Ann Coulter at CPAC 2011 - Q & A Session

[_aussieguy55]

I don’t find her anymore annoying or ignorant than any leftist pundit in the media. I always get a kick out of internet-lefties who try a little too hard to act urbane and look down on people in the tea-party as a bunch of crazy gun nuts, and sigh wistfully about a lack of gun culture Europe.

So Ann Coulter is no worse than, say, Rachel Maddow? This despite her penchant for wild lies, intense mean-spiritedness, and generally adopting ridiculous positions in a quasi-trolling fashion? That's her schtick mind you, not out of character moments.

So what, in your view, is Maddow's equivalent of saying in response to 9/11 that we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and (forcibly) convert the population to Christianity?

Rachel Maddow was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University

[_MrStakhanovite]

Rachel Maddow was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she earned a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in politics from Oxford University

and?

[_EAllusion]

I find that to be an extreme false equivalence, on par with saying that Pahoran and The Dude are equally ignorant and annoying message board posters on the topic of Mormonism.

[_MrStakhanovite]

I find that to be an extreme false equivalence, on par with saying that Pahoran and The Dude are equally ignorant and annoying message board posters on the topic of Mormonism.

I don't understand what a false equivalence is, do you mean some fallacy of equivocation? She is a Rhodes Scholar and a Oxford PhD, but she still felt it prudent to blatantly lie about a part of the text of the Stupak fiasco, on national TV. And didn't apologize or correct herself when it was pointed out.

That puts her in the same category as Coulter.

[_EAllusion]

I find that to be an extreme false equivalence, on par with saying that Pahoran and The Dude are equally ignorant and annoying message board posters on the topic of Mormonism.

I don't understand what a false equivalence is, do you mean some fallacy of equivocation? She is a Rhodes Scholar and a Oxford PhD, but she still felt it prudent to blatantly lie about a part of the text of the Stupak fiasco, on national TV. And didn't apologize or correct herself when it was pointed out.

That puts her in the same category as Coulter.

Uh, false equivalence is essentially when you take an act or view of one party and portray it as equivalent in egregiousness to that of another party even though there are significant underlying differences. It's usually done to strike a moderate or "above it all" pose. Lazy journalism is rife with this nowadays, where the paint by numbers political stories are group a says x but group b says y.

Right-wing pundits and media personalities are especially terrible at the moment, so you'll see it often charged when compared against the failings of the left-wing counterparts. Maddow's failings aren't equivalent to asserting Native Americans deserved to be wiped out because they did not assimilate out of their savage culture. It's not the same thing.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Right-wing pundits and media personalities are especially terrible at the moment, so you'll see it often charged when compared against the failings of the left-wing counterparts. Maddow's failings aren't equivalent to asserting Native Americans deserved to be wiped out because they did not assimilate out of their savage culture. It's not the same thing.

I don’t agree with that, I’m not going assign Ann’s silly ideas extra points because they are more offensive or transparently stupid. I think Rachel’s shortcomings are just as insidious as Ann’s because she presents it in a more serious and convincing manner.

[_EAllusion]

If no one took Ann Coulter and the type of pundit she represents seriously, I might be inclined to agree. Put another way, if Maddow's more nuanced, less off the wall, less disingenuous approach was more likely to sucker people in then I'd agree it was more insidious. But that's not the case. Ann Coulter and friends do have a [more] substantial following, so the fact that their ideas are more ridiculous, more sinister actually matters when comparing how annoying the two are. And if you're comparing ignorance, which you explicitly were, I don't know how you don't compare how relatively stupid the ideas of both are.

[_Droopy]

So Ann Coulter is no worse than, say, Rachel Maddow?

While Coulter has chosen a primarily polemical style for herself as a public figure, she is highly educated, well read, and smart.

Maddow, on the other hand, is for all intents a clinical airhead with a long history of unusually bizarre beliefs and even more bizarre arguments supporting them.

This despite her penchant for wild lies

CFR

intense mean-spiritedness,

Nothing approaching the American Left.

and generally adopting ridiculous positions in a quasi-trolling fashion? That's her schtick mind you, not out of character moments.

I suspect you wouldn't last 5 minutes with her in a debate on any subject of current events of any importance.

So what, in your view, is Maddow's equivalent of saying in response to 9/11 that we should invade Muslim countries, kill their leaders, and (forcibly) convert the population to Christianity?

That was a purely tongue-in-cheek polemical tweak useful in getting a rise out of people such as yourself who are not appreciably widely or well read on the salient issues of the day or their philosophical roots (as any intellectually honest broker of this comment and others Coulter has made would be aware).

I think an analog to Coulter's statement (which was not a serious claim but a polemical tweak) could begin with Maddow's tendentious and shallow shilling for ACORN as a gatekeeper of the correct narrative.

http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/07/ ... a-platoon/

To trash Coulter while defending someone who has been likened to the female Keith Olbermann seems a bit overwrought.

[_Droopy]

if Maddow's more nuanced, less off the wall, less disingenuous approach was more likely to sucker people in then I'd agree it was more insidious.

Please, stop the slapstick. Your killing me E. Maddow is an embarrassingly uneducated, uninformed media shill for whatever the agenda of the hour is among the Ruling Class. Her disingenuity, as severe has it is, is nonetheless dwarfed by her consistent lack of basic knowledge regarding most subjects upon which she opines (such as her smarmy but intellectually vacant and misleading shilling behavior for Obamacare).

The Left, unfortunately for both it and the country, abandoned real intellectual seriousness a long time ago, and although they've lost all the arguments, they control most of the core institutions of the nation.

They have the all important will to power for which won or lost arguments are merely theatrical dressing.

[_bcspace]

Ann Coulter and friends do have a [more] substantial following, so the fact that their ideas are more ridiculous, more sinister actually matters when comparing how annoying the two are.

You gotta be kiddin' me. Ann Coulter's ideas more ridiculous than the Madcow's? Don't let the entertaining rhetoric fool you, Coulter's got both feet on the ground and conservative ideals are historically proven whereas the left has to re-invent history.