I suppose that I'm expected (if not mandated) to weigh in on the latest Ann Coulter Transgression, though I find myself more than a little put-off by the hordes of straight, conservative bloggers rushing to compete for a gold star in what appears to be the latest cultural sensitivity training session.
Or is it?
A lot of the reaction to Coulter's remarks smack of a type of hollow moral preening, with some of the bloggers making the most fuss about the issue less concerned over the lack of respect Coulter's remarks exemplify than they are over the potential sullying of the Conservative public image.
For example, see Patterico: " . . . my repeated condemnation of her is a matter of record. For examples, see here, here, here, here, here, and here. I continue to believe that her sort of comments are counterproductive to what conservatives are trying to do -- "
Patterico further underscores this point with his comment in a March 3, 2007 posting: "The worst thing about episodes like this is that they get used by the left to tarnish everyone on the right."
You see, in Patterico's mind, the worst thing about "episodes like this" is not the casual indifference to decades of struggle endured by gays as they defiantly pursue their own destinies, but rather, the potentiality of Conservative shame brought on by an unfortunate association with Little Miss Attention Getter.
Dean Barnett, who has devoted much effort to several recent Condemnations of Coulter, sums it all up with this statement: "Does it speak well of CPAC and the conservative movement that Ann Coulter now annually occupies the podium where Ronald Reagan once stood . . . what do you think Ronald Reagan would have thought of her sentiment? Do you think the man who always wore his suit jacket in the Oval Office would have much sympathy for a speaker with so little respect for her surroundings? What happened on Friday was conservatives got a black eye. All of us."
Right. Because what was truly objectionable about Ann's behavior is that she didn't observe the proper decorum for the fine tradition of CPAC.
This is the sound of me bursting into laughter, or rolling my eyes – I can’t decide which.
You see, the only issue of concern for Barnett is the black eye Coulter inflicted on CPAC. In fact, Barnett's original post on the Coulter Transgression merely chastises her for her inability to behave properly at a "respectable political gathering" and her "indifference to self-control". Because Ronald Reagan always wore a suit to the Oval Office, Barnett reasons, then so should Ann clean up her act when in public so as not to tarnish the good name of . . . Barnett.
It's becoming quite clear to me now. F**k the gays, it’s all about Dean!
Dean Barnett posts on Hugh Hewitt's site, and while Barnett seems somewhat obtuse in his objections to Coulter's remarks, I have to admit that Mr. Hewitt himself does the Conservative movement proud by actually addressing the significance at the heart of the Coulter brouhaha: "Yesterday, she entered the territory where Michael Richards went when he employed the n-word to abuse a heckler. When Coulter employed the f-word to abuse a candidate, she made herself radioactive because the word is a simple invitation to hate. It was repulsive."
Hewitt seems to be one of the few conservative bloggers who’s capable of stating that Ann's remarks are repulsive in and of themselves, not because she besmirched the name of conservatives everywhere, or because her spotlight hogging ways distracted attention away from the rest of the CPAC conference.
Yet on the other side of the spectrum, Michelle Malkin, one of the leading Religious Conservatives in the blogosphere, sums up her position in this way: "Some defenders think there's no difference between Coulter's crude "faggot" remarks about Edwards and Laura Ingraham's gentle mockery of Edwards' vanity when she describes him as a "Silky Pony" on her radio show. The latter is witty. The former is witless. That's the difference."
This is what’s so valuable about provocateurs like Coulter -- they blow open all the doors and observers get to see for themselves what’s really going on inside, and what observers can plainly see in Malkin’s harrumphing reaction to Coulter’s appearance at CPAC is that there's a type of religious, socially conservative politico who views, as only degrees of wit, the difference between mocking someone's vanity and blithely slurring the constitutionally enshrined pursuit of happiness in which numerous fellow citizens are engaged.
I don’t begrudge Malkin her personal views on gay issues. She has every right to perhaps disagree with the idea that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle choice, or even that homosexuality should be taught in school, written into law or sanctioned by the government.
And I’m really not all that offended that Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot, or that anyone uses the word faggot in the first place. Calling me names does not victimize me, hurt me or damage me (I'd much rather be called a name than hit with a baseball bat), and I think that gay men and women have gone a long way toward reclaiming the word faggot so that it’s lost a great deal of its ability to cause us any personal harm.
So as to Ann, who cares?
But what I do find amusing as hell, however, is that Ann Coulter essentially got up in front of a group of her political peers and exposed an inconvenient truth in unvarnished terms: that too many social conservatives, especially religious social conservatives, are publically uncomfortable with homosexuality and are willing to express their discomfort in an intellectually juvenile fashion.
Needless to say, this revelation caused a ripple of alarm among the more socially liberal conservatives (or are they Libertarians – I can never tell) who are fast gaining a prominent foothold in the Conservative movement as a whole, and who abide by a much more Live And Let Live ethos (not to mention employing vastly better vocabularies).
You see, I have this theory: what with the growing inevitability of Rudy Giuliani as the Republican Presidential Candidate in 2008, and the crushing loss for Conservatives of both the Senate and the House in 2006, Republicans are desperate not to alienate anything with a pulse that might be persuaded to vote their way.
Political Conservatives were shocked into a rude awakening when the Religious Right ditched them at the altar in 2006 and the country wound up marrying a Democratic congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha, for better or for worse. Shortly after, faced with a dearth of electable candidates on offer, Conservatives quickly got pragmatics, which meant embracing the Center Right.
Enter Giuliani, who's to the left of George W. Bush on almost every social issue in town, yet keeps scoring higher and higher on pre-election presidential polls. He now looks to be the only viable prospect the Republicans have for blocking a Hillary/Obama ticket in 2008.
(Oh come on, just admit it already -- Romney doesn't stand a chance! This country has yet to elect a Jew as President, and you think a Mormon is going to somehow get the nod?)
Giuliani's got name recognition, a track record for being tough on crime, he rallied New York City after it was horrifically attacked on 9/11, and he knows how to play nice with both sides of the aisle. He's also very unlikely to take on either gay marriage or abortion as issues in his campaign -- two lightning-rod concerns that past Republican candidates felt they had to address in order to appease the all-important Religious Right voting block (i.e. Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, et al.)
Well, now that the Religious Right has proven itself feckless during election years, the focus is now on America's middle ground -- that promised land filled with voters who might put security and government reform ahead of hot-button moral issues.
And, not surprisingly, the middle ground is comprised of a good chunk of faggots, families of faggots, friends of faggots, coworkers of faggots, friends of friends of faggots and small business owners who make a nice living for themselves and their families by catering to the needs of faggot consumers. Needless to say, faggot slurs by religious conservatives are definitely not going to go down well in this version of Peoria.
So while Hugh Hewitt, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters and Rick Moran of Right Wing NutHouse cop to the true nature of Coulter's remarks and make no bones about disinviting her from future Conservative conversations (the serious ones, anyway), the others just seem to want Ann to shut up and go away because she makes them look bad.
You know, what with a very important election coming up and all . . .
Coulter got almost unanimously slapped down by her political peers, essentially for doing what she's always done. Both the BF and I find Coulter wildly amusing as a talking head on tv, but we certainly wouldn’t hang out with her or invite her as a speaker to a corporate function. I mean, CPAC got just what it asked for.
And while I believe that everyone is entitled to his or her own opinions and beliefs, and that religious disagreement with homosexuality is not the same as homophobia, it’s also long past time that the Conservative movement stopped playing its eternal game of footsie with the religious hard-right and woke up to the fact that there’s a whole new ballgame in town.
It’s called Team Center Right, and Giuliani is its slugger. I’m reserving my front row seat today.
UPDATE:
"For a joke to be inoffensive, it has to also have a clear target about which joking isn't considered offensive. Ann's joke was indeed a joke, but it fails to have that saving grace. It just seems, basically, to be calling John Edwards a faggot, and I really don't see the rich, layered, nuanced social satire about Isaiah Washington as changing that." -- Ace of Spades
