Shorter Ann Coulter Argument

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 05:58 PM

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