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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999 time: 21:27
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quote: Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Where exactly? | http://www.anncoulter.com/
Liberals enjoy claiming that they are intellectuals, thrilled to engage in a battle of wits. This, they believe, distinguishes them from conservatives, who are religious fanatics who react with impotent rage to opposing ideas. As one liberal, Jonathan Chait, put the cliche in The New Republic: Bush is an "instinctive anti-intellectual" and his administration hostile to "fact-driven debate." In a favorable contrast, Clinton is "the former Rhodes scholar who relished academic debates." Showing his usual reverence for fact-checking, The New York Times' Paul Krugman says the Republican Party is "dominated by people who believe truth should be determined by revelation, not research."
I'm not sure how these descriptions square with the fact that liberals keep responding to conservative ideas by throwing food. (Remember the good old days when liberals' "fact-driven" ideas only meant throwing money at their problems?)
Last October, two liberals responded to my speech at the University of Arizona — during question and answer, no less — by charging the stage and throwing two pies at me from a few yards away. Fortunately for me, liberals not only argue like liberals, they also throw like girls. (Apologies in advance to the Harvard biology professors who walked out on Larry Summers in a demonstration of their admiration of "research," not "revelation" — but this may account for the dearth of female pitchers in Major League Baseball.)
Unfortunately for them, Republican men don't react favorably to two "Deliverance" boys trying to sucker-punch a 110-pound female in a skirt and heels. The geniuses ended up with bloody noses and broken bones.
It's really outrageous how conservatives respond to liberals who are just trying to engage in a "fact-driven debate." How typical of Republicans to go on the offensive just because a female has been physically attacked. Instead of capturing and subduing my attackers, those strong Republican men should have been trying to understand why they threw the pies.
In the five months following the liberal ass-whupping in Arizona — I mean "fact-driven debate" — all was quiet on the Eastern Front. College liberals still couldn't formulate a coherent argument, but they seemed to want to avoid ending up in jail having to explain to their cellmates that they were in for trying to hit a girl (and missing).
Then on March 19, all charges were dismissed against the "Deliverance" boys — including a felony charge for $3,000 worth of damage to school property. Inexplicably, this outcome did not instantly lead to widespread rioting and looting in South Central Los Angeles.
Democrat Barbara LaWall is the Pima County attorney who allowed the liberal debate champions to walk. LaWall brags on her Web site about "holding criminals accountable." She didn't say anything about liberals, however. Be forewarned, conservatives: Do not expect the law to protect you in Pima County.
In the three weeks following the dismissal of all charges against my attackers, three more conservatives were attacked on college campuses.
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Riesstiu IV
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Ann Coulter is a hateful ***** akin to Goebbels. Anyone beyond a third grade education level shouldn’t even bother reading her drivel.
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Riesstiu IV
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quote: Originally posted by Ned
Her rhetoric is no more flamboyant that Al Franken's or Michael Moore. I think you just disagree with her politics.
BTW, she is a lawyer. |
You assume too much. I hate them too, and her being a lawyer doesn't make a difference to me. I have an extreme dislike for gasbag shitheels who go on various media outlets and spew out there own drivel like their omnipotent beings who have knowledge on everything and are never wrong. The current state of media and punditry is disgusting.
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Ogie Oglethorpe
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Marietta, GA
Dec 1999 time: 05:28
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Regarding the OP and 'trend' for members of the left to resort to methods gauche (recall also the variety of misdeeds during the election cycle), I would submit the hysteria is coming from the slow creeping realization that not only are conservative views being more widely adopted but moreover leftish views are being more widely dismissed.
In the marketplace of ideas it appear more and more left views are in the 'on clearance' bin and in the 'going out of business' stores.
From the LA Times of all sources. 
quote:
COMMENTARY
Why the Liberals Can't Keep Air America From Spiraling In
COMMENTARY
By Brian C. Anderson
The liberal Air America Radio, just past its first birthday, has probably enjoyed more free publicity than any enterprise in recent history. But don't believe the hype: Air America's left-wing answer to conservative talk radio is failing, just as previous efforts to find liberal Rush Limbaughs have failed.
Wait a second, you say, didn't I read that Air America has expanded to more than 50 markets? That's true, but let's put things in perspective: Conservative pundit and former Reagan official William J. Bennett's morning talk show, launched at the same time as Air America, reaches nearly 124 markets, including 18 of the top 20, joining the growing ranks of successful right-of-center talk programs (Limbaugh is still the ratings leader, drawing more than 15 million listeners a week).
And look at Air America's ratings: They're pitifully weak, even in places where you would think they'd be strong. WLIB, its flagship in New York City, has sunk to 24th in the metro area Arbitron ratings — worse than the all-Caribbean format it replaced, notes the Radio Blogger. In the liberal meccas of San Francisco and Los Angeles, Air America is doing lousier still.
So why do liberals fare so poorly on air? Some on the left say it's because liberals are, well, smarter and can't convey their sophisticated ideas to the rubes who listen to talk radio. Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, whose own stint as a talk-show host was a ratings disaster, gave canonical expression to this self-serving view. Conservatives "write their messages with crayons," he maintained. "We use fine-point quills."
Yet even if we were to grant the premise that conservative talk radio can sometimes be crudely simplistic — a tough charge to make stick against, say, one-time philosophy professor Bennett or Clarence Thomas' former law clerk Laura Ingraham — how can anyone plausibly believe the right has a monopoly on misleading argument? Moreover, talk-show fans aren't dummies. Industry surveys show that talk-radio fans vote in greater percentages than the general public, tend to be college-educated and read more magazines and newspapers than the average American.
Successful talk radio is conservative for three reasons:
• Entertainment value. The top conservative hosts put on snazzy, frequently humorous shows. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, observes: "The parody, the asides, the self-effacing humor, the bluster are all part of the packaging that makes the political message palatable." Besides, the triumph of political correctness on the left makes it hard for on-air liberals to lighten things up without offending anyone.
• Fragmentation of the potential audience. Political consultant Dick Morris explains: "Large percentages of liberals are black and Hispanic, and they now have their own specialized entertainment radio outlets, which they aren't likely to leave for liberal talk radio." The potential audience for Air America or similar ventures is thus pretty small — white liberals, basically. And they've already got NPR.
• Liberal bias in the old media. That's what birthed talk radio in the first place. People turn to it to help right the imbalance. Political scientist William Mayer, writing in the Public Interest, recently observed that liberals don't need talk radio because they've got the big three networks, most national and local daily newspapers and NPR.
Unable to prosper in the medium, liberals have taken to denouncing talk radio as a threat to democracy. Liberal political columnist Hendrik Hertzberg, writing in the New Yorker, is typically venomous. Conservative talk radio represents "vicious, untreated political sewage" and "niche entertainment for the spiritually unattractive," Hertzberg sneers.
If some liberals had their way, Congress would regulate political talk radio out of existence. Their logic is that scrapping Air America would be no loss if it also meant getting Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Bennett off the air.
To accomplish this, New York Democratic Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey has proposed reviving the Fairness Doctrine to protect "diversity of view," and John Kerry recently sent out some signals that he too thought that might be a good idea.
Under the old Fairness Doctrine, phased out by Ronald Reagan's FCC in the late '80s, any station that broadcast a political opinion had to give equal time to opposing views. A station running, say, Hannity's show, would also have to broadcast a left-wing competitor, even if it had no listeners.
Pre-Reagan, talk radio in today's sense simply didn't exist. What station could risk it? But people listen to conservative talk because they want to, not because the post-Fairness Doctrine regulatory regime forces them to. To claim that "diversity of view" is lacking in the era of blogs and cable news, moreover, is downright silly. Complaints about fairness are really about driving out conservative viewpoints.
Sure, talk radio is partisan, sometimes overheated. But it's also a source of argument and information. Together with Fox News and the blogosphere, it has given the right a chance to break through the liberal monoculture and be heard. For that, anyone who supports spirited public debate should be grateful.
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