Battered Republicans

Again a service for our readers in a hurry, Speed Coulter...

Title: Battered Republican Syndrome
Sean Hennity wrote a great book.
But he was too easy on liberals.
Bad, bad liberals.
Republicans nice to liberals.
Liberals mean to Republicans.
Bad, bad liberals.
Clinton trashed the White House (distorts a GAO report)
Kennedy is a bad man.
Bad, bad, bad liberals.

Now if you still feel the need to read more, here it is:"

Battered Republican Syndrome
by Ann Coulter
August 28, 2002

FOR MY ESCAPIST summer reading at the beach this week, I've been flipping through Sean Hannity's fabulous new book, Let Freedom Ring. It's a fine book, with many excellent illustrations of how consistently wrong liberals have been for half a century, give or take a few years. But I must take issue with Sean on one point.

I haven't read the book so I can't comment. Except, of course, on the obvious blame liberals for everything line, which is--surprise surpise--the theme of this weeks column. Does Coulter ever write about anything else? What would she do if liberals weren't there to kick around? To paraphrase Voltaire, if liberals did not exist, Coulter would have to invent them (which I guess in a way she does, as her descriptions of liberals are such a fictionalized stew of lies and goofiness).

Perplexingly, he writes: "The vast majority of liberals are good, sincere, well-meaning people." This cheery bonhomie is beginning to sound like the mantra about the "vast majority" of Muslims being peaceful and has produced the same good results. I think it's time to drop the infernal nonsense about liberals being well-intentioned but misguided. In the spirit of Hannityesque magnanimity, I will say that there is only one thing wrong with liberals: They're no good.

Right, liberals are just bad people. We get up in the morning and say to ourselves: "What bad things will I do today?" (To Coulter fans out there: How do you deal with the hypocrisy of Coulter always calling liberals bad people and then claiming that liberals are the ones always calling names?)

As Hannity notes, liberals never reciprocate the love conservatives keep sending their way. They don't like us. They don't even think we're human. Of this, I am eternally grateful.

Love sent our way? So this is all just about hurt feelings?

• Some of the other things liberals believe are:
• to move beyond discrimination, we must discriminate;
• girls would make excellent Marines;
• running gay marriage announcements in the wedding pages will lead to greater acceptance of homosexuality.

  Yes, many liberals support affirmative action. Female marines? I don't know any liberals who care at all about this one (although I thought Demi Moore was way tough in G.I.Jane). I think running gay marriage announcments is a sign of greater acceptance, not a cause.

They are wrong about everything. Why would anyone want to be liked by these people?

It's sort of cute when Sean's hail-fellow-well-met approach toward liberals is greeted with dismissive grunts. For one thing, I think well enough of Sean to believe he doesn't really mean it. But how many times must we endure a Republican politician droning on about what a fine human being some heinous Democrat is and what a pleasure it was to work with him, only to have the heinous Democrat grudgingly issue some backhanded compliment about the Republican finally seeing the light on this "one issue"?

Heinous? Why would a Republican politician praise a "heinous" Democrat? Does Coulter realize she is actually blackening the names of Republicans? Either: a) Republicans are fools who praise people whom they don't realize are actually evil, or b) Republicans are two-faced types who say one thing but think another. So which is it, Ann? Are Republicans two-faced liars or stupid and naive? (I think they're neither of these things, but then I have more respect for people, conservative or liberal, than does Coulter.)

In the 1996 vice presidential debates, for example, Al Gore said of his opponent Jack Kemp: "Now I want to congratulate Mr. Kemp for being a lonely voice in the Republican Party over the years on this question" of racism and affirmative action. Kemp responded to this demagogic and baseless slander of the Republican Party by saying: "Affirmative action should be predicated upon need, not equality of reward, blah, blah, blah." Gee, thanks, Jack.

So Gore tried to score a debating point over the issue of affirmative action and Coulter is upset. Next non point please.

President Bush, too, has repeatedly set himself up as the test case of what happens when you try to play nice with a Democrat. After the dignified staff of the dignified former president trashed the White House on their dignified exit, Bush downplayed the property damage, saying: "There might have been a prank or two. Maybe somebody put a cartoon on the wall, but that's OK."

Anyone who knew anyone moving into the Bush White House knew that it was more than a "prank or two." But instead of stopping while they were ahead, pocketing Bush's gracefulness and moving on, the Democrats aggressively attacked Republicans for having falsely accused the Clinton staff of trashing the White House. They cited Bush's magnanimity as evidence that this was a lie. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., demanded an apology from the White House. USA Today ran a snippy article titled "Ex-Clinton staffers on vandalism: Got proof?" Former Clinton press secretary Jake Siewert insinuatingly asked why there were no records of the alleged damage.

And then the full GAO report came back: The Party of the People had done $15,000 worth of property damage to the People's House. Extend an olive branch to Democrats and they bite your hand off.

Typical Coulter: A gross distortion of the GAO's report.

Yes, the Clintonistas played some foolish pranks while leaving the White House. They left behind xeroxed messages making fun of Bush and Cheney, voice mail messages saying similar things, etc. There were also a number of keyboards with their "W"s missing. Other damage was done but the GAO said it was unclear whether it was deliberate or just a sign of sloppy caretaking over the 8 years the staff was in place.

But what Coulter ignores, is that the GAO report says this admittedly childish behavior was typical of presidential tansitions. To quote the GAO:

"some of the same types of observations that were made concerning the condition of the White House complex during the 2001 transition were also made during the 1993 transition," (ie-as the Bush the Elder's people were leaving office). The GAO was "unable to conclude whether the 2001 transition was worse than previous ones." The GAO also said similar pranks/conditions occurred in 1989. In other words, this kind of behavior happened under Republicans and Democrats. Silly, yes, but hardly a major scandal.

The real scandal is how the Bush administration pursued this vendetta against Clinton, forcing the GAO to do a major investigation, almost certainly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, all to discover $19,000 in damages and necessary repairs (Coulter's column actually printed a lower figure than the GAO's report; probably lazy reporting).

The contents of the report demonstrates the vindictive behavior of the Bush officials (which does not necessarily mean Bush himself). Of the 217 page report, 130 pages (more than half!) are devoted to listing the White Houses's complaints about the GAO's underreporting of incidents along with the GAO's responses to those complaints. In other words, most of the report is about how the GAO and the White House were nitpicking over exactly how many keyboards got damaged, how many xeroxes were taped up in bathrooms. This is how our White House spends its time?

The full report, by the way, can be found on the GAO's web site: http://www.gao.gov. The report is GAO-02-360, dated June 7, 2002. In it, the White House comes across as quite peevish, the opposite of "graceful."

Bush has invited Sen. Teddy Kennedy to the White House for movie night (to watch the Kennedy hagiography Thirteen Days), brought him over to discuss education several times, named a federal building after one brother and gushingly praised the other.

Yes, Bush spent a lot of time making nice with the Democrats in friendly love-fests, while giving absolutely no policy concessions. Being unwilling to compromise, but smiling while you do it, is not gracious politics. I'm not surprised that Kennedy and others remained skeptical.

The adulterous drunk who cheated at Harvard and killed a girl at Chappaquiddick responded to these overtures by attacking Bush. "It takes more than good intentions to make a difference," Kennedy said. Asked about Bush's intelligence (a meaningless concept in college admissions but a scientifically provable quality in the cases of Republican presidents and death-row inmates), Kennedy pointedly said only that he found Bush, "engaging and personable."

Kennedy is hardly my favorite guy, but his behavior IN THIS CASE is perfectly fine. Bush tried to butter him up without giving him any political gains, and he refused to be buttered. And this makes Democrats into bad people? (Yes, Kennedy's life outside politics is most definately sleezy, but one could say the same think about a number of thrice divorced Republicans; and should we mention ex-heavy drinker George W. Bush?).

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., dismissed Bush's overtures toward Kennedy as calculated political gamesmanship.

(Pop quiz: Did a Republican or Democrat say this about a member of the opposing party - "Your thoughtfulness truly amazes me…Thank you, my friend, for your many courtesies. If the world only knew." Answer: That was Sen. Trent Lott on Teddy Kennedy.)

When Bush named the Department of Justice building after Robert Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy Cuomo displayed the renowned Kennedy graciousness by viciously attacking the Bush administration at a pre-dedication ceremony. Noting that her daughter was in the audience, Kennedy Cuomo said: "Kara, if anyone tries to tell you this is the type of justice system your grandpa embraced, you just don't believe it."

I don't know the exact context, but I suspect it had something to do with John Ashcroft's policies as Attorney General. That's politics baby.

This is as we have come to expect from a family of heroin addicts, statutory rapists, convicted and unconvicted female-killers, cheaters, bootleggers and dissolute drunks known as "Camelot." Why would anyone want such people as their "good friends"?

Yes, the Kennedy family has lots of flaws. And this indicts liberals in what way? I always vote against a Kennedy in a Democratic primary (Carl McCall is getting my vote, not Kennedy connection Andrew Cuomo, in New York's Democratic primary for governor). Many liberals like me are less than thrilled with the Kennedy family. Just as many conservatives dislike elements in their own party. (As evidenced by the Republicans who write to me telling me how much they dislike Ann Coulter's ideas and methods.)

Using the Kennedys to attack all liberals is falacious logic. It's like saying: "I hate apples, apples are fruit, I must hate all fruit." You'd think a lawyer like Coulter would know she's making an annecdotal and terribly flawed argument. Perhaps she does and just doesn't care. But I won't let her falacious and dishonest arguments tarnish all conservatives in my eyes. That would be wrong.

Just in, Kev J. brought this one to my attention. In this column, Coulter attacks the Kennedy family, lock stock and barrel. But she forgets to mention that John Kennedy Jr. hired her for George magazine. Dipping around, I found this quote from a July 19, 1999 Washington Post article:

"When conservative Republican Ann Coulter turned in her first George magazine column, about health care, John Kennedy Jr. wanted more specifics. Fine, said Coulter. "So I sent in a paragraph denouncing Teddy Kennedy's proposal--and it ran!" Kennedy, she said yesterday, "was totally fair and even-handed. He wanted people to be reading ideas, and it didn't matter that he didn't agree with them."

Great guy one day, part of scummy family the next, Coulter is so damn consistent.

©2002 Carl Skutsch. All rights reserved.
All opinions expressed herein are those of the author unless otherwise noted
(and it goes without saying that they make more sense than Coulter's opinions.)

graphics & design by pixelforge