Where Is The Republican Outrage?

I am sure Steve Shives surfs the blogs and if he missed the "outrage" then he needs to broaden his surfing because I know that Michelle Malkin for one was really pissed off about Coulter's remarks and she was throughly denounced by the major figures at CPAC but in general neo-cons, IMHO, accept that Coulter will be outrageous in the same way we expect some of the people attending a Chili Cookout will fart and Coulter's remarks can be compared to farting. But like farts most neo-cons accept that once the initial odor dissipates they get on with their lives unlike most liberals. Scroll down past Steve's article.......

Ann Coulter’s CPAC Speech: Where is the Republican Outrage?

Steve Shives
March 5, 2007

As we all know by now, during a speech given on March 2 at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Ann Coulter said this:

"I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm - so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions."[1]

Condemnation flooded in from those we’d expect to be outraged—Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, GLAD, and of course Edwards himself—but the reaction from the other side, the side for which Coulter presumes to speak, has been deafening—and I think damning—silence.

The three leading candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination all denounced Coulter’s remarks in statements so generic that they might as well have gotten together and issued a joint press release. Quoting all three would be a waste of time, so here’s what McCain said, through a spokesperson, paraphrasing Reno: 911’s Lt. Jim Dangle: “The comments were wildly inappropriate.”[2]

Where is the outrage from these people? Why are men running for President wagging their fingers and lightly admonishing Coulter when they should be embarrassed and infuriated that this woman is part of the public face of their faction? I am neither a conservative nor a Republican, but if I were, I’d be mortified to share an ideology or a party with this woman. I’m already embarrassed enough sharing a genus with her.

I think part of the problem is that many people on the political right just don’t see what Coulter said as being any big deal. Sure, many conservative Republicans (most of whom, conventional wisdom tells us, are also Christians) pay lip service to being respectful and tolerant toward homosexuals, but that’s mostly out of politeness or political prudence. In their useless condemnations, none of the three Republican candidates referred directly to what Coulter said. Mitt Romney came the closest in his response when he (or rather his spokesman) stated his belief that “all people should be treated with dignity and respect.”[3]

Dignity and respect are all well and good, but Coulter’s latest discharge of bile deserves to be answered more vigorously than an apathetic scolding delivered by a deputy. What Ann Coulter said, and Ann Coulter herself, ought to be denounced in no uncertain terms—and McCain, Giuliani and Romney ought to be the ones doing the loudest denouncing, not Edwards, his fellow Democrats or the numerous offended gay rights organizations. Imagine if one of the Republican contenders had cared enough to respond personally, and had said something like this:

“What Ann Coulter said about John Edwards at CPAC was repugnant and wrong, both for the bigoted language she used and for the personal attack on Mr. Edwards that it represented. Ann Coulter is an embarrassment to conservatism and to the Republican party; it is my hope that she will no longer be invited to speak at CPAC or other conservative conferences, and that my fellow conservatives in government and in the media will make clear that she does not speak for them, nor for our party, nor for the conservative movement. I condemn Ann Coulter’s words, and I condemn the ignorant prejudices behind them, and do no intend to accept contributions or other offers of support from her or those of her hateful ilk, now or at any time during my campaign.”

What was so hard about that? Are McCain, Giuliani and Romney worried about offending those who support Ann Coulter, perhaps those few who applauded after she called Edwards a “faggot?” If so, why? If I ran for President, offending those people would be among my top priorities.

The election is still 19 months away, and it would be nice if someone running for President took a stand on something. The Republicans blew their chance with Ann Coulter here, which is frustrating—this was an easy one.

From Hillbilly White Trash

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Another post about the Blond One
I saw over on Born Again Redneck that some of the big conservative bloggers are starting to bash Ann Coulter for calling little faggot John Edwards a faggot. [roll eyes and sigh with profound exasperation]

OK, listen up. The only reason that the left continues to use labels like racist, sexist and homophobe against us are that we reply by cringing and groveling. This makes us look weak and takes us off message. It also lends credence to the enemy's charges. After all if Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani and John McCain and big conservative bloggers (and I'll wager that some of the more prissy conservative columnists like George Will will join the chorus as well) all say that Ann went "too far" and that her remarks were "hateful" and constituted a "smear" then all we will do is invite more of those attacks.

After all if they can get many conservatives to reject the most effective voice we have then why shouldn't they keep up that kind of attack. Nothing succeeds like success.

And if you question my statement that Ann is our most effective voice then consider this. In the mid 1800s the corrupt Tammany machine ruled New York City and kept it under the thumb of William M. "Boss" Tweed. Thomas Nast, the father of American political cartooning took on Tweed through his editorial cartoons.

This drove Tweed crazy. He regarded Nast as a greater threat to his power than all of the muck-raking reporters in the city combined. This was because most of the poor voters who Tweed depended upon for reelection were illiterate. They couldn't read what the "investigative journalists" wrote about him, but they could damn well look at Nast's drawings of Tweed and his cronies as and get the message that Tweed was evil and crooked.

It is the same today with Ann's writing. The fact is that most of the voters in this country will never read long thoughtful, well written essays, full of footnotes or hyperlinks about Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or John Edwards. They will not spend hours every day on the web and listening to talk radio and become deeply knowledgeable about the Democratic candidates and what is so very wrong with each and every one of them. That, after all, takes time and hard work (yes, learning is hard work to many).

But what a great many will do is read a newspaper column which will give them a chuckle (it being not nearly so hard to laugh). Ann is highly intelligent and has a wickedly funny and razor sharp way of boiling down the issues and personalities. We need her to keep doing exactly what she is doing.

Labels: Ann Coulter, Campaign 2008, Liberal Republcan Moonbattery

# posted by Lemuel Calhoon @ 11:40 PM