--- Well said. Ann Coulter

--- Well said.
Ann Coulter annoys me. This is no surprise to anyone, I’m sure. But
what might surprise you is that most of the time I think she’s got a
point. However, it’s how she chooses to phrase that point that always
leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. Invariably, she will come up
with a valid point of contention and because she relies entirely upon
inflammatory rhetoric that automatically presumes I, the reader, am
stupid, it turns me off. There are no shades of gray with Coulter’s
world. It’s always and forever black and white with this woman. This
commentary proves my point. No, it is not exactly classy that the
Democratic candidates seem to be bringing out their dead in an effort
to get elected, but don’t you think she might have been able to state
her objections without being extremely crass in the meanwhile? Would
that have been possible? I think it would, but for Ms. Coulter, tact
has no place in discussing the Democratic candidates for President. She
disagrees with the positions they hold, so they’re wrong on everything, and this would just be one more example to prove her point that conservatism is the only
way to go.
Not exactly the most nuanced tack to take, if you ask me. But plenty of
people lap it up, because she’s the head cheerleader. And make no
bones about it---when it comes right down to it, Ann Coulter is that
obnoxiously peppy cheerleader you hated in high school. You know---the
rah-rah type, who hung out with all the football players and thought
that anyone who didn’t support athletics {insert Valley Girl accent
here} was, like, a loser who just didn’t, like, know what was important! Duh!
Does anyone know if Ann was a cheerleader in high school? I’d bet my
last dollar she was. Her whole mentality reeks of it.
(Then again, I was never a cheerleader, so perhaps I’m inserting my
own bias into the situation. I was a mime. What does that tell you?)
There are no “good guys” in Washington. There is no political party
that is right all of the time---every time. This
pick-your-team-and-support-them-to-the-death-mentality that is attached
to party politics rules out any number of things, but mainly free will
and the intelligence of the average voter. Partisanship, is the
technical definition, and it simply states that if you’re not with
us, you’re against us. This is what Ann Coulter believes and argues
for every time she pens a column or opens her mouth and lets her
punditry goodness spill forth on a news show. Anyone who isn’t a
right wing Republican is stupid in her mind and there’s no
possibility that she might be the one who is stupid by forever underestimating the intelligence of people who don’t agree with her.

This type of partisanship---the take it or leave it type of partisanship---has no place in politics. And when I say politics
I mean the technical definition you are taught in political science
classes. Politics, say the professors, is the “allocation of
resources.” In other words, politics is how the butter gets spread
across the Wonder bread. A pretty simple concept, and therefore,
logically following this definition, in a democracy such as ours, we
work under the concept that everyone gets a say in how those resources
are allocated. This implies compromise and negotiation. But Ann
doesn’t want to negotiate: she wants you to take it or leave it:
there’s no room for compromise in her play book. And that to me,
smacks of totalitarianism---which is a word I take very seriously when
describing Americans---unlike Ann, who throws around the word
“treason” willy nilly. I don’t want to think anyone, in
this country is like Mussolini, and I particularly don’t want to
think this of Ms. Coulter. But damnit, she wants the trains to run on
time and she thinks her side, and only her side, can get them to do so.
The simple fact that she refuses to listen to any criticism---valid or
not---proves this point: she’s totalitarian in her beliefs.
I believe the same to be true about Al Franken and Michael Moore. They,
too, choose to only accept their point of view as being the correct
one. They refuse to think that anyone on the other side of the
political spectrum has a point. And for that we’re all cheated.
Because, whatever you may think of their partisanship, they’re all
very bright people. Ann, Al, and Michael are intelligent
people. And those of us in the middle of the political spectrum can see
their intelligence; we realize they may have a point, but they’re
absolute refusal to think that maybe the people in the middle have a
point hamstrings them. There is no place for the rah-rah mentality when
it comes to allocating resources in a democracy. Assuming that anyone
who isn’t on your side of the fence is stupid is no way to go about
arguing your points. No author should underestimate the intelligence of
their potential audience, yet this is what these authors do on a daily
basis. To put it another way, they’re lazy. They don’t want to
bring anyone over to their side: they just want more cheerleaders. They
want people to say “hey, I like the way you shake your pom-poms, no
matter what side you’re cheering for.” And for those of us who
don’t think the way they shake their pom-poms is all that attractive,
well, we’re screwed, aren’t we? We don’t get a spot on the side
of the field because we’re not cheerleaders---we’re just
spectators, we’re relegated to the stands, and what would we know
about it, anyway? If we’re not there to cheer, what’s our purpose?
We’re not involved; we haven’t put ourselves out there; we have no
potential stake in the outcome. Or so they think. But that’s where
they’re wrong. Those of us in the stands do have a stake in the outcome, but you just can’t hear us over the bullhorns.

Sigh.

--- Oh, yeah, the economy is in such
trouble.