Playbook
Why I still love Ann Coulter:
We need to get a rulebook from the Democrats:
Boy Scouts -- As gay as you want to be.
Priests -- No gays!
Democrat politicians -Proud gay Americans.
Republican politicians - Presumed guilty.
White House Press Corps - No gays, unless they hate Bush.
Active Duty U.S. Military - As gay as possible.
Men Who Date Liza Minelli - Do I have to draw you a picture, Miss Thing?
Primly conservative bloggers can hold their noses in the air and sniff about her more outlandish comments, but she calls it like she sees it. Whenever you read the context around any quote of hers that's cherry-picked for the latest round of attack, you'll often find a substance to what she's saying that her detractors don't want you read -- heaven forbid you should actually consider a point she's trying to make just because her word choice offends . . .
But everybody's so damn offended anymore.
UPDATE:
I find this kind of thing way more offensive than anything Ann Coulter has ever said.
ADDENDUM:
Oh perfect, Jon Stewart has bravely jumped on the tired, creaky Bash Ann Coulter Bandwagon: "I actually feel sorry for her. Once your career is based on denigrating 9/11 widows, what's your second act? Unless you dig up Mother Teresa and stick a dildo in her eye, nothing could be more offensive."
But Jon Stewart's statement is a spot-on example of the problem which Coulter is attempting to address. The glaring and obvious fact is that the 9/11 widows to which Coulter refers (because she's not talking about all of them) are Democratic Party activists and not saints -- they were on the campaign trail in 2004 stumping for John Kerry, not tending to the needs of the poor in Calcutta.
By tying these women into the same sentence as Mother Theresa, Stewart deliberately presents the women as saints by association, a move meant solely to shield their political statements and activities from criticism -- "there's nothing more offensive." Stewart, with his self-righteous sarcasm playing directly to the choir, makes himself a part of the problem.
I think Harry Stein summed up Jon Stewart nicely in his May, 2005 column, Laugh-Winger: "Mr. Stewart's elevation to near-iconic status says more about those doing the elevating than about the comedian himself. His "bravery" and much-vaunted grasp of political nuance consists mostly of his embrace of every reflexive assumption shared by every litmus-tested liberal holding forth at every chic Manhattan dinner party . . . It speaks volumes about contemporary liberalism that in "progressive" circles, such stuff passes for brilliant satire."
"I think he's funny," said James Carville, after Stewart made a surly appearance on Crossfire. "I just think he's a pompous ass."
I mean, I feel kind of sorry for Jon Stewart. What do you do for an encore after you've invited guests on your show to call American voters retarded, smeared Justice Clarence Thomas as a sock puppet for the white man, sucked up to an Islamic dictator, feigned outrage on a fake political scandal and ended yet another mean-spirited rant about a sitting President, to the wild cheers from a sycophantic audience: "I give up -- you're fucking insane"?
Unless you want to dig up the corpse of Jonathan Swift and try stapling it to your dick for credibility, well really, there's nothing more offensive . . .