There's a reason why Ann Coulter is dangerous. It's not because her name calling makes her a horrid role model for anyone in the public eye, or because her neo-anorexia is a potential health hazard for young women. It's not the snarky dismissive attitude to facts - it's because she promotes a false version of reality through her books and tv appearances. She's like a demented tinkerbell - all you have to do it "clap" and she continues to live in a lie and do everything she can to drag the rest of us into a world of bullshit.
From Thinkprogress:
Last night on Hannity and Colmes, guest host Kirsten Powers confronted Ann Coulter about President Bush's failure to capture Osama Bin Laden and the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
Coulter responded, "As for catching Osama, it's irrelevant. Things are going swimmingly in Afghanistan." Powers blasted Coulter for her answer. Coulter then abruptly decided to end her participation in the middle of the segment, saying, "OK, well, good night! It was nice being here."
Continued over the flip...
For Ms. Coulter's benefit, here's an update on the situation in the last couple of months in Afghanistan:
- Security situation is "close to anarchy." Last month, a senior British military commander said "the situation is close to anarchy" in Afghanistan, and warned western forces were "running out of time" to meet expectations Afghanis have for their security.
- Discontent among Afghans is "boiling." "After months of widespread frustration with corruption, the economy and a lack of justice and security," the New York Times reported that "doubts about President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and by extension the American-led effort to rebuild that nation, have led to a crisis of confidence."
- Opium production is at record levels. "Opium cultivation in Afghanistan has hit record levels - up by more than 40 percent from 2005 - despite hundreds of millions in counternarcotics money," the Associated Press reported. "The increase could have serious repercussions for an already grave security situation, with drug lords joining the Taliban-led fight against Afghan and international forces."
Crooks and Liars has more.
Video-WMP Video-QT
I think the view that "Osama is Irrelevant" is very interesting considering we just had a British
Plane Bombing plot foiled that is identical to one sponsored by Osama in 1995. What a coinky-dink, eh? More from
Media Matters:
In her August 23 column -- "What Part of the War on Terrorism Do They Support?" -- Coulter repeated the false claims that Democrats "oppose the National Security Agency listening to people who are calling specific phone numbers found on al-Qaida cell phones and computers" and "oppose the Patriot Act." Introducing Coulter on Your World, Buttner stated: "You do a great job in your editorial of ... listing it all out, and when you do, it's very interesting to see -- they're really good at saying what they're against, aren't they?" Buttner later appeared to concur with Coulter's false assertion that Democrats are "against every part of the war on terror," saying: "You've said it well. The problem is that the [Bush] administration doesn't always go out there and sell this. It doesn't always go out there and say, 'What are the Democrats for in this war on terror?' " Buttner then asked Coulter: "Do you think the getting out there and selling themselves and fighting against the Democrats -- that finally we're going to get the Republicans out there to fight?"
There isn't a single Democrat in the House or Senate who doesn't support eavesdropping on terrorists - name one, I DARE YOU - all they want is for the President to abide by the law, and the constitution and request a FISA warrant first.
Probable Cause and all that shit. In the 90's President Clinton sought the abilty to implement roving wiretaps to track terrorist, and other tools to track money launders, who finance terror but the
Republican Controlled Congress tried to block these initiatives.
Clinton Anti-Terror Initiatives/ Republican Obstruction --
-- Republicans blocked 1995 bill provisions to allow swifter deportations and court viewing of sensitive evidence
-- Republican controlled congress blocked roving wire taps and new powers to monitor money laundering; Phil Gramm and others lead the effort
-- John Ashcroft and others rejected initiatives to tighten controls on encryption software (encryption used by 1993 bombers and 2001 terrorists)
-- Clinton created the FBI Counter terrorism Center and increased the counterterrorism budget from $78 million to $609 million in four years
-- Clinton signed a National Security Directive in 1998 to destroy al-Quada and seize or assassinate Bin Laden. Multiple assassination attempts were made
-- Clinton's CIA al-Quada unit thwarted bombing attempts in Los Angeles, New York, the UN, and the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. They also neutralized dozens of al-Queda cells overseas -- all of this without any fanfare, then or post 9/11.
-- Clinton was labeled by the Right's Robert Oakely as having an "obsession with Osama". Yet now Republicans attempt to claim Clinton, not Bush Jr, was soft on terrorism and ultimately responsible for 9/11
And even more detailed list of Clinton Era Terrorism success was recently posted Truthout by
William Rivers Pitt.
Starting in 1995, Clinton took actions against terrorism that were unprecedented in American history. He poured billions and billions of dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community. He poured billions more into the protection of critical infrastructure. He ordered massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack. He order a reorganization of the intelligence community itself, ramming through reforms and new procedures to address the demonstrable threat. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure. In 1996, Clinton delivered a major address to the United Nations on the matter of international terrorism, calling it "The enemy of our generation." Behind the scenes, he leaned vigorously on the leaders of nations within the terrorist sphere. In particular, he pushed Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to assist him in dealing with the threat from neighboring Afghanistan and its favorite guest, Osama bin Laden. Before Sharif could be compelled to act, he was thrown out of office by his own army. His replacement, Pervez Musharraf, pointedly refused to do anything to assist Clinton in dealing with these threats. Despite these and other diplomatic setbacks, terrorist cell after terrorist cell were destroyed across the world, and bomb plots against American embassies were thwarted. Because of security concerns, these victories were never revealed to the American people until very recently.
In America, few people heard anything about this. Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the massive non-secret actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The TV networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag The Dog" to accentuate the idea that everything the administration was doing was contrived fakery.
The difference is that Clinton didn't try to manipulate the populace through fear - he didn't trump of phony threat warnings every time something embarassing happened to his administration. (If fact, attacking Bin Laden as he did during the midst of the impeachment trial should have been called taking advantage of a "target of oppurtunity" or "decapitation strike" instead of an attempt to "wag the dog".) He simply did his best to get the job done - despite virilent Republican opposition to everything he attempted. The resistance of modern Democrats to George Bush initiatives - even the illegal ones - can hardly be called more than a mild speedbump.
Vyan
Crossposted on Truth 2 Power
Update: I wrote my post, took a nap and while I was gone a shitstorm happened. Ok, people - I have CHANGED THE TITLE. Obstensibly because of Rule 7. That one word was not the reason I got up a 5am to write this diary. I personally happen to use the word often in a gender neutral way, have been married happily for 15 years - to a female. I express here my thoughts on re-contextualization. Something that singer songwriter Meredeth Brooks explored in her song "Bitch" in 1997, still HER biggest hit ever.
The debate of gender roles and gender rules is a good one, not the point of this diary - but a good discussion none-the-less. I think much of the overreaction to the original dairy title is missplaced and frankly, sad. I tend to agree with Brookes as well as Ice T (when he wrote that Men could be "Bitches 2") that words only have meanings within context and usage. It should be about what idea the person is trying to convey, not simply because the listener has a negative connotation to one particular word that was used because of it's historical meanings. If that's not what they mean, it's not what they mean.
Words change over time, and trying to exlude certain words from usage will never work because people will simply recontextualize other words to make the same point.
About 15 years ago I was member of the Black Rock Coalition and was in attendance of a meeting in UCLA when Living Colour came to town on tour with Rolling Stones. Guns N Roses had been added to the L.A. show dates at the Coliseum and while on the air at KROQ FM two members of LC were asked about the GnR song "One in a Million" which has the line...
"Police and Niggers - that's right - get out of my way. Don't need to buy none of your gold chains today.
While on the air they pretty much trashed the song, and Axl Rose who wrote it - but things weren't that simple at the meeting - which was almost entirely black, except for my wife and stepson) I happen to be black and male. The truth is that black people use the word "Nigger" also, frequently. They have for a very long time, both in a negative context and a positive. Vernon Reid's position was that you can never escape the historical meaning of the word and that ANY usage is inappropriate because it will always have the weight of history attached, no matter who is saying it.
Others disagreed and felt more like the members of Body Count. I was with those others and also sided with Guns N Roses (there was an apology on the cover of the album explaining that that song was "highly generalized" - the song was actually about overcoming racial and ethnic strife by finding a bond with some, but needed some rework to make that point clearer). If you attempt to exclude certain words, you may believe something has been accomplished - but all you've done is short circuited the listening process.
People may not use those words, but they'll still feel the same way and will simply swap in news words to say the same thing. The entire "Macaca" experience shows us this.
I feel it's better to speak your mind openly and honestly rather than self-censor. If people are at least listening to what you say rather than what they want to hear, they probably won't need to decoder manual to understand you.
Yo Nigga, Vyan