Thursday, June 15, 2006

I guess I am no Conservative either

The Anchoress has a post out today that I really identify with.

Not that the GOP is in any shape to crow - it is busily making itself as unattractive to the rest of the country as it possibly can, what with Coulter apologists slapping their knees and chuckling while she carries on about “Hillary’s chubby legs” and “Rahm Emmanuel’s Tutu” in the same stupid manner so many of us have decried on the part of the left.

In addition to the consensus position that liberals are godless, no one has made a peep about that swipe I took at Hillary, proposing that she have a chat with her husband before accusing others of being “mean” to women in light of Juanita Broaddrick’s charge that Bill Clinton raped her. Hillary beat a hasty retreat on her chubby little legs and is now hiding behind Rahm “Don’t Touch My Tutu” Emanuel.

Yes, the Democrats’ pit bull, Rahm Emanuel, is a former ballerina. And they wonder why the concerted effort of the MSM (as we call the mainstream media) and the Democratic Party can’t lay a finger on me. A ballerina. Hey, if the padded, silky shoe fits …

What is the point of that? How is that relevent to anything? Sorry, I’m not going to chuckle and say, “aw, that Ann’s a pistol, ain’t she?” She’s doing here precisely she herself says the left does, and no, it’s not clever, it’s not funny. It’s not better because it comes from the right. It’s not “justified” because “they started it.”

It’s weak. It’s lame. It’s spiteful and immature. It is what the left does with impunity, but that doesn’t make it right. And once again it undercuts and discredits the very sound and excellent points Coulter makes at the end of her piece, where she puts out very “uncivil” quotes made by members of the MSM who are now castigating her for incivility.

I don’t know…maybe I really am all wrong, but to me the way to battle incivility is not to embrace it to yourself and then crow about how you are doing so. You’ve got something critical to say, then say it and hell yes a little snark is a good thing…but snark demands a bit of wit. There is nothing witty in calling a woman fat or doing a sneer because a man danced…or are we really trying to imply something about the man’s sexuality? And that is relevent, how, exactly? That makes us better than the left, how?

That’s leadership? That’s something we want to follow? Go ahead…it will just make you the equivalent of a Koskid…ah, see where embracing such rhetoric leads, to a playground on which the left yells bumpersticker slogans and the right yells, “fat legs! You’re gay!”

Brilliant. So useful.

Coulter will never calm down and she’ll never rein herself in, and that’s a shame, because she’s awfully smart. She seems to relish ther persona as the bristling blonde (and she’s certainly a disher of red meat for a particular audience) but I think in the long run, she hurts the right, she hurts our cause. She could be absolutely correct about everything in the world, but she is so off-putting that she simply adds to every stereotype of the “mean and hypocritical, homophobic Christian conservative,” that is out there, and no, I don’t want that reflected onto me.

But then again, it’s more and more clear that I am really not a “conservative,” at least not as they currently define themselves, anymore than I am a “liberal” as currently defined. You will never convince me that the only way to handle the illegal immigration problem is to “ship them all back,” and even though Hastert - desperately attempting to redeem himself after his Jefferson gaffe - is dealing a blow to the immigration bill, the end of the article points out:

Flake sponsored an early version of the Senate bill with Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who also called for the bill to move forward.

“Only a small, vocal faction wants to stop a sensible guest-worker program and ignore the reality of the 11 million undocumented living in the country now,” Kolbe said in a statement. “We must not let any
delays impede our progress toward solving this problem.”

I guess maybe AJ has a point when he says we need a Kadima party of our own. The two we have right now are big disappointments. It seems after announcing to America that illegal immigration is a crisis of such proportions that only making illegal entry a felony can even begin to deal with it all the GOP has decided to cave in for the squeaky and somewhat deranged wheel that represents about 20% of the population and just say never mind. And now all of a sudden the status quo is a victory. These guys put that stupid provision in the House bill making illegal entry a felony knowing full well it would create a problem. Not only did it create a problem it inspired a counter movement of proimmigration rallies. And now when faced with the realization that most people really are not all that into mass deportation they have decided to kill the bill. Their bill. The one they said we were doomed without. Disgusting.

The House could have dealt with the problem long ago without all the drama just by creating a guest worker program and strenghtening border security, but here we are after all this nonsense and name calling and threatening people and melt downs and all we have to show for it is a dead House bill. Maybe they don't want to solve it. Maybe they want a problem they can milk and keep around as an issue.

7 comments:

Barry Dauphin said...

These terms (liberal and conservative) do more to disguise people's views than to reveal them. We are probably stuck with them for the near future, although I suspect they will get replaced over time. Perhaps after the Boomer generation has passed on.

Morgan said...

From now on, I'm self-identifying as a "strewnaround".

Unknown said...

david:

I know people who are not by any stretch of the imagination Godless who consider Coulter offensive.

morgan:

I like that.

MeaninglessHotAir said...

Well, I've never been able to see anything in either party that I could really get behind and believe in. I don't think the parties have really changed. I think Terrye has changed.

I can't remember a single Presidential candidate whom I had a choice of voting whom I thought would make a good President. Still, some of them turned out all right, one way or the other.

Unknown said...

mHA:

Strange, I was thinking you had changed.

Maybe our perceptions of each other are changing, not our real selves.

Morgan said...

The great thing about the strewnaround platform, the planks don't need to fit together in any obvious way. Saves a lot of time.

'course, that's not really any different from those other parties.

I'll toss out a few possible planks for consideration (all flexible, of course, as green planks are):

1) Government is too big. Yes, there are things we want it to do for us, but are there really $12-15,000 per person per year worth of things we want it to do for us? We need to set priorities.

2) The "civil union" is a reasonable compromise - so stop complaining, both of you. You - go get united, everyone will call you married anyway. You - stick a sock in it, and mind your own business.

3) Legal immigration is good. Immigrants must speak or learn to speak English, and must want to become Americans. Hyphenated-Americanism is fine, up to a maximum of two hyphens - after that you're just American, okay? Legal immigration should be expanded greatly and supplemented with a guest worker program; illegal immigration should be stopped.

Hepzibah The Watchman said...

I agree about Coulter. Here is an intelligent, attractive woman with a national audience who has gone down the same road as the liberals - only in the opposite direction. I wish she had stayed on the high road.