Ann Coulter drives me bonkers

[eruthros]

Right wing quotes ahoy.

Sometimes I think I'm being overly hard on the administration, or on the media, or on pundits. I mean, I know a whole bunch of wonderful people who are Republicans. I know people who voted for AH-nold, and I think they're insane, but otherwise they're lovely people. So maybe I'm being too hard on the public figures, on Republicans who write and who speak on TV, I think to myself.

And then... no. Sure, there's John McCain and Chuck Hagel and Arlen Spector. There are editorial writers who avoid vitriol and accusations. There are Republicans calling for the resignation of Rumsfield and decrying the abuses in Iraq. But for every moderate or well-spoken public figure, there are tens of these:

"I think the other point that no one is making about the abuse photos is just the disproportionate number of women involved, including a girl general running the entire operation. I mean, this is lesson, you know, one million and 47 on why women shouldn't be in the military. In addition to not being able to carry even a medium-sized backpack, women are too vicious." -- Ann Coulter while on Fox News.

Then there's George Neumayr, attempting the "it's all the feminists' fault" approach:

The image of that female guard, smoking away as she joins gleefully in the disgraceful melee like one of the guys, is a cultural outgrowth of a feminist culture which encourages female barbarians. GI Janes are kicking around patriarchal Muslims in Iraq? This is Eleanor Smeal's vision come to life. Had Thelma and Louise gone off to Iraq -- and sexually humiliated some of Saddam Hussein's soldiers as payback for abuse to Jessica Lynch a few cities back -- the radical feminists could make a sequel. ...

Feminists are good at creating a culture that produces "equal-opportunity abusers," Donnelly says. What happened at Abu Ghraib is also happening in feminist America, she adds, pointing to an Associated Press article from last month on a "disturbing trend around the country. Girls are turning to violence more often and with terrifying intensity." ...

Perhaps in the eyes of feminists this isn't a crisis but a potential social program and these girls deserve ROTC credits. -- George Neumayr, editor of The American Spectator.

Deborah Simmons also thinks it's all the fault of women. Well, and Clinton, of course:

What were Congress and the Clinton White House thinking when they began, in earnest, legislative moves that essentially led to the feminization of America's armed forces? Did they think that there would be no cultural implications (pregnancies, rape and sexual assault, etc.?) Did they think there would be no effect on America's military readiness?

Indeed, the queen of women in combat, then-Sen. Pat Schroeder, led the phalanx on Capitol Hill, arguing that girls should be treated just like boys.

Look what we have wrought: a woman, with no experience running a penal institution, in charge of all penal institutions in Iraq; scores of reports about women soldiers participating in the mistreatment of male prisoners (including sexual degradation); photographic evidence that the "girls" were equal partners with the "boys" in these criminal acts - during a war, no less; the possibility that one of those "girls," a suspect in these wholly un-American abuses and shameful acts - was impregnated while fighting in a war. -- Deborah Simmons in the Washington Times.

Rush Limbaugh on Abu Ghraib:

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off? -- Rush Limbaugh

Maybe the people who ordered this are pretty smart. Maybe the people who executed this pulled off a brilliant maneuver. Nobody got hurt. Nobody got physically injured. But boy there was a lot of humiliation of people who are trying to kill us -- in ways they hold dear. Sounds pretty effective to me if you look at us in the right context.-- Rush Limbaugh

The thing though that continually amazes -- here we have these pictures of homoeroticism that look like standard good old American pornography, the Britney Spears or Madonna concerts or whatever, and yet the Libs upset about the mistreatment of these prisoners thought nothing of sitting back while mass graves were being filled with three to 500,000 Iraqis during the Saddam Hussein regime. -- Rush Limbaugh

But the thing it does, it does represent a slice of America. Our culture is corrupt. No matter where we send people, we've got a corrupt -- we all know that our culture in this country's corrupt. And he makes the point -- this is sort of expanding on a point that I have made earlier. If you take these pictures and bring them back and have them taken in an American city and put on an American Website, they might win a video award from the pornography industry. -- Rush Limbaugh

You know, there are all kinds of people in this country, some of them Democrats, elected Democrats, who say, "We need to see all these pictures from this prison, from the Abu Ghraib prison. Need to see them. We need to see every sordid detail, because we have a right to know, the American people need to know what's being done in their name, we want to see it. All the sodomy, we want to see those light sticks, have you heard about this?" What are those light sticks? I can't think of the name of them. Some prisoners were apparently sodomized with these light sticks. Now, remember when a cigar was used in the oval office? "Hey, it's just sex. It's not going to get in the way of the way anybody leads or does their job. There's nothing here." Now all of a sudden, we've got to see all of these pictures. -- Rush Limbaugh

And then there's Tony Robinson, a former Army seargeant and interrogation instructor.

Well, one thing that needs to be understood, is that there's also an impact on the torturer. ... Now, I use the word torture, but that's not what's happening in these pictures. ... I've seen -- I've seen worse than this at -- frat hazing is worse than this. ... Well, it's not torture. If it was, they'd be accused of torture. They're accused of maltreatment. -- Tony Robinson in an interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

And my personal favorite, or least favorite, depending on how you look at it:

Some Arab commentators are repeating the myth that the West has, once again, humiliated Muslims. If there has been humiliation, it isn't the fault of the West. It is Muslims' fault. -- Cal Thomas, of Fox News, in an editorial.

Tempted as I am to comment on these -- and believe me, it's almost impossible not to comment on the Rush porn and sex quotes and the Cal Thomas -- I think that standing alone they're quite outrageous enough. People actually said these things. Major figures on the right said these things. Good heavens.

Most quotes are from Media Matters for America. (Incidentally, to those of you who don't read Media Matters, it's a fabulous resource, and I'm so pleased that David Brock is doing what he's doing.) Some are from salon.com's War Room 2004 and Right Hook.

Comments

[friede.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

I read Coulter and Limbaugh's comments a few days ago, and I still can't believe it. I can't flee this country fast enough -- pity I hafta come baaaack...

[eruthros]

I know!

I wasn't going to say anything about the Coulter and the first of the Limbaugh quotes, because they were getting a lot of attention pretty much everywhere, and also because a lot of my lj these days is links to political stuff. But the Ann Coulter -- I mean, on it's own, you're all "Ann Coulter is an idiot." But with all those other people going on about feminization of the military, or about women being evil, or are blaming the victims, and all that, it looks much less like isolated idiocy. So I decided to post it anyway.

(And I still cannot get over some of the Rush quotes that have not really been emphasized in mass media -- apparently no-one has managed to get the difference between "consensual" and "non-consensual" sex into Rush's head.)

It's horrifying. I want to go to York with you.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

My husband is clinging grimly to the theory that Ann Coulter is actually a radical performance artist. But then, he was lucky enough not to have heard about her before I told him about "Treason", which he still hopes is satire.

[eruthros]

*blinkblink* Oh, I wish she were a radical performance artist. Then I might take heart in the fact that she didn't actually believe the ridiculous things she says.

As it is, I have to just chalk it up to the human brain's incredible ability to hold two completely contradictory opinions at the same time and insist both are true.

[bookwench31.livejournal.com]

Just when i think people can't get any denser or self-deluded, i hear comments like these. Jeez.