Centerfield

Food For Thought:

Coulter is an opportunist (playing the faithful for fools) and slightly psychotic.

I've discussed Coulter with ardent conservatives at Red State. Most condemn her antics BUT manage to drag Franken or Moore into the discussion and finish by saying it's all the same or downplaying Coulter's influence or passing her off as funny satire.

BUT, many also admit that even though it sounds bad when she says something, they quietly think the same things in their head and are passively content to see her have the guts to say things that "we all shouldn't say in a PC world".

John,

As a former conservative, I think in public it is the former, and in private it is the latter. She is a hero among my conservative friends.

It's time for everyone to acknowedge that Coulter is really an entertainer and that her act is a schtick. The only people that pay attention to her, and take her seriously fall into 2 categories:

1. True believer righty partisans, the choir she preaches to

2. liberals looking for examples that demonstrate that conservatives are less open-minded, more bigoted, and basically meaner than liberals.

I think she's the worst kind of ugly opportunist that our culture creates, one so self-interested and so self-promoting that sincerity and fair play always takes a back seat to self-justifying plausibility. I hope that someday karma gives her exactly what she deserves, the inability to avoid facing the truth that she's a sorry excuse for a human being. Of course, there's a good chance that she already knows that, and stay up late at nights indugling in self-loathing substance abuse binges. I find her a pathetic creature.

Oh bother, did I just get my righty stooge card revoked?

Oh well, I'm sure I'll earn it back tommorrow.

Yup Brian, absolutely. The problem is, like Tully's post on the anti-war left the other day, those righty true believers are in control of the entire Republican Party.

What Brian said. Coulter is a nut. An occasionally funny nut, but a nut all the same.

Though I would point out that the leaders of the Republican Party generally do not invite her to important functions.

Mathew, you are starting to sound almost like you have the zeal of a convert in opposing conservatives.

For the record, I (one of the rightier people on this blog) have seen both Capote and Brokeback Mountain and thought they were both very fine films. Frankly, I thought Capote ultimately cast its subject in a very unflattering light by the end in a way which revealed, to some extent, the many ways by which the human creater can delude itself into hypocrisy.

P.S. Besides Coulter, what conservatives are pissed about a movie about Joe McCarthy?

Mathew, you are starting to sound almost like you have the zeal of a convert in opposing conservatives.

Oh please, tommorrow the AOL crowd will be back accusing me of closet right wingery.

I oppose nuts on both sides, today is just there day.

Matthew,

I don't know for sure that those wingnuts are really in control of the entire GOP leadership. I think many sub-leaders are just afraid to break ranks because they fear retribution from the well-oiled media apparatus that keeps the rank and file believing that these wingnuts are good, normal, mainstream republicans.

In other words, looking at the PR job at the GOP convention in 2004 as an example, I believe the rank and file (like my brother) make no distinction between the more centrist and moderate voices that were shown on TV and the PNAC, wingnut types that we see controling certain key positions. To them, Giuliani, Arnold, McCain, Bush 1, Bush 2, Reagan, Conrad Burns, Cornyn, Frist, Delay, Rummy, Cheney, L. Graham, Specter and Mayor Bloomberg are ALL THE SAME....meaning that most unassuming republican-leaning voters think that the one's many here see as being fringe are just like the one's we centrists see as moderates...and NOT the other way around: Bush is just like McCain (not the other way around). If some of the cooler heads take charge, the quiet majority will be relieved.

Ann ain't gettin' none. That's pretty damn obvious.

Can we just ignore her, please.

John,

I get your point and respect it. Pre-2004 election I argued the same thing on this very site. Today, I am not so sure. I think the fact that the rightest wing of the Republican Party got credit for Bush's re-election has empowered them to a whole new level of stupidity. I know there are sane people within the Republican Party, I just am not sure they are at the wheel or if they at least got a firm grip on it anymore. This is coming from a Republican... I hope you are right.

They definitely tried to take credit for the win, Mathew, but I don't know that they got it in the end. If they were firmly in control, we would never have seen the Meiers nomination. And the forces who opposed the Meiers nomination were almost all of the Republican party, not just the religious end.

We're just being fair and balanced today, Chris. Yesterday it was anti-war left-wing nutjobs, today it's Ann Coulter's turn representing the other side.

If they were firmly in control, we would never have seen the Meiers nomination.

I am confused, is Harriet Meiers a Supreme Court Justice? Why isn't that again? Seems like they got what they wanted to me.

As I noted, Mathew, it was NOT just the religious right who opposed her nomination. If the religious right were as firmly in control as you fear, she wouldn't have been nominated at all. Now, there's no way to know if the President would have stuck it out had the religious right been the only group on the Republican side to attack her.

Matthew,

For most of the GOP leadership that is in power, I think the religious right vote is a means to an end....with that end being victory and power and not the the religious right agenda. Once you get off abortion, I have no republican friends or family who vote republican based on the agenda of Dobson/Falwell crowd. In fact, when we get down to real issues, most of them (my Fr. and Fa.) do not support any overbearing social policy. But they do tolerate it in support of what they really want: low taxes, smaller gov. and less welfare. Whether or not voting GOP it really a means to that end or just the result of effective brand-marketing is another story that I gladly discuss. That's not to say I think the Dems are really the solution to that end but rather that those ideals are not exclusive to one party or ideology.

But anyway, I digress. IMO, Bush owes his victory to Rove and the swiftboats and WAR/FEAR (not to mention Kerry's anemic campaign and lack of rebuttal initiave) for a multi-prong attack that scared people out of voting for change even though they had little in the way of any positive from the current administration.

Without the war, Bush loses with or without his christian fundies.

Ooo, CPD! Goodie! Can we all play?

I'm really only commenting to dispute John's choice of modifiers in his first sentence. And to note that I found MUNICH tendentious and overbearing. CRASH has some of the same flaws, but better performances and writing. BROKEBACK has marvelous cinematography, some fantastic performances, and you can't go wrong stealing plot-lines from the oldest book around, but in the end is a dull and depressing film. As are pretty much all the nominations this year. (My picks are CAPOTE or CRASH.)

I think the fact that the rightest wing of the Republican Party got credit for Bush's re-election has empowered them to a whole new level of stupidity.

I absolutely disagree, Mathew. I think it's the same old stupidities. I remember how high a bar they set over a decade ago. :-)

Tully,

"I'm really only commenting to dispute John's choice of modifiers in his first sentence."

What's the dispute?

Your first comment, the modifier "slightly." :-)

I agree with BK. Ann Coulter is a loathsome human being. She wrote the book on "Shrew 101." I saw her argue on Canadian TV one night that "Canada did too send troops to Viet-Nam." "Well, No Ann, they did not." I can't imagine anyone taking her seriously, much less her being someones heroine. Ann's karma? If she were locked in a 8x12 room with 25 Bose speakers blasting Ethel Merman singing "There's No Business Like Show Business" for all eternity, it would still be too good for her. Throw in one cattle prod attack every minute, and your about half way there.

IMo, there's that loathsome quality is something that many of the wingiest nuts on both sides share. Whether due to insincerity or true zeal, there's this vibe I get that such creature feel that their righteousness gives them license to dismiss the humanity of others.

Like Michael Moore for example. (uh-oh, now I get my lefty stooge card revoked, and Tully catches me CPDing. From both ends of the candle, no less). When I was, say 19, I recall finding his schtick in Roger and Me funny. But when i caught the same act years later, the thing I couldn't get away from was how blithely he was willing to treat this secretary or that bank clerk or this receptionist like a piece of garbage. His agenda granted him some sort of license.

That's why folk like that do't deserve seats at the tyable with the adults. Put 'em at the kiddie's table until they learn how to treat people with a little decency. This is the infotainment culture I hate. I was so happy when John Stewart broke the 4th wall that time to say "I'm not going to be your monkey." Moore and Coulter treat us like we're their monkeys. I'd rub a rotten-egg pie in either one of their faces in a heartbeat.

Speaking of the infotainment culture. I am so sick of that Holloway Murder story. The Mother, the Doo-Pak Six Pak brothers. All of them. She debates the slimeballs who probably killed her daughter on cable TV? That's entertainment? God Rest that poor girls soul. Nothing is off limits as long as you can make a few bucks.

You've gotta admit that the Village People and John Travolta lines were kind of funny, though.

Moore and Coulter treat us like we're their monkeys. I'd rub a rotten-egg pie in either one of their faces in a heartbeat.

Thank you, bk, I'd do the same

Both Coulter and Moore are products of a celebrity-obsessed society that has little interest in serious political thought. That's all it is. Neither is a serious political analyst. Moore pretends to support the working class, but doesn't hesitate to belittle them in his movies. Coulter is nothing but a caricature. But, guess what--they both sell lots of books and make lots of money. And what about people writing thoughtful, well-informed books. Do you think they make as much money?

I suspect that Coulter's problem with the McCarthy movie is that it's anti-McCarthy.

It's interesting though, how political extremists tend to see things through their odd ideological perspective. When "Saving Private Ryan" came out, there were conservative reviewers (specifically John Podhoretz) who argued that it was somehow an anti-war/anti-American movie because it didn't really show the cause that the soldiers were fighting for (ie, it didn't show Nazi atrocities). To me, anyone that saw the movie and did not realize it was a paean to the American GI is either a 10 year old or so obsessed with his own predilections that he can't see the forest for the trees. As for being anti-war, isn't everyone anti-war--other than General Patton? No one wants war, I assume, even if you might think it's necessary at times.

And, to be balanced, of course, the left sees any movie that attributes anything good to the US military as being "triumphalism."

One more thing that's a bit off topic, but I thought it was interesting. Several weeks ago when Cindy Sheehan kissed Hugo Chavez's ass in public, Jon Stewart came down hard on her for consorting with a dictator on "The Daily Show." I was glad to see it and it confirmed my view that he is a generally fair-minded sort.

I don't watch him often, but I am a fan of John Stewart. It's a pity it took a pure entertainer to point out loudly and publicly exactly what was wrong with Tucker Carlson and the whole talking-heads opinionators programs on cable news.

Isn't Stewart MC'ing the Oscars this year? Might be worth watching for once.

Coulter isn't the only conservative who blasts this year's academy awards best picture nominations in particular and left-leaning Hollywood in general.

Today's Krauthammer column in the WP:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201209.html

It was primarily about Syriana, a film not nominated for an oscar, but he also gets in another lick against Munich, a film he devoted an entire column to debunking a couple months back. I think it's safe to say Krauthammer accuses Hollywood of presenting the causes (and actions) promoted by muslim terrorists as morally equivalent (at least to the plight of Israel). He hated Munich for this, as well as for failing to provide any historical context.

But, I do get the impression Krauthammer actually views the films before writing about them.

Marc,

I think the critique about "Saving Private Ryan"-- specifically Mark Steyn's critique-- was Tom Sizemore's remark about how "I think Saving Private Ryan may turn out to be the only good thing we do in this war" (italics added for emphasis). Steyn's criticism was that it implied that some of the other things the Rangers did-- like, oh, ending the march of Nazi Fascism across Europe and liberating France-- were not "good things" to have done, in their own merit.

In Spielberg's defense, however, when Sizemore's Sergeant Horvath makes the comment, we hadn't yet ended the spread of Nazism, France was still occupied, and it's likely that Horvath didn't know too much about the Holocaust and six million Jews (Captain Miller, maybe, but likely not Horvath). If that scene had occurred in 1945, perhaps Steyn's critique would have been more valid, but as it was made relatively early in the War, it's hard to take this view without wanting a continuity error in the movie.

Plus there's a big presumption about whom "we" refers to.

BTW, Ted Rall is going to sue Ann for saying that Rall was entering the Iran Holocaust cartoon contest.

http://www.tedrall.com/rants.html

Who wouldn't pay $ for a seat at the depositions?

Todd, surely she has a good defense in the fact that no sane person would take her assertions of "fact" in the midst of her rants as serious allegations... But you're right, I'd pay good money to watch the two of them stuck in the same room with each other.

And she'd get to dispose him, too, to show that his views are so off the wall it wasn't unreasonable of her to suggest it was something he would consider doing.

It was primarily about Syriana, a film not nominated for an oscar

SYRIANA has been nominated for two Oscars. Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for George Clooney--who won a Golden Globe for same.

Krauthammer's pretty straight up. He's not going to comment much on anything he hasn't seen. An enormously bright and talented guy.

Both Coulter and Moore are products of a celebrity-obsessed society that has little interest in serious political thought. That's all it is. Neither is a serious political analyst. Moore pretends to support the working class, but doesn't hesitate to belittle them in his movies. Coulter is nothing but a caricature. But, guess what--they both sell lots of books and make lots of money. And what about people writing thoughtful, well-informed books. Do you think they make as much money?

Marc, I couldn't agree with you more. Pat Robertson falls into the same category. I'd place Dobson, with his new-found support for "equal rights", in the same camp. In order to keep the cameras turning back to you, you've got to continuously deliver. If you keep it tame, they are moving on. To make the most of that spotlight, you've got to keep turning it up a notch. Not for one second do I even think that these guys believe 1/2 of what they say.

I guess I'm the classic cynic, but I look at Donald Trump's recent spat with Martha Stewart the same way. Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt and the lip woman, the list goes on and on...it's all about keeping the spotlight.

Syriana hasn't been nominated for a best picture oscar.

So, if Krauthammer says about Munich essentially the same thing as Coulter, does that give Coulter credibility or does that diminish Krauthammer?

tim... neither. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

As they say around here, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again.

Last I looked, Best Screenplay was definitely a "picture" Oscar and not an acting Oscar.

The only thing that gives her credibility is talking about her. I'm serious: Just ignore her. See how serious I am? I made a web button thingy and everything. That's heart attack serious.

Ignore who?

Awwww.... Phillip Seymour Hoffman thanked his momma. Good for him!