Ann Coulter Loves Palin ... Displaying the Right's Problem in a Nutshell

[marmar]

via AlterNet's PEEK:



Ann Coulter Loves Palin ... Displaying the Right's Problem in a Nutshell

Posted by Steve Benen, Washington Monthly at 8:19 AM on December 24, 2008.

Coulter's bizarre missive will one day offer historians evidence of "the death of America's conservative majority."



The other day, my friend Ron Chusid had an item arguing that Ann Coulter's piece on Sarah Palin was clear evidence of "the wrong direction the conservative movement is moving in" and the dominance of "anti-intellectualism" on the right.

I finally read Coulter's piece, and I have to admit, it's even more inane than I expected. Coulter, heralded Palin's selection as "Conservative of the Year" and applauded the Alaska governor's role in politics. To hear Coulter tell it, Palin is a hero because she sent "the left into a tailspin of wanton despair."

Who cares if Palin was qualified to be President? She was running with John McCain! There was no chance that ticket was going to place her anywhere near the presidency. In fact, I can't think of a better place to put someone you wanted to keep away from the White House than on a ticket with McCain.

Palin was a kick in the pants, she energized conservatives, and she made liberal heads explode.

Got that? Palin is necessarily wonderful because liberals didn't like her. (That plenty of independents and Republicans found the thought of her vice presidency horrifying is irrelevant.)

Now, I realize that Coulter is a circus clown, and quite possibly a liberal plant meant to make conservatives look ridiculous as part of some kind of satirical performance art, but over the course of nearly 2,000 words, Coulter couldn't actually point to any of Palin's genuine strengths. Coulter blasted the media, Democrats, women she finds insufficiently attractive, and John McCain, but in applauding the greatness of Sarah Palin, she neglected to mention anything that makes Sarah Palin great, outside of Coulter's disdain for Palin's detractors.

Ezra noted that Coulter's bizarre missive will one day offer historians evidence of "the death of America's conservative majority."

Palin is the year's most important conservative not because she won, or because she came close, but because she provoked the most outrage among liberals. And Coulter's column presents all of this as triumph. There's no sorrow over Palin's loss. Rather, the column is suffused with glee for the lark of it all. Remember that time Palin made that joke about lipstick?

This is not the metric of anything so fearsome as a bully. It's the measure of a mere pest. And the hard question for conservatives is, what if Coulter is right? What if Palin really is the leader of modern conservatism, the best representative of its modern mission? "Palin was a kick in the pants," Coulter says. And right now, that's enough.

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/115217/ann_coulter_loves_palin_..._displaying_the_right%27s_problem_in_a_nutshell/

[Quantess]

1. Ann Coulter needs to see a psychiatrist.

It would take years of counseling to untie all those mental knots.

[burythehatchet]

3. We all do. Some more than others.

[MUAD_DIB]

5. Hmmmph... Tell me about your childhood.

[burythehatchet]

6. What would you care to know?

[and-justice-for-all]

2. Coultergeis is a reich wing joke....

she is all mouth and has nothing intelligent to say. She is a cheerleader of hate and discontent; Ra Ra Ra Ra...go fuck yourself coultergeist.

[Engineer4Obama]

4. I wonder what Coulter thinks about the prospect of Al Franken in the Senate

He devoted two chapters to her in LIES she must be excited for some one she is "friendly" with to be getting into the senate.

[NeedleCast]

7. If by Wonton Despair she ment Crushing Victory

Then I agree.

[muntrv]

8. Keep grasping for straws, Ann.

[Jamastiene]

9. The only time we got to hear the sweet sound of silence for the past 8 years

was when we found out Ann Coulter had a broken jaw. Her 15 minutes are almost over. We will probably hear less and less and even nothing of her very soon. That will be sweet relief; no more of Ann Coulter's grating mouth. That thought, alone, makes me want to go frolic in a field of wild flowers, take a deep breath of fresh air, and maybe even thank God profusely, just in case there is one.