Superiority Theory

by digby

An allegedly liberal writer at the New Republican has made her bones as a beltway contrarian today with a stirring defense of Ann Coulter. She writes about how she used to work on an assembly line in a red state and had to engage in rude polemics to win political arguments — at which point stupid men would invariably be flummoxed by her brilliance and start talking about her ass. Now, darn it all, she finds that all the ever-so-smart DC types are just the same way — when you “bitch slap” them out of their “robotic-pundit” routines with what I assume must be Coulteresque dialog, they go all assembly line on her and start talking about her looks.

That is just so, like, unfair.

That is why I love Ann Coulter. Coulter shocks and offends, but underneath her offensiveness is a grain of truth that people cope with by critiquing her hair. Americans like comfort: comfort food, comfort shoes, comfort pundits to reinforce everything we already believe. Ann Coulter is not comfort. I love that she pisses people off. I love her outsized confidence, rare in females who’ve gone through puberty, which means she doesn’t turn into a pile of stuttering mush when an interview turns to her body. I love the way her face flickers devilishly for just a second when an interviewer wraps his own noose–the joy tinged with a bit of sadness, as if to say, Oh what fun this is, but do you have to make it so easy?

Yes, yes, Coulter has said some terrible things. But I don’t think it’s the terrible things that really bother liberals. Coulter makes us cringe not when she lies, but when she says things we wish weren’t true. Let’s go to the tape. Asked to define the First Amendment: “An excuse for overweight women to dance in pasties and The New York Times to commit treason.” Just completely terrible, I know. But I have to admit, I giggled–having recently covered a pro-choice rally where I interviewed a very nice young woman whose nipples were covered by naral stickers.

I will just say for the record that Coulter ‘s lies do piss me off and I don’t find in her “bitch slaps” even a grain of truth. I do not see the first amendment as an excuse for “overweight women to dance in pasties” and the New York Times to “commit treason.” That’s ridiculous on its face. I, like most Americans, define the first amendment as the right to free speech, full stop, even for heinous, shrieking dickheads like Coulter.

But let’s face it, this is really just a cheap fat woman joke, not a bold grain of truth. Whatever. Lowest common denominator lizard brain laughs will always be with us. But please — let’s not elevate it to insight. (I would recommend that anyone who cares about character should probably read what Aristotle had to say about this form of humor in Nicomachean Ethics — if you don’t feel like an asshole for laughing at Coulter’s lowbrow jokes after that, you definitely are one. They don’t call it “Superiority Theory” for nothing.)

But aside from all that, why would Reeve, the journalist, ignore the second half of Coulter’s comment — you know, the one about the NY Times commiting treason? I suppose some might find it funny, but I would hope that any journalist would be laughing very, very nervously at such talk. How sure can Reeve be that Coulter is joking when there are many on the right who are dead serious about this?

Or take Coulter’s most infamous line: Writing about her friend’s death on September 11, she finished her essay with, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Wow, that’s pretty indefensible. The United States could never–would never–do such a thing. Instead, we’ve invaded their countries, killed their leaders, and are desperately trying to convert them to secularism. (It’s not like mullahs appreciate the difference.)

I can’t help but wonder again why Reeve calls herself a liberal. Liberals are not mullahs and do appreciate the difference. And most of us find the invading and leader-killing part a fairly dicey proposition as well, especially since Coulter’s screed was pretty thin on just who “they” were other than “swarthy men.” Nobody ever said that Coulter wasn’t a conservative — she’s as mainstream as they get. That’s the problem; what she said and what they did is indefensible.

On the BBC show “Newsnight,” Jeremy Paxman asked Coulter if she’d like to withdraw her infamous statements about the September 11 widows. (If you’ve been living in a spiderhole, she called the more politically inclined among them “broads”.) “No, I think you can save all the would-you-like-to-withdraw questions, but you could quote me accurately. I didn’t write about the 9/11 widows. I wrote about four widows cutting campaign commercials for John Kerry and using the fact that their husbands died on 9/11 to prevent anyone from responding,” she said. The thing is … it’s kind of true. A little. It is a little absurd to hold up a person as an expert judge of the 9/11 Commission Report, for example, just because she lost a loved one. Liberals do tend to do that kind of thing, and it makes us look like weenies.

If all Ann Coulter did was call them “broads” I don’t think anyone would have been offended. What she said (among other things) was this:

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis.”

“And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy.

Here’s the thing. 9/11 has been turned into a sacred cow by Coulter and the right, not by liberals and not by the widows. They have fetishized it to such a degree that history is now divided into two parts, before 9/11 and after, just like Christ’s birth. It has spawned a War on Terror which has no discernable end and which excuses every insane decision they’ve made since then. You can read columns in major newpapers today in which torture and genocide are casually bandied about as reasonable. There is no questioning any of this without unleashing a torrent of rabid, rightwing opprobrium, accusing the queestioner of everything from appeasement to treason.

As for “liberals tend to do this kind of thing,” think about this: ask yourself how conservatives respond to any criticism of religion or the military. For instance, if a liberal dared to criticize a returning Iraq vet for his view that the war is an important battle in the War on Terror, the entire rightwing would rise en masse and bite off the offending critics head — despite the soldier’s lack of geopolitical expertise. Go ahead, try it.

It’s a game that’s played on both sides and anyone who doesn’t know that has either been spending way too much time among the political class or shares the conservative view that only liberals can be weenies. This kind of santimonious weenie-ism is a tried and true political tactic that has actually been perfected by the right. Jesus, they got away with whining “this is not a goooood man” when John Kerry had the temerity to point out that the Cheney’s openly gay daughter was well … openly gay.

Coulter herself went on Hannity and Colmes and went ballistic claiming that liberals were racist for criticizing Condi Rice:

COULTER: I don’t know why you [Beckel] keep talking about [the unfair treatment received by] Bill Clinton when your party — I mean, I understand why you’d like to change the subject, but your party is being biased and condescending about a black woman.

[…]

COULTER: I understand why you are so terrified of letting us point out what racists the Democrats are and how they have a big problem with black women.

Here’s Coulter just this week:

Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn’t involve wearing a paper hat.

I assume that the iconoclastic, fun-loving, unconventional Reeve thinks “it’s kind of true” that liberals are racists and that Maxine Waters would be working at McDonalds without affirmative action. And even if it isn’t, it’s just side-splitting to think of Waters, who was born in 1938 and who became a school teacher long before affirmative action was even conceived of, in a paper hat. It’s always ok to make fun of black liberals. They are uppity weenies after all.

And then there are the insults. Chris Matthews asked: “How do you know that Bill Clinton’s gay?” Coulter, who had earlier said the former president had exhibited some “latent homosexuality,” gestured casually from behind her sunglasses. “Ah, no, he may not be gay. But Al Gore? Total fag.” OK, that one really is indefensible. Because gratuitous gay jokes have, um, no precedent in pop culture whatsoever. I admit it, I snickered. What can I say–her timing was great. (And yes, later, she conceded, “That’s what we call in the writing business a joke.”).

Perhaps if Coulter were performing at The Comedy Store that might be true. Chris Matthews, however, hosts a political show. If someone doesn’t know or understand the history of the Republican party feminizing Democrats then perhaps it’s understandable that they would they fail to see why this matters. But one does expect serious people to understand that such “jokes” often serve such political purposes.

Coulter is a pretty woman who holds up a mirror showing us the ugliest parts of ourselves. She makes nice liberals think bad thoughts–particularly about whether they would have sex with her. Which is why we often fight back dirty, talking about her looks. Andrew Sullivan called her “a drag-queen-fascist-impersonator.” The New York Times said she’s “a blonde who knows her way around a black cocktail dress.” Last week at TNR Online, her arguments were described as “about as convincing as the blonde hair that gets her so much attention.”

In June, the guests of “Hardball” discussed Coulter’s latest book in which she made her comments about the September 11 widows, denounced her offensiveness, bemoaned her book sales, and pontificated on what it all means about “society.” That obviously led to Matthews’s next question, “Do you find her physically attractive, Tucker?” And Tucker Carlson dodged, as did the other guests, until the question was turned on Matthews, who replied, “You guys are all afraid to answer. No, I find her–I wouldn’t put her–well, she doesn’t pass the Chris Matthews test.”

I only shudder that I, too, might not pass the Chris Matthews test. All wrapped up in liberals’ snarky comments about her hair is a wellspring of latent guilt for judging her by her hair. Even after all those gender studies classes in college, even after having known/befriended/dated/been That Girl who Doesn’t Shave Her Pits, after pretending to like Ani DiFranco, liberals still can’t get over her hair. I love Ann Coulter because, in her, I see a loudmouth on the assembly line, fighting not to be squished and whittled and boxed into the shape Washington seems to think fits a girl just right.

Yes, poor little Coulter, stuck on the assembly line of liberal political hegemony, is just fighting for her right to be an obnoxious bitch with fabulous hair — a truly important calling if there ever was one. And the fact that liberal men find her repulsive and reject her sexually is due to the fact that she’s attractive and therefore they feel guilty for wanting to fuck someone who challenges their political beliefs. Uh huh. That must be it.

Apparently, Ms Reeve, who is also quite attractive, feels some kinship with poor misunderstood Ms Coulter who has made no secret of her belief that the “pretty girls” like herself are her allies:

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazoned with the “F-word” are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling.

[…]

As for the pretty girls, I can only guess that it’s because liberal boys never try to make a move on you without the U.N. Security Council’s approval. Plus, it’s no fun riding around in those dinky little hybrid cars. My pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie-chick pie wagons they call “women” at the Democratic National Convention.

Yes, it’s awfully rude of people to derisively comment on Coulter’s looks isn’t it? It’s not like she asks for it. And one can certainly see why some attractive young women would not want to be associated with the revolting stereotype that Coulter perpetuates about liberal females. One doesn’t expect them to be writing for The New Republic, however.

Ann Coulter is not a brash comedienne, she is a propagandist and if you can’t see that she is deadly serious you are a fool. She is part of a billion dollar industry that is designed solely to degrade, demean and destroy liberalism. It is subsidized by millionaires for the benefit of millionaires and they count on the ignorance of certain members of the public (and immature liberal writers) to fall for their scam.

Ann Coulter is laughing her ass off today at the silly writer over at TNR who doesn’t get it. And for the first time ever, I’m laughing right along with her.

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