Coulter Debate: Part 1

I'm sure most of you are familiar with the recent controversy over Ann Coulter's remarks about John Edwards, so I won't go into the event itself. Instead, here is an exchange I had with Lawrence Auster of View from the Right, over the past few days. Auster resides on the same side of the political spectrum as I do, for those unfamiliar with him. If you have the time or inclination, I suggest reading the entire discussion; if not, I offer the most pertinent elements, here. I'm interested in my readers' takes on the arguments used, and in comparing the tones. Here's the setup:

AUSTER: There is no excuse for using language like that. Coulter was speaking at a political conference and used language that would be fighting language used by one man against another. She dragged down a political conference to the level of a low dive, and she used her sex to get away with an insult that no man would use against another man unless he was prepared to fight. Coulter’s vulgarity is indefensible. The conservative movement drags itself down by accommodating her and it.

I think it’s despicable for Coulter to insult a man like that on national television and then say it’s a joke. This is like a leftist professor at Duke University in the early ‘90s who called the National Association of Scholars “racist,” and then defended himself (I think it was in a letter to NR) by saying that he was just using “rhetoric.” So he gets to call people racist, and gets to deny that he’s done it. It’s like Oliver Stone producing “JFK,” a movie that made millions of people believe that there had been a vast conspiracy in the U.S. government including Lyndon Johnson to kill President Kennedy, and then, when he was challenged, saying at a press conference that it was just a fiction. So Stone got to have it both ways: he got to spread evil lies into millions of minds, lies that he made them believe were the truth, and he got to deny what he had done. It’s the same with Coulter. She issues a humiliating insult at a public figure, and then pretends that she didn’t do so. No matter how bright Coulter may be, she is a low person, and a conservative movement that makes an icon of her diminishes itself.

As I’ve said, Edwards is a risible figure, and there are all kinds of things you can legitimately say about him to make fun of him or even ridicule him. But to use an insult like “faggot” in American public life, and then, worse, to approve of it and normalize it, degrades all of us.

Now on to my response:

WES: Hi, Mr. Auster. I hope you don’t mind a few comments from a fairly new reader:

1. I would not have used the term “faggot” in a public forum speech—if for no other reason, because it draws attention away from any legitimate point in the making, as the current reaction proves.

2. Ms. Coulter technically didn’t call him this name; she alluded to it, yes, but it was not a direct claim.

3. Coulter stood by her comment. In an exchange with Adam Nagourney from the NYT:

Nagourney: The three Republican presidential contenders denouncing you….Do you want to do any response?

Coulter: C’mon it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean. Did any of these guys say anything after I made the same remark about Al Gore last summer? Why not? What were they trying to say about Al Gore with their silence?

On the front page of her blog is this headline: AMBULANCE CHASER GETS REAR-ENDED BY ANN COULTER—I’m so ashamed, I can’t stop laughing!

Not what I’d consider a retreat.

4. “and she used her sex to get away with an insult that no man would use against another man unless he was prepared to fight.”

Perhaps face-to-face, but not through broadcast media. How many times have leftist males impugned other males on the Right with accusations of racism, “homophobia,” sexism, mindless jingoism, or a cornucopia of other smears?

5. Coulter understands that the Left wants to deconstruct our society and destroy its moral foundation and heritage, while ushering in something far worse to fill that vaccuum. Thus the contempt she shows its more visible components. I believe this website’s author understands this, as well, which is one reason why I’m a reader.

6. The Left assures us one and all that homosexuality is not only normal, but beautiful; so why is dubbing Edwards a “faggot” insulting? One either accepts this claim, or not. The Left can’t have it both ways.


(TO BE CONTINUED)