Stephen, I share your frustration more than I can convey. It so happens I was flipping through Coulter’s book Treason the other day. I hated even the parts where I agreed with her. She is as ignorant as the day is long. (The Marshall Plan was essential to the rebuilding of Europe, she says, utterly unaware that a body of literature arguing to the contrary from a right-wing point of view even exists.) I have lost whatever patience I once had with people who think the situation we face is one involving bad guys (“liberals”) and good guys (“conservatives”), as if things are basically OK but we just need to get and keep our guys in government. The real conservative, assessing the state of civilization, understands that the news is a lot scarier: apart from Ron Paul, there are no “our guys” in government to speak of. Everyone is, well, some shade of evil.
And she thinks liberals are pansies, or that she’s a right winger? She’s the biggest pansy of all, in a pathetic love affair with the U.S. government. Any right-winger with a brain loathes and detests the entire establishment, the stupid Republicans included. I used to think that maybe she was just cynical, knowing full well how rotten the GOP establishment and the “conservative movement” are, but throwing out the kind of red meat they like because it sells books. Now I’m convinced that she’s actually dumb enough to fall for Gingrich conservatism.
2:42 pm on March 3, 2004
