cows, going after Jews or Judiasm is not acceptable.
Dunno. There was a fair bit of Gibson defense by the Religious Right, as I recall. Coulter is making a guess about where the base sits, sure in the knowledge that--as Sifu said--her people in the media "know it's just schtick."
134: "My other car is a GAZ."
somehow Ann Coulter keeps showing up on TV.
At some point the media turns on its creatures. I think Coulter's about due for the trashing that is the usual conclusion of the celebrity cycle. Although what do I know? I thought reality television was played out five years ago. What I do know is I'd really enjoy punching Ann Coulter.
131 is exactly right. No one other than the Falwells and the Pat Buchanans actually say this on national TV. About Muslims and heathens, yes. About Jews (or Catholics, for that matter), no.
baa's actually sort of convincing on Coulter. This isn't that offensive, and if Podhoretz can give Robertson (I thin) a pass on "Good for Israel" grounds, I don't think this is a problem for Coulter.
So: what about Malk/n? Sincerely crazy, or just faking it?
I knew her husband in college, and I'm inclined to believe the former. (Interestingly, she was also there, but in no way registered on the campus political scene.) She clearly gets off on being theatrical about it, but I think she believes what she says.
actually sort of convincing
High praise!
I do think that it isn't, in general, the done thing to publicly draw out the logic of religious belief (e.g., that fact that Protestants think Catholics are making a big mistake). This seems to me like a perfectly good social taboo.
this strikes me as less offensive than: (1) most things Coulter says, (2) things you hear not so infrequently from politicians--see, e.g. Rick Perry on how non-Christians are going to hell and (3) all theWar on Christmas bullsh*t.
It's really odd, the way the press from time to time gets bent out of shape about things like Pope Benedict saying Catholicism is the one true religion & other religions have lesser truths. Not that I'm a fan of his, but dude. He's the pope! Of course he thinks that.
baa, Katherine: Less offensive to you. More offensive to the people who book for TV shows.
Since this is a fresh incident and we are all discussing the impact of it, you'd think we could come up with a set of testable predictions. I'm not optimistic, though.
Ogged is willing to accept the idea that Coulter might not suffer for this. I, on the other hand, have described my explanation if Coulter does have problems from this. So I haven't been making a testable prediction either.
But for my part, I'm prepared to back away from my wimpiness and say that this incident will blow over in a week, tops.
Walt Someguy, you're going to set a record for on-the-money concision in this thread.
Someone else say something wrong!
#135: The real test is: will it freak out your grandmother? If she's like mine, she knows VW, BMW, and Mercedes but probably doesn't really understand that Audi exists. You are in the clear.
I suppose these should put my mind at ease (although there was this matter from about 5 years ago.)
148: Hooray for you, Walt. You're a man who's willing to take a stand, make a prediction and stick by it.
I am reminded of the "Betrayus" conversation here - and how different predictions were made about how that would play out. Unfortunately in that case - and I suspect in this one - a few weeks pass and I bet we are all be prepared to say that we read the situation exactly right, no matter how we read the situation.
OT: The SciFi Channel is showing "The Day After" right now. I'm not sure why. It's '80s nostalgia of a kind I could really do without.
I would totally pwn you with my prediction on the Betrayus thread, but I have no idea what it was. So I'm prepared to say that I read the situation exactly right.
Is it possible that Coulter was pulling a sort of flea-flicker, reverse-double-back-statue-of-liberty-jew-bait-on-two, hut-hut, hike?
"Ze liberal jews will all come down on me now, because zeez jews control EVERYSING. Ach mein gott! Real jews bomb Iran. Tomorrow."
I'm just being conspirative, right?
154: Ah, yes. My own self-image of infallibility is no doubt aided by a leaky memory. For the record, though, I was pro-Betrayus (and therefore anti-Petraeus.)
Upon re-reading 155 pwned by Walt's 82. Ah, crap.
OT: Aaaaaand my roommate closed the window, lest I, from the back porch, hear him and his lady friend bump the proverbial uglies. And yet, I hear on. Where is JRoth when I need him?
148: I don't get it. Because they're Jewish? How is it less offensive to Jews in any way than "all non-Christians are going to hell"?
160: I don't really know why, but there's clearly a rule as to what you're allowed to say about "Judeo-Christianity" on TV. Your pope example also demonstrates the existence of the rule.
Whenever I hear the term "Judeo-Christian", the "deo" makes me think of Harry Belafonte singing "DAAAAAAAAAY-OH" in the banana boat song.
I think a lot of the tensions surrounding religious issues in America could be reduced if we actually pronounced the word that way, plus it would be more culturally inclusive.
142: Totally OT, but I thought you and I went to the same college, Sir Kraab. I don't recall the particular post--maybe something about the No Entry category for grades below C-?--but something you wrote here recently rang a bell for me. I also attended Malkin's alma mater--from Fall '91 through Spring '95. Did we overlap at all? (NickFranklin is an online/creative-writing persona, BTW, not my real name. Feel free to email, though, if you'd like more concrete details.)
Walt and Mearsheimer have this very week been proven wrong. The Israel lobby were bullied by the government of Turkey to try to kill the Armenian genocide resolution, and they failed to do so. Instead, the White House has to resort to a full-court press to try to kill it.
hmmmm, I think that what this shows is that the political gang currently trading under the brand "The Israel Lobby" are actually much more committed to their own wildly eccentric politics than to the actual country of Israel (Foxman, who I at least respect as a consistent nationalist, started on the other side of this issue but was then forced to back down by the claque of whining weirdoes who thought that the genocide of the Armenians in 1915 was such an urgent issue that it took priority over the security of Iraqi Kurdistan). I'm thinking of writing something in the general area for the Guardian.
On the general subject of the psycholog of Coulter, Malkin etc, do they really mean it? I'm reminded of Quentin Crisp's quote:
"It's no good thinking to yourself that your true dream is to be a ballet dancer while working as a pig farmer for thirty years. After thirty years, pigs will be your style."
Coulter might be in trouble because she offended the happy little we support Israel christian rightwing haters circle by revealing that oops, they actually still think Jews are failed Christians and not sworn comrades in the battle against Islamofascism or whatever. Not because what she said was that more outrageous to people outside the rightwing loonybin.
115: PF, you're being obtuse. Yes, Coulter's response was orthodox Christianity, but Coulter is a political hack, not a religionist. Her political gang is organized around the fake Judeo-Christian religion, as I started off by saying. And one of the gang's rules is that the dominant Christians tactfully refrain from telling their junior partners exactly what they're thinking. Not because the Jews don't know already, but so that the Jewish gang leaders aren't publicly embarrassed by having to explain things to their rank and file. Podhoretz, Bernstein, and especially Foxman (who is defined as a Jewish leader, the way the other two aren't; P. and B. actually represent a tiny minority of Jews) could come under pressure.
The mob is defined as an ecumenical patriotic anti-terrorist group, not as a fundamentalist Christian group. Without allies the Armageddon Christians return to political obscurity. Robertson and Falwell represent the Armageddonists, but even they minimize their anti-Semitism. As I understand, Coulter was supposed to be one of the ecumenical ones, speaking to everyone recruitable -- right libertarians, militarist nationalists, liberal-haters, and less political types terrified by terrorism. A lot of the job is just softening up non-Republicans so they don't oppose Bush strongly.
Jews don't control the media, but they're extraordinarily influential there. Contrast Polish-Americans, Asian-Americans (who outnumber Jews demographically) or Native Americans and Jehovah Witnesses (who have half to a third the Jewish population). Not a bad thing, but true.
I think that many moderate Christian sects allow for the salvation of unconverted religious Jews. But they're by definition theologically liberal Christians (though not necessarily politically liberal).
Another vote for 131/166. If nothing else, the religious zealot wing of the Republican party counts on no one with a microphone ever taking them at their word, and on always always always soft-peddling the very real distrust between right-wing Catholics and right-wing Protestants. Coulter didn't actually say anything out of bounds, in the way that John Gibson did with his "white people shoot like this, but Negroes shoot like this" racist screed, but she said something embarrassing and revealing -- and not in a Coulter brand-building way but in a potentially damaging way to the Republican party -- on national t.v.
Gibson didn't really go out of bounds, because almost any level of anti-black racism is OK. But any tinge of anti-Semitism is risky.
Out of bounds by the standards of a decent society, not by the standards of Fox News.
OT, but congratulations to Nobel laureate Al Gore. I look forward to warbloggers heads bursting like overripe melons all day! I'll think fondly of this moment every time I watch Scanners.
Yes, congrats to Gore, and it's classy that he's handing the cash to an existing organisation rather than setting up his own foundation. But I'm not convinced by the way the Swedes have stretched the definition of "peace".
On the other hand, I can't think of anybody else I'd give it to this year. When was it last not awarded?
Answering own question, 1972. The next year they gave it to Kissinger, so clearly they have to be a bit desperate not to award.
Laying down markers: Coulter is in trouble. She's in trouble because she's unhappy with the R race for Pres., the situation in Iraq and whatnot. She tends to shoot her mouth off a lot (because yo, she's bugnuts) but when she shot her mouth off that we should invade and conquer various Arab countries and convert them to Christianity, she had the wind to her back and didn't offend anybody but Arabs Muslims, and of course, nobody important in TVLand gives a shit about what the Muslims think. The wind is now against her, and she's saying shit that WILL offend people in TVLand, so she's in bad trouble. Not finished yet, but once the TVLand people become suspicious of you, they start zeroing in on everything you say, and shit that was just fine yesterday is the mark of the devil today (cf. William Jefferson Clinton).
She'll be in much worse trouble come the end of 2008 (probably 'finished') unless she gets rescued by an R victory, but then she'll be screwed in 2009 instead. She can make a comeback in 2012 after all this has blown over (cf. any celebrity you care to name, try say, Martha Stewart).
max
['I will remain steadfast in not paying any attention to her.']
Coulter will continue to show up on television for as long as she sells books, and she will continue to sell books until she becomes too old to be considered conventionally attractive. Anything else she says or does in the meantime only raises her profile.
She doesn't necessarily sell books. There are a lot of mass buys to get her numbers up.
I give this episode a 50-50 chance of severely impacting her career. As Leo Strauss said, you have to butter up your allies, not your enemies, and she slipped.
It's possible that she's tired of the whole game and doesn't care any more. It has to be wearing. I bet she also realizes, at a minimum, that the Bush era is over and we're going into a new stage of the game. A lot of the hard right is abandoning Bush, and the Judeo-Christian fakery with it (cf. Buchanan).
This Armenia resolution thing is completely bewildering. First of all, the genocide was perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire under the direction of a Sultan. Not by the government that now exists or the Turkish country that now exists, let alone by any people who now exist. Second of all, it was done in the context of a war in which the other great powers similarly gave no consideration to the human life in the areas they were fighting over, as was the style at the time. The Armenians were thought to be planning to ally with the Arab nationalists and the small but thought-to-be-mysteriosuly-powerful Jewish population in Palestine to help the Allies undermine the Ottomans.
So anyway, my main question is:
A) Why does anyone in this country want this country's government to spend more than 0 seconds per decade discussing this matter?
B) Why does the Turkish government care whether people in this country care or not?
176B - Because the Turkish government cares deeply about this. The Ottoman Empire at the time was ruled by the Young Turks, who were proto-Kemalists; contemporary Turks have been prosecuted for "insulting Turkishness" for discussion of the Armenian genocide.
Armenian-Americans and Greek-Americans care, as do Armenian-Armenians and Greek-Greeks. The hardest-core anti-Islamists do too, though the Israelis do not. A dispute over whether the Armenians are infringing on the "genocide" trademark is a subplot.
In the case of Turkey it seems to be blind nationalism. They could disavow the massacres (Ataturk apparently wasn't involved) but they'd have to disavow part of their glorious past since some of the killers were heros in other respects. (I think.) And the Ottoman tradition is part of the national tradition.
(I do believe that the massacres were in an unsettled post-Ottoman period, or committed by Ottoman dissidents, or something like that .....)
176B: Imagine in this country if our Founding Fathers had been complicit in genocide. I think you'd find a lot of people here who would be pretty sensitive about it - a lot of angry denialists.
Yeah, imagine that.
I wonder if the Turkish parliament will pass a resolution censuring Andrew Jackson.
179 is a joke, right? I really think it's funny the way that "Native American genocide" is a concept that is universally accepted among a certain, not-insignificant portion of the American populace, and yet raises either blank stares or angry denial among everyone else. I wonder if schools teach it differently than they used to - it seems to me that the zeitgeist on this has changed, but I have a hard time imagining 5th grade textbooks accurately describing what the White Man really did.
158: I tried calling his phone to break things up, but he had it switched off. Sorry, man.
159: A lot of houses are designed for master BR/kids' BR separation these days, and certain common apt layouts give good privacy separation between BRs, but not a lot of houses are designed for apartment-retrofit privacy. The house next door to mine resolved this by putting a BR in the front room, adjacent to the porch, with the other BR off the back. So privacy from within, but not from without.
Obviously the solution is for you to get some, as well.
176: Are you bewildered mainly by the fact that Turkey gets so pissed over this, or are you bewildered over the resolution itself? Because the resolution - which you can read here, in PDF - certainly doesn't blame the genocide on the modern Turkish state, but on the Ottoman Empire.
I think opposition to this resolution is pretty fucking creepy, generally speaking. If the government of Germany refused to recognize the Holocaust, and instead of prosecuting Holocaust deniers prosecuted Germans who insisted that the Holocaust had happened, most people would find that pretty fucking unsettling, despite the fact that the modern German state is not the same state that killed six million Jews. Of course, the U.S. Congress is long overdue in recognizing the U.S. government's genocide of Native Americans, but that's another story.
No, the solution is masturbation to the aural porn he's getting for free.
And does anyone know, by the way, why the BBC style is to put "Armenian 'genocide'" in scare quotes? Is this to protect the delicate sensibilities of BBC readers in the Turkish government? Because I'm finding it hard to imagine a major media organization extending that kind of courtesy to Holocaust deniers.
We've talked before about the BBC being bizarrely scare quote heavy.
The opposition to the resolution comes from the fact that Turkey is poised to send their army into Kurdistan, and many people think that anything that makes that less likely is good.
What I like about Unfogged is that it's a personal journal of discovery. For example, I learn from 186 that when I only get three hours sleep I write like a retarded chimp.
185: Iraq strike 'kills 15 civilians'
"Again: It was Deutch who went after her - and that bears watching."
I'm a little dubious at the earnestness of Deutch's repugnance. I wonder if he made an assessment that it would be more valuable to be a one-time Coulter killer than to have her back on the show.
Moreover, Deutch illustrated the benefit of hosting a show. Hosts like Limbaugh, O'Reilly and Olberman are skilled at manipulating discourse. No matter what they say, they will always have radio- or cable-enough ratings to stay in business. Remember the initial averseness of CBS and MSNBC to fire Imus.
(Crap. I'm always behind on the blog discourse.)
Roughly speaking, Turks slaughtered Armenians in 1915, and Armenians retaliated via a close alliance with Stalin through a war and extensive Azeri deportations from 1922 onward. The relevant history is usually written by one party or the other, so each terrible event is discussed only in partisan terms, a bit like Israeli-Palestinian relations today. Treating the burying grounds with dignity would be an obvious step. Baku and Yerevan are supposed to be really neat places to see, as is much of eastern Turkey. Too bad the border is closed, it would be a cool place to drive around.
On the Armenian genocide resolution thing: this resolution has come up each year for a long time, generally put forward by some rep or another with a lot of Armenians in his/her district. Each year it gets a bunch of co-sponsors, because, hey, who wants to go on the record endorsing genocide denial? And every year, the State Dept. comes over and has a quiet word with the congressional leadership about how, yes, it's true, there was a genocide, but this isn't a good year to endanger relations with our ally Turkey because <foo>.
Only this year, apparently the argument from the wise men in the White House that we can't risk upsetting our allies by mouthing off in order to please a domestic constitutency is no longer so convincing.
Possibly another sign that the winger coalition is disintegrating into its various different component pathologies.
Why, exactly, would the US Congress address a situation from a century ago that the US had no involvement in, anyway?
Uh, because some American voters care about the issue deeply & have gone to the work of lobbying their congressmen, etc about it?
Yeah, I understand that, Tom, but it isn't really what I'm driving at. Let's say the resolution passes. What difference has been made?
Well, it's succeeded in pissing off Turkey, which I'm sure is at least 10% of what the Armenian-Americans were hoping to do. But it also makes it that little bit less tenable for Turkey to go on with its own national policy of genocide-denial.
(I'm of two minds on this one: on the one hand, this time around it really IS horrible timing. On the other hand, State has been saying that it was horrible timing every year for the past N years, and it seems like at some point this kind of no-actions-attached resolution really should get passed.)
On the other hand, State has been saying that it was horrible timing every year for the past N years, and it seems like at some point this kind of no-actions-attached resolution really should get passed.
But the very persistence of those trying, year after year, to get the resolution passed means that the longer it takes, the more it looks like a determined and significant action by our government instead of a perfunctory resolution acknowledging the obvious.
The same would be true about the resolution acknowledging Ramadan if Virgil Goode's racist bloc had really put up a stink about it. If it had taken two weeks of debate before passing it, commentators would be saying "Well it finally happened, Congress decided to take a stand on the Ramadan issue. Let's see how that plays out in the Muslim world, because we know a lot has been riding on what position Congress would take. Will Bush veto Islam?!?!?"
When something is made into a big deal in the public eye, the public then knows that the people making the decision are aware that it's a big deal, so that makes the decision into a big decision.
The flip side of which is: if the Turks didn't kick up such a fuss year after year (and in so many different ways) nobody would give a shit, either.
Yeah, I guess, but it seems like annually debating a resolution that proclaims the Senate's agreement that the French were shitty toward the Huguenots.
199: Depends on how much distance you see between yourself and the events involved. There are a lot of Armenians who are still pretty pissed off about the whole thing.
Are they going to be less pissed off after a piece of meaningless, symbolic legislation gets passed?
They'll dance in the streets.
Apo: objectively pro-genocide.
199: If France still prosecuted writers for writing that "we were pretty shitty to the Huguenots", that analogy might hold.
@27 Stanley: No, she's never backed down or "apologized" before (I don't consider this an apology until I see a citation of what she said that's different from anything that's appeared).
Her being even slightly willing to back down in this case might be due to:
- Her perception that in _this_ case, the line crossed has the actual threat of being career-ending. John Emerson's point, more or less.
- The fact that she's currently dating Andrew Stein and almost certainly does have other Jewish friends and associates.
If she had gone after the Jews, doing so is often acceptable in this Christian nation.
It is never acceptable from a public figure or on teevee.
201: Meaningless symbolic legislation always makes me feel better.
I am sorely tempted to make some snarky remark about eating pork on the Sabbath, but I think there's too much grizzle on the girl to make it worthwhile.
Tempted, yes, but I won't make that remark.
I think there's too much grizzle on the girl
?
CN, awhile back Ann Hominem make her infamous remark about John Edwards being a fag, but she said it in this manner (very rough paraphrase - not worth looking up):
I'd like to call him a fag but I won't.
So she says it, but disavows saying it, yet says it. Tempted, yes, but I won't make that remark(/i> is from her playbook.
"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."
I've seen her on news shows protesting that she didn't actually call Edwards a faggot.
Thanks Apostropher. Basically the same construct.
211.
Actually, now that I see the quote, it is more layered than I recalled. The Coulter remark is also a poke at Jackson and Sharpton in addition to Edwards.
Sigh, late to the ball again. Here's the thing: The apparent contradiction of AC being bedfellows with the Jewish ultra-rightists is resolved when we realize that she is a White Christian chauvinist and Foxman and his incorporated mob are Jewish chauvinists. They both support chauvinist agendas, and thus can be comfortable in one another's company most of the time because they are equally opposed to equality and freedom for people outside of their respective groups.
Just found my favorite part of the Deutsch/Coulter exchange:
COULTER: No, it's true. I give all of these speeches at megachurches across America, and the one thing that's really striking about it is how utterly, completely diverse they are, and completely unself-consciously. You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it's like they have a chip on their shoulder. They're just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And --
DEUTSCH: I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don't see any more or less chips there either way. That's erroneous.
COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you're lying.
Proof that Ann Coulter is insane: She thinks you're lying if you don't consider Seinfeld episodes to be true anecdotes.