Dignity and disgrace

[fpb]

One story Harlan Ellison told long ago has just come back to me, in connection with events in the last few days. Apparently, in the remote days of his youth, Ellison had been - incredible but true - a stand-up comedian. And there came a night when "none of the material flew. I could not get the crowd to respond, try what I might. You could have dropped that bomb on Iran... sitting right up to the stage there was a man with the most insulting sneer on his face I had ever seen. In despair, I went after him with the usual comments about people who sneer, etc. The man stood up, looked at the crowd and said: 'I am not sneering. I caught a piece of shrapnel in my face and that is the way I always look.'"

Needless to say, concluded Ellison, I said goodnight and crawled off the stage.

Well, even though Ellison is the egotist we all know him to be, there is nothing "needless" about saying that he felt ashamed of himself that night - which is what he felt. Perhaps that was the expected standard of behaviour at that time, but in that as in many other things, we seem to have gone downhill. And I wonder whether Ann Coulter will today have the grace, not to crawl off the stage, but at least to admit she was simply plain wrong. Only a few days ago, she made a cheap hit with a conservative audience, or at least with part of it, by calling the handsome presidential candidate John Edwards a homosexual. Although she tried to get out of it by an equally cheap witticism - she would not, she said, insult any homosexuals by comparing them with Edwards - it was clear to everyone that she was, one, appealing to flouted male vanity by calling up Edwards' good looks and care for his personal appearance, and, two, deliberately calling Edwards a homosexual because her public can be trusted to dislike a homosexuals. I wonder whether she is even beginnign to be a bit ashamed of herself after we saw John Edwards' wife of thirty years, the mother of all his children, stand by him as he pledged to continue his campaign and gave a painful and dignified description of the cancer that is likely, at some time in the future, to kill her. IN the face of this evident, unforced display of mutual love and loyalty, can we expect an apology from Coulter? EXclude me while I don't waste any time hoping.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I concur. I'm a conservative on some issues (especially foreign and defense policy) but a liberal on many social issues (especially victimless crimes and sexual preferences), and what Ann Coulter said was way out of line. Yes, John Edwards is a political lightweight who has coasted on good looks and lack of controversy, but he is not homosexual and even if he was that would be no disqualification for office.

Ann Coulter should apologize.

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

...deliberately calling Edwards a homosexual because her public can be trusted to dislike a homosexuals.

I know that's just a typo, but I suddenly heard this post in, like, a Borat voice.

I wasn't even aware of Ann Coulter until people started complaining about her. She's basically a professional troll.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Funny, I was just about to ask fpb what he makes of Ann Coulter, generally speaking, because I find her so bewildering (I don't get what she's trying to do... her attacks are so wacky and broad...)--but the explanation that she's a professional troll pretty much clears things up for me, actually.

Though, fpb, feel free to add any insights you might happen to have (..if you see this comment...I forget whether comment notification works if I respond to redcoast's remark rather than directly to your entry...)

[redcoast.livejournal.com]

Yes, comment notification will notify him of any comment left on this entry. If he has it turned on, of course. :)

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I do have it turned on all the time. However, while you were awake and working,I was sleeping (now doesn't that sound a bit sinister? 8-)).

Ann Coulter is someone who has discovered the pleasure and power there is in completely dehumanizing your enemy. She is often capable of justified observations, but she always takes them much too far - coasting on hatred and a practiced manner that is by now as much a tool as the shticks of a stand-up comedian, except that she intends to provoke rage rather than laughter. Because there are a lot of conservatives who feel, not without cause, that the mass media tend to insult, marginalize and demonize them, her shtick has found a lot of willing buyers, but I think she is coming near the point where even a majority of her intended market will see through it. And incidentally, she is also due for a major makeover. She is losing her looks, and if she insists on her usual miniskirt tight dress long golden hair look, in a couple of years she will look like a hag.

People like that all fall under the grimly amused description by Robert Graves:
He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits.
His formula for drawing comic rabbits paid.
So in the end he could not break the tragic habits
His formula for drawing comic rabbits made.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

Think of her as the Right's equivalent of Maureen Dowd: both of them specialize in a style of writing which mirrors malicious, sophisticated, cocktail party chatter. Neither of them should be encouraged: both of them glory in attention that saying such things brings. Neither of them would think of apologizing to their targets: after all, what was being said was to make Coulter or Dowd look good: it had nothing to do with the targets.

Sad, in its own way.

[notebuyer.livejournal.com]

Corrected Link: Maureen Dowd.

[super-pan.livejournal.com]

She just seems like she's not a good person at all, and, like you, I expect nothing good from her.

And personally, I don't really like Edwards, but that's just a cheap and witless pot shot.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

Generally speaking, I’m three points to the right of Attila the Hun, and I find it a standing embarrassment to have Ann Coulter on my side. As a glamour girl she’s a halfway clever political hack, and as a conservative philosopher she’s a moderately attractive blonde. She strikes me as essentially a novelty act — a non-ugly pundit, who’da thunk it? — that bought into her own hype. Somewhere along the way she must have stopped respecting her opposition (and her audience) and started cutting corners on logic and being economical with the truth. I say ‘must have’, because I had not heard of her until the corruption was evidently well under way.