E&P: Publishers Under Liberal Pressure To Drop Coulter's Column, But Thusfar Resist

I think this campaign is kind of absurd. Boondocks and Doonesbury go over the line all the time, and yet liberals don't seem to mind them all that much.

I think she shoud be criticized, not censored or denied an outlet. (At least, not before she goes, as I fear she will, full-tilt bonkers.)

A lot of people seem baffled that I'd criticize Coulter. I would ask them how they can criticize Ted Rall's "Terror Widows" cartoon, which made the exact same point Coulter did -- that the 9/11 widows are enjoying their husband's deaths -- and then give Coulter a pass.

The two cases are indistinguishable. You can either criticize both, or justify both, but you can't condemn one and justify the other. It's blatant partisan inconsistency and hypocrisy to do so. It can't be the case that Ann gets to say what Ted Rall can't because she's Ann, she's on "our side," she's one of us. That's the game the lefty moonbats play all the time, and I'm personally not playing that game.

I'm not looking for reasons to knock Ann. Quite the opposite. I consider (or did consider) ann to be on "my side," and looked for a way to distinguish the cases. I wanted to come up with a clever reason why her remarks were acceptable whereas Rall's cartoon was not. I couldn't. And it's not just because I'm not smart enough; no one has come up with a good reason.

I have the following options:

1) Support Ann blindly, and give up all future criticism of over-the-top, borderline racist or homophobic or cruel comments by the left. That would be consistent-- if I don't take Ann to task for her over-the-line stuff, then I can't take the left to task for theirs, either.

2) Engage in rank hypocrisy and blatant inconsistency to defend someone on "my side" for the exact sort of remarks that I condemn when it comes from "their side."

Well, I don't want to do the first, as their are a lot more nasty remarks coming from the left than the right, and, considerations of taste and civility aside, it makes no sense to give up so many targets on the left just to spare one person on the right.

And I can't do the second. Some of you may be capable of disengaging your critical capacities to pretend there's some difference between Rall's and Coulter's specific remarks here, but I'm not.

So, there you go.

As for the various imputations that I'm "jealous" of Ann, or that I have some personal animus against her, or that I'm kissing up the liberal media, or whatever:

1) I can't be jealous of Coulter. She's out of my league. I can't be jealous of a minor celebrity and multiple number-one author. It's like being jealous of Paul McCartney.

I'm jealous, but jealous of people somewhere within striking distance. Like bloggers who have double my traffic and twenty times my respect.

But Coulter? How could I be jealous of her?

2) I have no personal animus against her. She used to be a kind of hero of mine. Like I said, I was one of the early adopters of Coulter, and bought her first book long, long before it was on any bestseller lists, and probably before many of her defenders had really heard of her.

If I have some "personal" animus at all, it's that someone I once liked a lot is disappointing me lately. But that would explain why I bother writing about it, not what is causing me to be disappointed.

3) Yeah... I'm kissing up to the liberal media. Because, you know, if I just say the right things about Coulter, the Washington Post is going to hire me.

Please don't queer this deal for me, guys! I'm so close to that mainstream media brass ring I can taste the metal!

And, you know, I continue bending over backwards to give Coulter a pass, but she just won't let me do so. My first reaction with her "Jewish girl" comment was to defend. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I'd be all over someone from the Daily Kos making an equivalent remark.

If Coulter's defenders have some PRINCIPLED way to defend Coulter's, errr, exuberances while continuing to condemn similar over-the-line comments from the right, please share. So far I've not seen any. All I've seen is claims that Coulter is using the left's tactics against them and the like.

I don't really see the need to use this particular tactic against them, though. Personally, I thought we were doing just fine condemning the tactic, rather than using it ourselves.

posted by Ace at 01:17 PM

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