Bitter, Bitter Coulter

WARNING: Too much exposure to Ann Coulter can result in Neuromuscular reactions include dystonias, motor restlessness, pseudo-parkinsonism and tardive dyskinesia, and appear to be dose-related. Agranulocytosis, eosinophilia, leukopenia, hemolytic anemia, aplastic anemia, thrombocytopenic purpura and pancytopenia have been reported.

No wait, those are the side effects of Thorazine. Too much Ann Coulter can cause your brain to leap directly out of your skull, grab the nearest sharp object and remove your eyeballs, thus preventing you from ever exposing it to more Ann Coulter. Just watch out for that, all right?

Genius, thy name is Obama

What is it with anti-intellectuals? Bush mangles the English language every time he talks, and that's a good thing! You can drink beer with Bush, they say, as if that is some sort of qualification for being President of the United States. Palin proudly states that if a nuclear confrontation occurs, she won't blink. She also couldn't name one Supreme Court case (Roe v. Wade) or one magazine (Time, Newsweek, People).

Why do people want a President at least as stupid as they are? I want a President to be smarter and more educated than me. I also want him to blink, blink, blink and blink again. (I mean, these people haven't played Fallout 3? The effects of a nuclear war are not pretty. The game based on them? Awesome!)

With Time magazine comparing Obama to Jesus, she says this as if Obama wanted them to do that. Time does what it does without checking with Obama first. I did find that to be hyperbole, but the comparison, in terms of message not messiahood, is valid.

I guess we should be relieved that, this week, liberals are only comparing him to Abraham Lincoln. The comparison to Lincoln is more valid. They both hail from Illinois, they both took/are taking office at a very troubled time in history and Obama is the end result of Lincoln's stance on slavery. It's a nice comparison.

The one thing every liberal on TV seems to know about Lincoln is that he put rivals in his cabinet, as subtly indicated in the title to historian and plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin's book: "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Yes, plagiarism is bad. Yes, Ms. Goodwin is a plagiarist. But why use this example? I was taught that Lincoln put rivals in his cabinet in the fifth grade. Why not just say, "the one thing most people know about Lincoln, other than that whole FREEING THE SLAVES thing, is that he put rivals in his cabinet"? I'll tell you why: because this way, Ms. Coulter gets to connect, however tenuously, liberals and plagiarizers. It is an association fallacy: an inductive formal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association.

Like Lincoln, Goodwin is always open to contributions from her rivals, although Lincoln was better at crediting their words.Again, this is entirely irrelevant. This is not supposed to be an article about Goodwin or plagiarism. This is supposed to be an article about Obama . . . or something.

And hasn't Obama talked to former rival Hillary about becoming his Secretary of State? Yes, he has. Hillary has tremendous experience with matters of diplomacy and with leaders around the world by virtue of having been First Lady for 8 years. That's part of the job of First Lady: to be an unofficial diplomat, to present a softer, more pleasant side of the White House. Hasn't he had a sit-down with Sen. John McCain? Yes, he has. More power to him. After all that mudslinging on McCain's side, I wouldn't have been able to restrain myself from punching him, let alone actually have a conversation with the man. Did I imagine this, or is he even now brokering peace talks between Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck? What?

Ergo: Obama is a genius. Anti-Intellectualism at its finest. Turn genuine, important accomplishments, the sort of things people have a right to be proud of, into a source of ridicule and shame. Obama is doing good things for Washington and for the US, ergo, we must shame him for being elitist.

Indeed, historians have just named Obama the best president-elect ever. No, they haven't. For one thing, historians don't deal in current affiars, being historians and all, and how does one rate president-elects, anyway?

I don't recall the media swooning when President George W. Bush reached out to rivals, such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who was asked to co-write Bush's education bill. In fact, the way I remember it, Bush is liberals' most hated president ever (only because they can't remember George Washington or they'd hate him, too). Sure, if you're liberal, you hate George Washington. Automatically. In fact, if you read the fine print on the voter registration card, it says that if you register Democratic, you are required to hate George Washington. By the way, who doesn't . . . wait a minute . . . remember? Nobody alive today remembers George Washington. We all learned about him growing up. There is no way any USian over the age of 6, who does not have amnesia or serious brain damage, is not familiar with George Washington. Not possible. Sorry, Ms. Coulter.

The rest of this article ranges between the bizarre and the offensive, but I'll give it a try.

And yet no modern president has ever done more to bridge partisan divides and show respect to his opponents than George W. Bush. I do not say this with admiration; it is simply a fact. Really? It's a fact. Read on. It's also a fact that I have wings. I said so. They're really quite beautiful. Too bad you can't see them.

Throughout the year and again in his convention speech during the 2000 presidential campaign, Gov. Bush bragged that he had "no stake in the bitter arguments of the last few years. I want to change the tone of Washington to one of civility and respect." I can "brag" (which is not a good thing to do) that I'm superman, it doesn't make it true. Gee, if we can take everything everyone says at face value, then we don't need the justice system anymore. We'll just politely ask people if they beat/robbed/raped/killed that person, and if they say no, we're done. Much easier that way.

(As a side note: Bush would never have been elected president if not for the "bitter arguments of the last few years," in which Republicans exposed and impeached Bill Clinton, which then killed Al Gore's presidential ambitions. So you're welcome.) Did I say thank you for that? We're in the middle of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and mired in two wars that aren't going anywhere resulting in thousands of dead US soldiers and around 150,000 dead civilan Iraqis. What am I supposed to be thanking her for? What did Ms. Coulter have to do with that, anyway?

But the point is: Bush was massively chummy with his enemies – Democrats, communists and the Congressional Black Caucus. So chummy that even they began to wonder if he was a little daft. I'm not sure "chummy" is word we're looking for here. Besides that, if Bush isn't crazy, then he's evil. Those are the only two explanations for his behavior that I can think of.

blahblahblah Bush is friends with everyone (but the citizens of the US, Arabs everywhere and democracy in general) blahblahblah

Then we get this little gem:

Bush even made a special point to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus upon taking office, which – given their feelings toward Bush – would be the equivalent of Obama holding a special meet-and-greet session with the upper management of the Ku Klux Klan.

Wow. Just wow. Drink that in for a minute. Yes, you read that right. No, I didn't make that up. The Congressional Black Caucus didn't like Bush's record on civil rights. They did not try to kill him, remove his right to vote, or any of the other heinous things the KKK has done over the years.

Ann Coulter, if she actually believes the things she says, is a racist.

Ms. Coulter, the equivalent for Obama would be to meet with people who don't agree with his voting record. You racist bitch.

Bush also famously said of then-Russian president, former KGB agent Vladimir Putin, that he looked him in the eye and "was able to get a sense of his soul." This is not something to be proud of. The average human being does not believe that they can see someone's soul by looking in their eyes. I don't claim that about my husband, let alone some guy I've met once or twice. This is evidence of Bush's general insanity/stupidity, not his alleged bipartisanship.

As president, Bush scuttled the playing of "Hail to the Chief" in his honor and repeatedly reminded his staff to act humbly. "Joe, I just don't think you're acting humble enough. C'mon people, it's not enough to act a little humble, you must shout your humility from the rooftops!" Act humbly. The relevant word isn't "humble", it's "act". Being humble and acting humbly are two different things. One is admirable, one is a cynical ploy. You can't circumvent or outright stomp on the constitution and then say, hey, I act all humble. Isn't that enough for you people?

To Ms. Coulter, racist bitch that she is, appearance is better than reality.