Month: November 2006

Coulter Closer to Achieving “Joe McCarthy of Her Day” Status

Trish

Great letter to the editor in my local paper today, which in the interest of “fairness” runs Ann Coulter’s column. They do it, they say, to balance out Molly Ivins. As if.

Anyway, first part of Ann’s original diatribe:

I think it’s more a case of Coulter trying to remain relevant in a country that no longer believes simple, ignorant “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” arguments.

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

Witnesses said the imams stood to do their evening prayers in the terminal before boarding, chanting “Allah, Allah, Allah” — coincidentally, the last words heard by hundreds of airline passengers on 9/11 before they died…

And then the knock-out punch from one Brad Cooper:

Editor: Ann Coulter’s column…was especially ignorant, even for her. To praise US Airways for ejecting imams traveling to a conference because they were, well, imams and were not hiding their faith, is an expression of the worst irrational anti-Muslim xenophobia since rednecks cheered the bombing of mosques.

US Airways’ rationale for ejecting the imams from the flight was insulting and shows just how little we’ve learned about Islam since 9/11. For Coulter to praise them for this show of timidity and ignorance highlights her own timidity and ignorance. So what is the real reason behind the anxiety about some religious clerics that disagree with Coulter’s myopic neo-con views being refused passage? I think it’s more a case of Coulter trying to remain relevant in a country that no longer believes simple, ignorant “you’re either with us or with the terrorists” arguments.

St. Augustine Record, I urge you to stop carrying her race-baiting, insulting, mean-spirited diatribes. She’s not a thoughtful conservative, she’s nothing more than Ed Anger wearing Prada.

On This Date – November 29

Jon Ponder
  • 1963 – Warren Commission Established: One week after Pres. John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson established a special commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. After ten months of gathering evidence and questioning witnesses in public hearings, the Warren Commission report was released, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination, either domestic or international, and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone … [The Warren Commission’s findings] continue to be widely disputed. [On This Date]

Activists Urge Boycott of the ‘N-word’

Jon Ponder
Even a complete ban wouldn’t stop a rage-aholic like Michael Richards from spewing hate speech.

African-American leaders, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-California) and Rev. Jesse Jackson, gathered in Los Angeles yesterday to urge a nationwide boycott of the use of the “n-word.”

They were reacting to the infamous “stage rage” incident on November 17 in which former television star Michael Richards was videotaped at a local comedy club shouting racial epithets at two African-American men in the audience. The leaders said they were encouraging everyone, particularly Rap artists and African-American standup comics, to “just say no” to the n-word:

“We’re not trying to penalize anyone,” Waters said at a news conference at the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, “but don’t use the n-word, no matter who you are, whether you’re black, white, young or old.”

Jackson added: “This word is a symbol of degradation and the actions that flow from it.”

Would banning the n-word help? It is already stigmatized among the 99.99 percent of African-Americans who aren’t Rap artists or their hardcore fans. It has been verbotten in all but a small reprobate segment of what might be called the “white community” for a generation or three. This self-censorship is why it is referred to as the “n-word,” like the “f-word,” “s-word” and the other unspeakables.

The boycott may resonate among standup comics but to reach Rap artists and their fans, political and spiritual leaders need to find advocates closer to the locus than Rev. Jackson and Rep. Water — maybe producer/artists like P-Diddy or Dr. Dre.

But even with a complete ban in place, it wouldn’t stop a rage-aholic like Michael Richards from spewing hate speech when he imagined his buttons were being pushed.

Jews Rush to Distance Themselves from Michael Richards, Who’s Not Jewish

Buck Banks

Not a Jewish bigot: Okay, we’re all sick to death of Michael Richards‘ serial apologies for his bigoted “meltdown” at a comedy club last week. But this takes the cake.

The Jewish Telegraphic Association, which goes by the acronym JTA on its Web site, has issued the following blurb, which says as much about the JTA as it does about Richards’ lackluster and largely ineffectual PR attempt to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of the MSM. I suppose he should at least be commended for not hiding in rehab while the whole mess is going on.

Meanwhile, the JTA is quick to note that Richards is NOT A JEW:

Michael Richards was not born Jewish but “adheres” to Jewish philosophy, according to his publicist.

Michael Richards was not born Jewish but “adheres” to Jewish philosophy, according to his publicist.

Richards’ racist remarks at a Los Angeles comedy club last week created a maelstrom as well as a media frenzy.

Amid all the hoopla, bloggers and others labeled the former “Seinfeld” star Jewish but others reported he was not.

Howard Rubenstein, who was hired as Richards’ publicist, told JTA that Richards has not formally converted to Judaism but that some of his mentors were Jewish and he “adheres to Jewish philosophy.”

He said he could not give more details.

On This Date – November 28

Jon Ponder
  • 2005 – Duke Cunningham (R-Cal.) resigns from the US House of Representatives just after he pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004. He received at least $2.4 million in bribes. He apologizes publicly for this and for lying about it previously. [On This Date]
  • 2001 – Enron Corp., once the world’s largest energy trader, collapsed after would-be rescuer Dynegy Inc. backed out of an $8.4 billion deal to take it over.[NYT]
  • 2000 – George W. Bush‘s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to bring ”legal finality” to the presidential election by ending any further ballot recounts; Al Gore‘s team countered that the nation’s highest court should not interfere in Florida’s recount dispute. [NYT]
  • 1987 – Tawana Brawley, age 15, claimed she was raped by six white men, some of them police officers, in Wappingers Falls, New York. It was later proved that she faked her injuries to avoid being punished for breaking curfew by her parents. [Wiki]

Pelosi: Bush’s Tired Claim That al Qaeda Is Fueling Iraq Violence Is ‘Sad’

Jon Ponder

CNN:

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said Tuesday she feels “sad” President Bush blamed insurgent violence on al Qaeda while he dismissed notions Iraq is in a civil war.

“My thoughts on the president’s representations are well-known,” Pelosi told reporters while meeting with Deputy Italian Minister Francesco Rutelli. “The 9/11 Commission dismissed that notion a long time ago and I feel sad that the president is resorting to it again.”

Quote du Jour

Buck Banks

We have learned to recognize as the civilizing majesty of war precisely that which appears to the superficial observers to be brutality and inhumanity… Man must not only be ready to sacrifice his life, but also the natural deeply rooted feelings of the human soul; he must devote his whole ego for the furtherance of a great patriotic idea: that is the moral sublimity of war.

— Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke (1834-1896), German historian, political writer

Rightwing Drone Rich Lowry Joins Ranks of Anti-American ‘Bush Haters’

Jon Ponder
Of course, Mr. Lowry does not acknowledge — much less apologize for — his own full-throated support for Pres. Bush while he was taking the country to war on nothing more than a tissue of lies and an aristocratic whim.

It wasn’t so long ago that the conventional wisdom on the right was that Pres. Bush was a perfect leader whom God had sent to lead the nation through perilous times. When things did not go well, it wasn’t the fault of Dear Leader — who, after all, took his cues from God’s voice in his earpiece — instead the fault lay with liberals who dared to criticize him.

They called us “Bush haters” — and attacked our patriotism by suggesting that criticizing the president equalled hating America. (Unless the president’s name is Clinton or Carter — in which case it is the duty of rightwing patriots to rip the President of the United States to shreds.)

Now how the worm has turned. If there is a more rightwing doctrinaire idealogue than Rich Lowry toiling in the vines of punditry today, I can’t think who it might be. So it is worth noting that now even Rich Lowry hates Pres. Bush and America:

[…]