Sullivan posts a look at the rather depressing reception Ann Coulter received at CPAC. They cheered her to the rafters for calling John Edwards a “faggot”. I’ve bashed her quite a bit on this blog, so there’s no need to pile on.
Wait a minute . . . yes there is.
Ann Coulter and her ill ilk are crippling conservatism, giving it a face of nastiness and hatred that will take decades to scrub clean. For my generation, the paradigm of conservatism was Ronald Reagan inspiring a free people to a bright future. For the current generation, the image will be Anne Coulter calling people “faggots”, “godless” and “traitors”. I have spent my whole life arguing with liberals who reflexively think that Republicans are racists, bigots and homophobes. And now comes along the radical right to make a liar out of me. It’s shattering.
They know better than this, or should. Whatever happened to conservative manners? Yeah, I know, the Left says nasty untrue things about us all the time. So two wrong make a right.
The usual response I get to critizing Coulter is something along the lines of what Sullivan is probably getting. “Oh, Mike, she’s just being funny! She’s illustrating absurdity by being absurd! She’s a satirist in the tradition of Mencken and O’Rourke! If she were a man, you’d think she was great.”
Um, no. I’ve read Mencken and O’Rourke and Coulter. I’ve met O’Rourke and Coulter in person (briefly). Anne Coulter isn’t fit to clean their typewriters. Because you see:
Sullivan makes a comparison to Michael Moore. I think that’s far more appropriate. Anne Coulter makes “conservatives” happy by bashing up straw men with half-facts and specious arguments. She says nasty things that make “conservatives” wish they were so clever and incisive.
But in reality, she and Hannity and O’Reilly are the Right’s answer to Garafalo, Franken and Moore. They make their own side cheer with cheap shots and nasty remarks. They drive the opposition crazy. And the rest of us end up sitting on the sidelines shaking our heads and wondering where we belong.