Hey, Darrell. I knew you'd weigh in on my latest diatribe against Ann Coulter, just as you knew that I'd write it.

You're aware, of course, that I love Queen Ann's mind—it's the use to which she puts it that troubles me sometimes. And this sort of Jon Stewart-esque business of putting analysis out there, and then hiding behind humor when challenged, is unimpressive.

But she isn't really anti-gay, which is another thing that infuriated me about her using the word "faggot," of course. I've heard her as a guest on Al Rantel's Show on KABC [an L.A. station] enough to know that. And I do believe that she has enough integrity to avoid pulling a Brock-esque political conversion, though I agree with you, D, that she could really clean up financially by doing so.

Speaking of David Brock, the divine Christopher Hitchens is one of perhaps five socialists whom I still respect intellectually—notwithstanding his radical atheism, which I've decided is yet another one of his endearing blind spots. He penned a rather marvelous review of Brock's Blinded by the Right for The Nation five years ago:

Brock masks his deep-seated mendacity from others and (perhaps) from himself by a simple if contemptible device of rhetoric. He switches between passive and active. Thus of one conservative smear-op, he tells us that "I allowed myself to get mixed up" in it. His masochism even permits him to say, at a reactionary award ceremony in far-off St. Louis, at which he somehow found himself, that "I was miserable. Yet this was how I made my living and it was who I had become. The conservatives had bought my brain." And paid well over the odds for it, I should say. Never mind, he always cheers up by letting himself be drawn in to another bad business. And here we get the same paltry narcissism in its opposite form: "I was a full-scale combatant, I had war-wounds to show for it, and I needed the thrill of another round of battle."

He finds it difficult to refer to himself--when he isn't crippled by self-loathing--without using the words "icon" and "poster boy." There are actually very few revelations in the book, unless you are surprised to learn that a cabal of right-wingers tried to frame the Clintons for killing Vince Foster. (Brock now prefers the even more far-out view that Foster was murdered by The Wall Street Journal.) Referring to the anti-Semitism of a famous conservative, he cites what might be a joke in poor taste and says it was "one of her gentler remarks." What, couldn't he have cited a more damning one? There are countless silly mistakes, including the date of Theodore and Barbara Olson's wedding, and many innuendoes, such as the (unsupported) suggestion that it is Richard Mellon Scaife who has committed not one but two murders.

In his coarse attack on Juanita Broaddrick, whose allegation of rape was supported by several contemporaneous witnesses and has not yet been denied by Clinton himself, Brock does not even do the elementary work of stating the case he is trying to rebut. Instead, he inserts a completely gratuitous slander against a decent woman, all of whose independent assertions have survived meticulous fact-checking. The defamation game is still all that this creep knows.

Etiquette requires that I mention a very rude description of myself, concentrating on the grossly physical, which includes the assertion that I am unwashed as well as unkempt. Those who know me will confirm that while I may not be tidy, I am so clean you could eat your dinner off me. Perhaps I did not want to put Mr. Brock to the labor of proving this. At any rate, I am relieved to find I am not his type. However, I forgive him this sophomoric passage because its empty hatred was so obviously feigned after the event, and because it describes me as five years younger than I am.

The reason Hitchens has gotten himself into so much trouble with the extreme Left over the years is that he cannot lie, any more than Brock can tell the truth. Any more than Coulter can preach to anyone but the choir. Memo to Coulter: You get a lot of "amens" that way, but you never win over any souls. I'm sorry if this fact is "distressing" to you.

Despite the ideological divide, I'm as passionate about Hitchens' writing as I am about Mark Steyn's (their website designers?—that's a bit less of an even contest). And yet Ann—despite the impressive research in a few of her books, her towering intellect and her fluency when speaking extempore—continues largely to leave me cold.

Why? Because I'm tired of going to parties and being confronted with the latest outrageous remark she's made, and expected to defend them. Because I'm offended by the cross on her chest in her promotional photo for Godless, because I doubt that the Lord was pleased by that cheap display. Because I prefer my writers to be snipers, rather than point-and-shoot wielders of twelve-gauge scatterguns.

Your mileage may vary. And I rather suspect that it does.

Happy Birthday, Darrell! I compensated for your being early by being late, myself. (And, yes—I am sending you something, since you're my biggest supporter. Just a small token of my appreciation. No, it ain't a picture of me in that Beefeater baseball cap. Though I ought to publish one, for I love it. And it's time to start wearing it, Baby: I've been walking around too much. I'm courting skin cancer.)

Posted by: Attila Girl at 01:14 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Hm. From a reader:

Do you think Ann Coulter was talking about you on Good Morning America when she said the denouncement that "hurt me the most was on IAmaLittleGirlinaPinkPartyDress.com; very upsetting!" ???


http://www.breitbart.tv/html/2258.html

For the record, I don't think Coulter was singling me out—just using the name of my blog to make fun of the entire 'sphere. Kind of an interesting thing to do.

In a sense, she's saying "who are you, Little Miss Attila, to criticize me?" Well, I'm just part of a group—a cultural phenomenon—that got Dan Rather kicked off the air, defeated the amnesty bill and changed political discourse permanently. Part of an Army of Davids. We fight the Goliaths of Big Media, Big Goverment, and Big Firebrandresses (tall ones, anyway).

In a sense, Queen Ann is saying to bloggers—all bloggers—the question The Who put out there: "Who the fuck are you?" Well, who is she, for that matter? A woman who uses her legs to sell books. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I should do the same, especially since my legs are a good deal nicer than hers are. If you like your girls curvy, that is. If willowy is your thing, stick with Queen Ann.)

I think comediennes who do actual comedy—e.g., Sarah Silverman (hotter than Coulter and I put together, BTW)—are cool. The ones like Coulter and Margaret Cho who try to combine standup with political analysis are simply lame. Politics plus humor can be a difficult balancing act, and only a handful of people of any sex really pull it off.

Ann Coulter isn't one of those who successfully combine comedy and political commentary. Had she only stuck with analysis, it would be a different matter, but implying that Edwards is a "faggot," and then parsing out the phrasing in a fashion that would make Bill Clinton blush? Very lawyerly. I of course mean "lawyerly" in the sense of "stupid." (Full disclaimer: some of my best friends, yadda yadda yadda.)

"It was clearly a schoolyard taunt," she said in the days following that incident. "No one seriously thought I meant to suggest Edwards was gay." Well, that's not how I heard it. And I never really thought—from the first moment I heard that lame stunt at CPAC 2007—that I would have taken it too kindly if I had been Elizabeth Edwards.

What if I'd implied that Halle Barry was a "nigger," and then defended myself by saying I hadn't stated it outright? And what if I'd then reminded people that everyone knows one of her parents is white, so there's no possible reason anyone could confuse her with an actual nigger?

Well, then I'd be a publicity whore. And I could go on Good Morning America and make fun of people whose websites sport really creative names. AnnCoulter.com: it must have taken her weeks to think of that one.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 11:08 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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. . . to be a Republican."

I'm not so sure overzealous prosecution is limited to the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, or that all its victims lean right. And I doubt Martha Stewart thinks so.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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. . . on the "Ann Coulter/Paul Campos" style of political discourse.

Via Glenn.

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This is an enemies list I'm happy to be on.

Have you ever noticed that 79% of those who use the term "RINO" are bound and determined to lose elections, no matter what it takes?

LET'S ALIENATE PEOPLE FOR THE SAKE OF ALIENATING THEM! Otherwise, we are just APPEASING the LIBERALS! Being POLITICALLY CORRECT! Ack, ack! Polly wants a cracker!

Posted by: Attila Girl at 07:52 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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