What Makes Anne Coulter So Damned Funny

What Ann Coulter’s detractors do not seem to get about her humor is it is funny precisely because of their reactions to it.

Those reactions range from bizarre, to typically predictable, to childishly whiny, to angry, and finally to something I can only describe as similar to the same kind of ‘roid rage that drives professional wrestlers to murder their families and then commit suicide.

That is exactly what makes Anne Coulter funny, but it seems to go straight over their heads, these people that for half a century now have been belittling the majority of their politically conservative opponents as being morons, retards, ignorant, and stupid.

In the meantime, these proponents of sticking to the issues and staying away from hateful speech on the grounds that it “poisons the political discourse” go on to insinuate that those who disagree with most if not all of their positions are, again, ignorant, redneck, xenophobic, anti-feminist, homophobic, bigoted and racist “wingnuts”.

Well, actually I went a little too far there. It is only the oft-cited “far left” base that uses that language. The Democratic, Liberal politicians do not actually use the word “wingnut”. (at least not publicly).

So when Elizabeth Edwards called in to Chris Matthews “Hardball” to confront Ann Coulter (John no doubt hunched safely behind her size 24+ slacks), here seems to have been the point-Coulter should refrain from attacking her husband, the man who is at the forefront of pointing out the inequities inherent within the “two Americas”. As he does so, naturally, he must explain-in a “positive” way, of course- how those who profit from that system are racist bigots. Therefore, by extension, so are all those who support them, for whatever reason. That and/or they are just ignorant.

Everybody is lined up on his or her pre-determined side. Those who like and support Coulter (me and about half the rest of the country), take her side. Those who support the Edwards position are on their side. Each side of course insists that their side “won”.

Nobody really “won” of course. Well, I did. I did because I see Coulters schpiel for what it is, and I think she is at her funniest, oddly enough, when she derogatorily categorizes and insults those who take the positions that I myself take. Because I am a moderate supporter of environmental concerns, and labor unions, and pro-choice positions, I find her skewering of those advocacy positions outright hilarious. When she takes on positions where I take an outright liberal view-in support of gay marriage, for example-I think she is even funnier.

I can laugh at her, and then pat myself on the back for being grown up enough to be able to laugh at myself, which most liberals can’t do (to be fair, neither can most conservatives).

Then, I ask myself, why in the hell should I support leaders and advocates of positions that take themselves so fucking seriously?

Here is the real skinny of the completely stupid affair. In an earlier appearance, she stated that she would have had something to say about the other candidate for the Democratic nomination-John Edwards-but it turns out that if you use the word “faggot” you might be sent into rehab, so she would just end her presentation and take questions from the crowd. This was at an appearance where she was giving her view of the Democratic candidates for the Presidential nomination for that party.

This, of course, was hyped up and blown out of all proportion. In a recent appearance on Good Morning America, she stated that she would never insult gays by seriously comparing them to Edwards (whom she actually seems to despise). She went on to comment about a recent statement by Bill Maher to the effect that if Vice-President Dick Cheney had died in a terrorist attack, so many people would not now be dead because of the Iraq War. She went on to note that this was met with little if any criticism, nor was it even widely noted. She concluded that if she had anything further to say about John Edwards, she would simply wish he had been killed in a terrorist attack.

Naturally, the left has been howling like banshees ever since the statement was made. Enter Elizabeth Edwards on the aforementioned Hardball segment. I like to think of her as “The Bitch Mother of Lies and the Lying Liars Who Bark Them”.

Coulter’s comments have been repeatedly misrepresented and taken totally out of context. Nor does it do any good to attempt to put them into context. Take for example the blog Oliver Willis, which I link to on “Pantheon Of Blogs”.

Here seems to be the Left’s rapid response team to the evil dangers of reason and logic.

When a commenter presented the entire context of Coulter’s remarks (not me. I am staying out of this one-why waste my energy)-you get this:

1. Maher’s earlier statement was not serious. If Coulter’s statement was derived from that, she took it entirely out of context.
2. You could make the point that it was a humorous take-off on Maher’s comments, only you can’t really do that, because Coulter has done this sort of thing before.

All of which tells me, (a), you can’t take a liberal commentator seriously when he says such things, or you are purposely taking him out of context. However, if a conservative commentator does the exact same thing, it absolutely must be taken literally, and deadly serious. Moreover, perhaps more tellingly (b) it’s not so bad to make such a joke once, but more than once is inappropriate.

Judging by this criterion, if you ever called Dan Quayle a moron, that was funny and legitimate, but you have to stop it there. Why do I seem to think that would not be considered a legitimate point?

Someone should have explained this rationale to insult comic Don Rickles, he might have gotten more laughs if he had stopped after the first put-down.

You can follow the beginning of the Coulter/Edwards feud by linking to the Jewish World Review article by Coulter that may have got the ball rolling. You might then ask yourself, if John and Elizabeth Edwards are so incensed at Anne Coulter’s “hate speach" that they make it an issue in a drive for political donations on their website, why did they ever hire the two “hate-speaking” bloggers referred to in this article?

In defense of said bloggers, I think they actually made some pretty good points, in some regards, and, just like Anne Coulter, many of their statements were funny, albeit somewhat “over-the-top”. So I guess the Edwards weren’t being hypocrites after all, since they did fire them. I’m sure they were legitimately outraged once their statements come to light, it surely wasn’t base political calculation that caused them to change their minds.

Of cooouuuurrrrrrse not. Just like Elizabeth Edwards really doesn’t hate that neighbor of theirs, the Republican who ran off two people from his property at gunpoint, people who were trying to establish a right-of-way through his property (allegedly for the benefit of the Edwards, by the way). She was just upset that the bad-tempered fellow was so hateful and negative.

She is allowed, of course, to be strident in her criticisms of the hateful, the ignorant, and the racist folks who disagree with her and John. We can surely excuse her if/when she crosses the line. After all, she is dying of breast cancer, the poor dear.