I support you to the extent you are an asset, not a liability.

Look up "Lott, Trent."

Thank you.

(Although that's not quite fair. Trent Lott was always useless, and always basically a liability. Still, the point stands.)

Update: This is paraphrased, and I can't find it on Google. But Ann said approximately this a while ago. My context (i.e., the group she was attacking) may be off, but the rest of it is solid.

(approximately) "The main benefit of women getting law degrees is to allow them to say vicious things without being slapped."

She said that about liberal female law professors saying nasty stuff about someone she liked. Maybe Ken Starr, maybe Miguel Estrada. I forget. Maybe the conservative justices after the Bush v. Gore decision.

I'm quoting that not because I find it so egregious (it's a funny if nasty line), but because Coulter seems to be putting that into practice lately herself.

Bewitched and Bebothered: Well, I just heard Ann Coulter defending the comments on Hannity & Colmes, and she sure makes some good points.

She says she's tired of the left putting forward these victims to make their points that they themselves couldn't make -- she says Sheehan, the Jersey Girls, and Joe Wilson were all put forward to sell liberal messages with circumstances that prevented any rebuttal. (In Wilson's case, because attacks on him would implicate his wife, whom we're not supposed to mention.)

And she says she's tired of that, and she thinks she's stripped the Jersey Girls of their immunity to criticism.

But she acknowleges that previously there were attacks on all of these people. She just doesn't think those attacks were effective enough, because, I guess, the attacks had to be circumspect. She thinks the truth only makes an impact when it comes in the form of a hammer hitting you in the forehead (or something like that), and now we'll have a debate about this and these Human Shield Messengers will be scrutinized.

Persuasive. Hey, she's not one of the country's foremost polemicists for nothing.

But-- no. I think the point she's making -- quite valid -- is now rejected by persuadable independents because she comes across as the shrill harpy, rather than the Jersey Girls.

Posted by: Ace at 01:58 PM | Comments (93)
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Recapped. Her key quote:

“These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing bush was part of the closure process.”

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much.”

I think that was a quote read to her on the Today show, not a quote she made spontaneously on the show itself.

What exactly is she advancing with such nastiness? Is she actually advancing the conservative cause, or only her own?

I agree with Rick Moran here:

She has descended into a black hole of necessity from which there is no escape; where she is forced to please her rabid base of red meat conservatives usually by going beyond the bounds of decency and proper public discourse in order to make a point that could have been made without resorting to the kind of hurtful, hateful, personal attacks that have become a hallmark of her war with liberals.

[Â…]

The anti-Bush 9/11 widows are not immune from criticism for their political positions nor even for the tactics they use to advance those positions. But to say that they are “enjoying” their status as widows is so far beyond the pale that anyone who makes such a statement deserves the most severe censure possible.

Thats about says it. There's funny Ann, there's snide Ann, there's take-no-prisoners Ann. Sometimes there's Insightful Ann or Scholarly Ann. And then, on occasion, there is either Insane Ann or Let Me Create Controversy Just To Peddle Books Ann.

Allah has stuff on this too, including Moran's sum-up of Coulter, which I think is a bit over the top:

a shallow, bitter, bitch of a woman whose hate filled mouthings will eventually lead to her destruction

The sad thing is I'm not sure I disagree strenuously with any of that. I just would prefer it not be said.

Captain Ed makes the necessary comparison between Coulter yesterday and Ted Rall three years ago, making the same basic attack in his cartoon "Terror Widows," back when it was assumed that all "Terror Widows" would be war-supporters. If it was wrong for Ted Rall to make that attack against Terror Widows who were inconvenient emotional supports for a position he was against, isn't it also wrong for Coulter to do the same?

There's actually no question that Coulter has, as Rall had then, the basics of a point. There's no problem with noting that these women -- on both sides of the debate -- have not been certified as foreign policy or military or intelligence experts simply due to tragedy, nor are they entitled to get everything they might want in life. Don't get me started on many of the widows believing they have a right to have Ground Zero remain an undeveloped bit of park-space and cenotaph of trees in the heart of Manhattan's financial district.

But this nastiness is uncalled for. Even if something is actually felt deep inside -- even if you're filled with toxic hatred for very annoying, very presumptuous, very left-leaning women with an overweening sense of entitlement -- most people would find less abrasive ways to express such an emotion.

Does that mean that Ann is just more honest than us "nancy boys"?

Not really. A lot of the time the excuse of "I was just being honest" is just a code for "I'm basically an inconsiderate asshole who cannot be bothered to modify my behavior in even the slightest fashion in order to observe basic conventions of social decency."

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (227)
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Imagine you're a ten year old boy, and your parents show you some amazing baby pictures that you've never seen before.
They gently explain to you that you were born with three arms. I imagine the rest of the conversation would go like this:

"Ampu-wha?...you did WHAT?? Do you have any fucking clue how COOL it would be to have three arms?? I HATE YOU."

Maybe ten year old boys are different in China. Sort of doubt it, though.

Posted by: LauraW. at 11:02 AM | Comments (32)
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Addressed to Uday Hussein himself.

The truthfulness of this document can be easily ascertained, can't it? I imagine that our boys have already checked on the described location.

Then again, who knows?

Posted by: Ace at 10:46 AM | Comments (19)
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A lot of conservatives here are pretty angry at the GOP (understandably), and vow they want them to lose in order to teach them a lesson.

Do you guys really feel that way, or are you just venting? Would you have prefered "You don't need papers to vote" Busby to have won?

Because that's basically the choice we'll be facing in November.

Update... Most seem to have broken with the GOP on the immigration question, though there were, of course, many annoyances previously that increased the anger at the GOP on immigration.

If there's a Democrat promising tough border controls versus a Republican supprting amnesty, it makes sense to vote Democratic.

But if the Democrat also supports amnesty, and in, fact, supports a lot more than that -- including supporting stuff he's not willing to admit, like simply opening the borders -- how does it make sense to vote Democratic in such a race, or even sit it out?

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 AM | Comments (30)
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Lock him up.

Posted by: Ace at 10:37 AM | Comments (19)
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That's gonna leave a mark:

You read that the suspects were not connected to al-Qaida, and you're confused for a moment. Maybe it won't be over if they get Osama bin Laden (provided he isn't really in an supersecret Idaho prison). What if the "terrorists" hate you for their own reasons? The evildoer-in-chief said "they hate our freedoms" -- as if we have freedoms, really, just try and get a bike-messenger job that has full health benefits. But what if rights and mixed-sex education and an economy based on sustainable hemp-based art installations mean nothing to them?

Maybe you could convince them to hold off while you fix Amerikkka. At least you can get it down to one k. Maybe if the Democrats take the House back. A 10-seat swing won't make the imams cool down, but 20 seats, in red states? Would that be a good-faith effort?

You worry this will push Haditha off the front page. It's very important that everyone concentrate on the atrocities committed by U.S. troops every day. (It's such a relief not to have to pretend to support the troops anymore.) Anyway, nothing happened. Nothing blew up. If the suspects were planning something, they didn't do it, and this proves we can handle this as a law enforcement matter. Even though the police are racists.

Your head hurts.

You have a friend in Toronto. She's cool. It would kill her if these arrests were made possible by NSA eavesdropping.

You find yourself almost wishing there was another real attack, so people could see the logical consequences of "fighting back" after 9/11. Yes, it would be bad, but sometimes you have to break an egg to show people the health impact of omelettes. Is it wrong to wish the Canadian terrorists might have succeeded?

Shouldn't you know the answer to that question?

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (13)
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Dick Cheney is being sought for questioning.

Posted by: Ace at 09:59 AM | Comments (24)
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Mary Mapes continues to pour forth some Rather good crazy.
The link goes to HuffPo, but its worth giving Arianna some traffic just for the belly-laughs.
Mapes' piece tears into this book critical of Dan Rather.

Hardcore conservatives will rush to buy it since it apparently echoes their deeply held biases about Dan.

CBS employees will buy it, as well, just to see who is mad at whom. Of course, that is not necessarily great news for the author since so few people are still working at CBS News.

I know. I used to be one of them.

The laundry list of problems that critics claimed they saw in the memos has turned out to be bunk. There never has been any definitive proof that they were forged or falsified in any way, despite a multi-million dollar investigation into the story by Viacom. The reasons we put them on the air remain valid: the content of the memos was corroborated by people familiar with Bush, his unit and his commander; the dates, times and details intricately matched what we know of the record; and two experienced and respected document analysts, who examined copies that had not been faxed or digitally recreated, concluded that the papers showed every indication of being real.

I don't believe we will know the truth about the memos until after the Bush team is out of office and people with information are no longer afraid to come forward.

Via Jim Treacher.

* as opposed to making sure they look reasonably 'real'

Posted by: LauraW. at 09:47 AM | Comments (13)
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O! Happy day!

THE word “gay” now means “rubbish” in modern playground-speak and need not be offensive to homosexuals, the BBC Board of Governors has ruled.

A listener complained after Chris Moyles dismissed a ringtone by saying on his Radio 1 breakfast show: “I don’t want that one, it’s gay.”

The complainant argued that the use of the word gay in this context was homophobic. The governors said, however, that Moyles was simply keeping up with developments in English usage.

The programme complaints committee noted: “The word ‘gay’, in addition to being used to mean ‘homosexual’ or ‘carefree’, was often now used to mean ‘lame’ or ‘rubbish’. This is a widespread current usage of the word amongst young people.”

The committee, which consists of five BBC governors, including the former Royal Ballet dancer Deborah Bull, was “familiar with hearing this word in this context”.

Given Moyles’s target audience of young listeners “it was to be expected that he would use expressions and words which the listeners used themselves”.

The governors believed that, in describing a ringtone as gay, the DJ was conveying that he thought it was “rubbish” rather than “homosexual”. Moyles was not being homophobic, they said.

The panel acknowledged, however, that this use of the word “gay” in a derogatory sense could cause offence to some listeners and counselled caution on its use. Radio 1 was, however, correct to cancel future interviews with the American rap star Jayceon Taylor — known as The Game — after he called gay men “faggots” during a live interview. The presenter Jo Whiley showed “courage and presence of mind” by making an instant full apology, the panel ruled.

Actually, I think it demonstrates their cluelessness. That's actually how kids grow up using the word "gay" in my experience, but there's a knowlege of this other meaning one doesn't quite get, something about guys making out with each other (if you can believe such a thing).

Thanks to sidhe. more...

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (43)
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