CPAC's Coulterkampf
| Wed Feb. 6, 2008 9:44 AM PST
When it was revealed last week that Ann Coulter had not been invited to speak at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, it seemed, at first glance, like a principled move, a decisive refutation of the nasty, degrading speech that is Coulter's trademark. At CPAC 2007 Coulter famously used the word "faggot" in reference to John Edwards.
But at least one of the 6,000 conservatives expected to attend the D. C. conference isn't buying it. "It's all a fraud," the conservative activist and longtime Coulter critic Daniel Borchers told me yesterday. "I think the entire thing shows a lack of character and integrity within the leadership of CPAC." Borchers, who founded the Christian conservative newsletter BrotherWatch, is angry not only that Coulter will be attending CPAC this year, but also that, despite no official invitation from CPAC organizers, she will be delivering a speech during the conference—and that speech will be given in the same hotel ballroom as several CPAC events and is being put on by five organizations who are also cosponsors of CPAC.
In other words, Ann Coulter is speaking at CPAC this year.
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Her speech, which is being sponsored by, among others, Young America's Foundation and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, is scheduled for 4:00 p.m. this Friday; later that evening, Coulter will attend a reception and host a book signing, both of which appear on the conference agenda."Within CPAC itself and within the American Conservative Union, which has the final say about everything at CPAC, there's a split between those who favor her and those who oppose her," says Borchers, who has been following this story for months. "What they have done in essence is to organize every other event at CPAC around her event."So is CPAC trying to have it both ways? No, said ACU president David Keene in a phone interview Tuesday. He also refuted Borcher's claim that CPAC organized around Coulter's speech. Keene said individual groups like Young America's Foundation could rent rooms and invite whomever they like to speak during CPAC.And why didn't the conference offer Coulter an official speaking invitation, as in past years? "We just decided that, given the agenda and all that we had going on this year, there was not a reason to invite her." Asked if the decision was related to the uproar Coulter's remarks caused last year, Keene demurred. "The cosponsoring groups decided she was not high on their list," Keene said. "She wasn't suggested this year. That doesn't mean she won't be invited again next year."That is, if they still want her.This post has been updated to reflect a change in the time of Coulter's speech.—Justin Elliott
Comments
It would be interesting to include Coulter in an article that, say, analyzes the ideas surrounding the self-image, roles, and how women are expected to act and look and their way of balancing their idea of feminism or independence within the context of in modern conservative groups? (if this makes any sense to anyone else.)
Maybe Slate's even already done something like that.
However - I wanted to suggest that the readers of this article remember that picking on Ms. Coulter for her looks, or whether or not she "has a man," OR her sexyness (or one's opinion of her lack thereof) is unrelated to how she acts or how she and her opinions are (or are not) accepted by conservative groups.
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities?where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? It is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a "friendlier," more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. You see folks, Liberalism is a mental disorder.
It would be interesting to include Coulter in an article that, say, analyzes the ideas surrounding the self-image, roles, and how women are expected to act and look and their way of balancing their idea of feminism or independence within the context of in modern conservative groups? (if this makes any sense to anyone else.)
Maybe Slate's even already done something like that.
However - I wanted to suggest that the readers of this article remember that picking on Ms. Coulter for her looks, or whether or not she "has a man," OR her sexyness (or one's opinion of her lack thereof) is unrelated to how she acts or how she and her opinions are (or are not) accepted by conservative groups.
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities?where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? It is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a "friendlier," more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. You see folks, Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Why does everyone pick on poor Miss Coulter? Here we have an aging spinster, fast approaching her 'best by' date (if she hasn't passed it already), trying desperately to look sexy and alluring. She deserves our pity rather than our scorn. She ought to have landed herself a man ten years ago.
It seems ridiculous to me that you are talking about Coulter's age and marital status, as if that is the defining characteristic of being a woman. Coulter is a success without a man, and I am sure she doesn't need one to be who she is. It's the same as saying that Hillary must be a dike because she is a strong woman. However, I must say that I absolutely loath Coulter and Clinton, one for being perverse, and the other for being a conservative in liberal skin.
WHAT THE HELL!?.....AM I THE ONLY ONE WHOS NOTICED THE ERIE RESEMBLNCE TO RICKY NELSONS TWIN SONS IN THE 1980S......EXCEPT THERE WERE
2 OF THEM.....ITS LIKE SOMTHING OUT OF THE TWLIGHT ZONE!.......................
"ANN COLTERS A MAN BABY"
I will always find it ironice that "value" voters ever thought Coulter represented any values beyond greed and anger. She's got to be the most mean spirited and openly vicious public figure in my life time and yet she's cloaked in the guise of being representative of the one's who claim to love Jesus and have real "values". If the values are self serving and hostile attacks against other people, particularly in the case of Edwards, people who for the most part share the same "values" as Christ, then Ann Coulter would be great. Again, the irony is beyond explanation.
It would be interesting to include Coulter in an article that, say, analyzes the ideas surrounding the self-image, roles, and how women are expected to act and look and their way of balancing their idea of feminism or independence within the context of in modern conservative groups (if this makes any sense to anyone else.)
Maybe Slate's even already done something like that.
However - I wanted to suggest that the readers of this article remember that picking on Ms. Coulter for her looks, or whether or not she "has a man," OR her sexyness (or one's opinion of her lack thereof) is unrelated to how she acts or how she and her opinions are (or are not) accepted by conservative groups.
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term "National socialism"). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universitieswhere campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Do these striking parallels mean that today's liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? It is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a "friendlier," more liberal form. The modern heirs of this "friendly fascist" tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. You see folks, Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Thu Feb. 7, 2008 2:53 PM PST.
Well, someone has to say it. Michael, you apparently not only read Jonah Goldberg's book, it looks like you cribbed it. That you can't see the difference between liberalism and fascism is astounding, but let's be nice and assume you know no history about fascism or nazism except some disconnected facts, and a bunch of those are wrong. trying to refute nuttiness in a paragraph or two is just, well, nutty, so suffice it to ask you to please to some research. Goldberg's book doesn't count, not with his gross errors and disconnected conclusions. Get some actually histories rather than conservative screeds. Find out what nazism and fascism really were.
Submitted by Eric Ferguson (not verified) on Fri Feb. 8, 2008 12:49 PM PST.
Ira, I didn't criticize Goldberg for being Jewish. I criticized him for saying nonsensical things and having his facts wrong. Your ridiculous attempt to play the anti-semite card shows how intellectually bankrupt your position is, just as your use of the term "Islamofascism" shows you understand neither fascism nor religious fundamentalism.
