Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Vitriol envy?

I usually don't revel in my hate mail, but this is amusing.

In response to my column on Bernie Goldberg in the November Reason (not yet online, though an earlier Boston Globe column on Goldberg's 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America can be found here), a reader from Alabama has this to say:

It amuses me to see how Bernie Goldberg got under your skin. Your attack on him came across as a little desperate.

I love how you call Ann Coulter a "nasty right-winger". I hope you read everything she writes. Ann Coulter is brilliant, funny and always entertaining. She would eat you alive in a debate, and she is a better writer, so I can seehow she gets under your skin too.

Bernie Goldberg, actually, leaves me fairly indifferent. I was simply amused by his blatant partisanship in selection the Goldberg 100, and by his evolution from liberal media gadfly to conservative media darling.

But Ann Coulter really does "get under my skin." I usually turn off the TV when she's about to appear; when I try to stick it out, I rarely last more than a minute. I refuse to go to any public event in which she participates. I think Coulter is the epitome of what has become the bane of political discourse in America: the tendency to demonize one's opponents, to treat them a priori as either idiots or scoundrels, to substitute ridicule, sarcasm, insults, and bile for even a pretense at reasoned argument. Goldberg, who leaves Coulter off his list of political hate-mongers, thinks it's okay because she does it all with "a twinkle in her eye." To me, that "twinkle" looks more like a brazen smirk ("yeah, I'm saying outrageous stuff -- try and stop me").

I've never understood Coulter's reputation, even among some reasonable conservatives, for being "funny" (let alone "brilliant"). For instance, here's a zinger Chris Caldwell cites as "Menckenesque" in his review of Treason in The Washington Post: "Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do. They don’t have the energy. If they had that much energy, they’d have indoor plumbing by now." This is humor? Here's another sample: "Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots." Dorothy Parker herself, in her grave, must be green with envy.

Yes, dear reader, you've got me pegged: it's my life's secret tragedy that I can't write like Ann Coulter. The only thing I'd love even more would be to look like her intellectual twin, Michael Moore.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some people like Ann Coulter because they think she is more attractive than most public figures. They will deny it of course, because that is superficial and not intellectually respectable, but alas it is also true.

For the record: yes, I do think she's attractive, and yes, I don't turn the TV off when I see her.

No, I don't think she's particularly interesting or "brilliant." Nonetheless, I am honest enough to know why I can stand to listen to her babble.

Anonymous said...

Can't stand her. The noise-to-signal ratio is way too high.

Anonymous said...

I read somewhere recently that in order to get through to a disobedient pet (like a cat or a dog), you should get down on all fours, i.e., drop to their level, and then they'll better absorb what you're trying to communicate. For a while, it seemed that the general level of political discourse in this country could be defined thusly: if a right-winger disagreed with you, he'd tell you you're wrong; if a left-winger disagreed with you, he'd tell you you're evil. When I think right-wing pundits, I think George Will, Dinesh D'Sousa, Charles Krauthammer, even Florence King (whatever happened to her?) Ann Coulter? She is amusing as a phenomenon, especially if you think of her as the Right's pet-trainer who's willing to drop down to the level of Barbra Streisand. It's when she (or Michael Savage) are taken seriously that things get a little disturbing.

As for her attractiveness, isn't it amazing what long blond straight hair can do for a girl in our culture? It's like a shorthand for "beautiful." You see the hair, you don't look any further but think "Wow, a supermodel!"

The Coulter fan who thought she could take Cathy -- or anyone -- in a debate must have missed her performance on what-was-that-show w/James Carville and Tucker Carlson, where she showed up to promote her book Slander. It took literally a heartbeat before Carville wiped the floor with her by simply calling her on such lines as "Katie Couric, the amiable Eva Braun of the Left" (wtf?), and the only response she had was feeble bleating that liberals have no sense of humor. She didn't have a coherent sentence to say in defense of her book. How do you go so unprepared on a show with James Carville, who you know will try to eviscerate you, and let him hammer you until you slink away with your tail between your legs? Hubris? I think not. I honestly think that's the best she can do in a debate with an experienced opponent who doesn't pull punches just because she's a girl.

Anonymous said...

(I'm still chuckling at the Eva Braun quote, above...)

Interesting how you felt you had to point out the 'from Alabama' thing in your post.

So, to give you another perspective, I'm from Cambridge, MA. I also find Ann brilliant, funny and entertaining. I expect probably as much as you would find John Stewart entertaining (whereas, excepting rare occasion, I find him mostly tedious, a pretentious kid mimicking eating at the big boy's table and mocking those who actually do).

Why is it that when liberals (moderate or not) give an example of a type contra their opponent, they always pick the weakest? How about a few other lines:

"What liberals mean by "goose-stepping" or "ethnic cleansing" is generally something along the lines of "eliminating taxpayer funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. But they can't say that, or people would realize they're crazy. So instead they accuse Republicans of speaking in 'code words.'"

"There is no surer proof of a Republican mediocrity than the media's respect."

"Dennis Kucinich did his tax return this week, and under "occupation" he wrote "Jay Leno punch line."

"Being anti-war in Hollywood was an act of bravery on the order of the keynote speaker at a PLO dinner making jokes about Ariel Sharon."

I could go on...

Anonymous said...

I concur about Jon Stewart. As a publisher of satirical fiction, I find it endlessly irritating that The Daily Show is what passes for satire in today's culture (people, please, parody is NOT satire, it's a horse of a completely different color!), and I find Stewart himself smug and neurotic. He has an occasional sharp zinger, but those are few and far between, and I can't shake off the feeling that he wants to be considered a major wit for the ages, the Mark Twain of our generation, while he is but a fairly mediocre whippersnapper. I was nauseated that he gave Goldberg's 100 People so much air time and such serious consideration, while not letting Christopher Hitchens slip in a word edgewise. I think the explanation for that may be that he's not in the least intellectually threatened by Goldberg -- and why would anyone be? -- but Hitchens, with his reputation, talent, and flair, is exactly what Stewart wishes he was/had and knows he falls short.

My husband watches the TiVo'd Daily Show quietly on his headphones so as not to provoke a tirade from me.

That's why I'm an independent :) Mention either Ann Coulter or Jon Stewart, and I'll go on a rant.

Anonymous brings up some clever Coulter lines, but I'd view her differently if she were a comedian rather than a political commentator with an occasional claim to being also a historian and a journalist.

Who said anything about Alabama?

Cathy Young said...

anonymous, I think you are much too quick to discern nefarious motives everywhere. You've obviously pegged me as a "liberal" (which would come as a surprise to many people), so if I mention that a silly email I got came from Alabama, it must be because I'm making fun of those rednecks down South, right? Wrong. Location is quite commonly used as an identifier for letter-writers. I would have mentioned Cambridge, Mass. just as readily.

As for your defense of Coulter: to be honest, of the lines you quoted, the only one I find remotely funny is the Dennis Kucinich one. The "PLO dinner/jokes about Ariel Sharon" is much too common a rhetorical trope, and the other two lines depend entirely too much on the audience's agreement with the speaker's viewpoint.

A truly "brilliant and funny" political satirist can make you appreciate his or her wit even when you disagree. That's true, for instance, of Florence King, or Christopher Hitchens. Or H. L. Mencken. Coulter doesn't even come close.

And by the way, I am not a fan of Jon Stewart, either.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Dave: conservatives watch Coulter because she's the closest thing they have to hot, despite her horsey face, when compared to church ladies like Miers, Schlafley, heartless grandmothers like Barbara, and Stepford Wives like Laura. For similar reasons Bush put Jenna and Barbara on display during the convention, even the first is obviously a moron and the second just plain weasel mean.

As for blonde hair, it's noted in the book Freakonomics that blonde hair is valued as much as a college degree when it eliciting response to online personal ads.

Anonymous said...

I read several of Ann Coulter's columns a while back, and IIRC, they left me wondering if she was actually mentally disturbed.

Not because of the content, but because it seemed as if her columns revealed a disorganization in her thought patterns. She would put sentences next to each other that did not flow logically, would make sudden and drastic shifts in subject matter without rhyme or reason, and basically left me wondering if she had composed them in an altered state of consciousness. I recall a couple of people I knew a while back speculating half-seriously if she was a crystal meth addict (apparently she fits the profile); *shrug* It's as good an explanation as any.

Apparently she appeals to some people. I guess I'm not one of them.

(Oh, and I agree she's not particularly attractive--she always looks kinda skanky to me actually. Not gonna speculate if she's a natural blonde....)

Anonymous said...

>>”Bernie Goldberg, actually, leaves me fairly indifferent. I was simply amused by his blatant partisanship in selection the Goldberg 100, and by his evolution from liberal media gadfly to conservative media darling.”

>>”I think Coulter is the epitome of what has become the bane of political discourse in America: the tendency to demonize one's opponents, to treat them a priori as either idiots or scoundrels, to substitute ridicule, sarcasm, insults, and bile for even a pretense at reasoned argument.”

Are you aware you’re contradicting yourself here? First you dismiss Bernie Goldberg with ridicule and sarcasm, and then declare ridicule and sarcasm the bane of political discourse in America. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me. Why, exactly, is it amusing that Goldberg would be “blatantly partisan” in his selection of the 100. He makes no secret of where he stands politically. Should he have carefully chosen 50 from the right and 50 from the left, even if he thought the 50 on the right weren’t really “screwing up the country,” just to convince people like you that he isn’t “biased.” You’ve missed the point. Using your logic, all of us would have to alternately vote Republican or Democrat every other election so we couldn’t be accused of bias. We would have to sleep with a man one night and a woman the next to avoid any suspicion of “bias” in our sexual preferences. If you had actually read Goldberg’s “Bias” you would know that he certainly doesn’t suggest that having a particular world view is evil, and he makes no secret of his own world view. His problem was with a mass media that claimed objectivity, balance and fairness, but was anything but objective, balanced and fair. His problem was with journalists, the most cynical class in the world when it come to judging the motives of others, who claimed they were themselves perfectly objective, uninfluenced by their personal political views, absolutely balanced and pure in reporting the news. His point was that these people, who claim to be objective in their reporting of the news, were, in fact, anything but objective, but refused to admit it. What can I say but, “join the club?” I haven’t seen a single attempt by anyone in the media or on the left to answer Goldberg’s arguments with, as you put it, reasoned discourse. I’ve seen lots of ridicule, lots of pious hand waving, lots grasping at anecdotal straws, but never anything that would rise to the level of a serious attempt to refute the charge of leftist bias in the media. Where has there been any attempt to quantitatively analyze the content of the news, using some pretense of scientific and statistical methods to detect bias. I have seen nothing of the sort that supports the media’s bogus claims to “objectivity.”

Your dismissal of Coulter doesn’t exactly smack of “reasoned discourse” either, or would you claim that calling someone a “hatemonger” doesn’t amount to demonizing them. You might reasonably argue that it’s OK to demonize people who demonize others, but I haven’t seen that argument in any of your postings.

In a word, if you’re going to strike pious poses on your blog, at least make some pretense of practicing what you preach.

Cathy Young said...

helian: if you want to see my arguments regarding Goldberg and Coulter, may I suggest you read the columns I linked in my post?

You defend Goldberg's partisan selection of the "100 people who are screwing up America" on the grounds that "he makes no secret of where he stands politically." But in fact, Goldberg has repeatedly emphasized that he is (or, for a long time, has been) a Democrat, and in his book he presents himself as a non-ideological champion of the common person. If he wants to excoriate liberals, fine. But when Goldberg denounces people who demonize and insult their political opponents and then leaves Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity off his list, that's a blatant double standard.

Incidentally, not only have I read Bias, I even wrote a fairly positive piece about it.

LTEC said...

Although all your criticisms of Coulter are valid, I think it is wrong to compare her to Michael Moore. Coulter does not (I believe) support dictators and terrorists, and Moore does.

If you want to find someone on the left who corresponds to Coulter, try John Kerry, who complained about "Benedict Arnold CEOs". Try Al ("digital brownshirts") Gore. Try all those democrats who call "racist" anyone who opposes affirmative action or hate crime legislation. How about that Newsday reporter who compared the republican convention to a Hitler rally? The list goes on.

Coulter is an idiot, but she is on our side. Michael Moore is not.

Cathy Young said...

Personally, I'd rather not have idiots in my camp...

Anonymous said...

Comparing Jon Stewart to Ann Coulter is silly.

There's a fairly recently evolved spectrum, along which political commentators fall between "entertainment" and "substantive". Limbaugh was maybe the first influential voice somewhere off the poles. Then came Hannity, Bill Maher, the Daily Show, Coulter, Savage, Franken and the like.
Coulter pretends to be entirely substantive, but spends so much time mugging that it's clear she doesn't believe it herself. Stewart makes no bones about being a comedian first.

LTEC said...

My point was not that we should defend Coulter or give her a pass simply because she does not support dictators or terrorists. My point was that however much we criticize her, we shouldn't pretend she is as bad as Michael Moore.

I say this not merely to be fair to Coulter, but because it is important to realize just how bad the Moores of the world are. It is also important to be able to calibrate idiocy, both on the right and the left.

Anonymous said...

@Cathy:
“helian: if you want to see my arguments regarding Goldberg and Coulter, may I suggest you read the columns I linked in my post?”

I will be glad to. However, the point I made was that you condemned ridicule and sarcasm, and then used it yourself in the same post. What you wrote in those other articles is not relevant unless you want to add the caveat to your general rule that it’s OK to use sarcasm and ridicule once you have made an attempt at reasoned and objective analysis. Seems a little complicated to me, though, and it probably wouldn’t work in practice.

@Cathy:
“You defend Goldberg's partisan selection of the "100 people who are screwing up America" on the grounds that "he makes no secret of where he stands politically." But in fact, Goldberg has repeatedly emphasized that he is (or, for a long time, has been) a Democrat, and in his book he presents himself as a non-ideological champion of the common person.”

I didn’t defend Goldberg’s selection of his 100. I simply pointed out that it’s absurd to claim that his choices are evidence of “bias.” To avoid your charge of “bias,” Goldberg would have to do violence to his own convictions and choose people based on some kind of a poll conducted with a set of people chosen scientifically to preserve political neutrality. Why, exactly, would he want to avoid that kind of “bias.” He says up front in his book, “First, I didn’t take a poll. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but this is my list. There won’t be two people in the whole country who agree with every name in the book. ‘Why in the world did you put him on it?’ someone is going to yell at me. ‘How come you left her off the list?’ Because the people on it are the ones I think are screwing things up.” Prophetic words, no?

@Cathy
“If he wants to excoriate liberals, fine. But when Goldberg denounces people who demonize and insult their political opponents and then leaves Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity off his list, that's a blatant double standard.”

In fact it’s not a blatant double standard, because, as Goldberg clearly states in his book, his list was not chosen to “denounce people who demonize and insult their political opponents.” It was chosen based on his perception of who, exactly, is screwing up America. He groups those people into a number of broad categories, including, America bashers, Hollywood blowhards, schlockmeisters, rap music stars whose songs celebrate vulgarity and violence, “American jackal” lawyers, the chronically offended, racial enforcers, white collar thugs, sex warriors, and ivory tower academic radicals. I do not find “people who demonize and insult their political opponents” on his list, do you? What you are, essentially, doing is declaring that, because Goldberg gored your sacred ox, the media, he has, therefore, abdicated the right to ever again express a political opinion that you haven’t personally vetted for “fairness” and “balance.” I respectfully submit that that is not the case, and he has a perfect right to make his list conform to his own personal beliefs. Your claim that his list is not “balanced” and “fair” because he doesn’t happen to agree with you on who should be on the list is nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Itec said: "Coulter does not (I believe) support dictators and terrorists, and Moore does."

That's the difference? As much as I loathe Moore, I'm not aware of his actually doing anything in active support of dictators and terrorists that would substantially help their work. (I'm not saying he never did, just that I'm not aware of it.) Unless, of course, you mean that he does it by spreading lies in his documentaries and using manipulative, out-of-context Film Editing 101 that makes the Bush administration look bad. Which would boil down to ye olde, tirede "Speak no evil of your government or the terrorists have won."

It's not unreasonable to compare Coulter to Moore on the grounds that both are narcissists who will say anything to remain the center of attention and appear to be incapable of experiencing any shame or taking any responsibility for their outlandish pronouncements. That would make them intellectual twins. Perhaps not necessarily identical twins. They don't have to be twins in every respect to be comparable.

As for comparing Coulter to Stewart, I don't know if it's the same Anonymous who first brought up Stewart that now says it's silly, but while I agree that Stewart would be the first one to tell you that he's a comedian, while Coulter lays claims to serious punditry, try to explain to the millions of The Daily Show fans who get all their political information from the show that it's only a joke. There are literally millions of people out there to whom Stewart is the new Cronkite, and whatever he says is "the way it is." What Stewart and Coulter have in common though is their visibly strenuous efforts to be taken seriously as intellectuals and major wits of our generation. And it's kind of sad to watch them both about to pop a vein.

LTEC said...

Olga:

Moore has supported terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq and in Israel in very unambiguous terms. It is clear what side he is on in these conflicts. However, as far as I know his support has only been with words. Does this "substantially help their work"? I don't know, but in any case it is (and should be) legal.

Evidence:
Look in "Stupid White Men" to see why the US deserved to be attacked. Search Moore's web site to see if he supports Israel or her enemies. But his most famous quote is:
"The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."

I don't think Coulter could be this awful if she tried.

Cathy Young said...

z -- I agree. Coulter's "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" comment has certainly given a lot of ammunition to "the other side." And there are way too many other things she has said that make it easy to caricature conservatives as heartless neanderthals.

Beazl: Good point, too, about how a Coulter-reared conservative may experience a nasty bout of cognitive dissonance once he meets some liberals who don't fit the stereotype.

Helian: I'm not at home right now, and hence not in possession of the Goldberg book. But he does in fact castigate, at some length, people who debase political discourse by demonizing their opponents, calling them names, etc. All his examples are from the left. Then he says "well, occasionally the right does it too" and uses Michael Savage as an example. And he specifically exempts Ann Coulter from the same charge because, you see, when she calls people "pond scum," she does it "with a twinkle in her eye."

Finally, I certainly think that irony and ridicule have their place in political commentary. But when those are your primary weapons, and when you're as extreme about it as Coulter, something is wrong.

Anonymous said...

@Cathy

"Finally, I certainly think that irony and ridicule have their place in political commentary."

I agree, and since I am certainly not without sin in that respect myself I hereby end my sermon. Thanks for your replies.