blatham wrote:Nice to hear from you again bill.
finn
I think Thomas' take on this is the more correct.
You and bill use the descriptor of 'personality' (as in merely a celebrity) for Coulter, but that ignores the important ways in which she is different from, say, Brad Pitt or Kentucky Fried Chicken's Colonel Whatshisname. She's a high profile political voice who is influential in affecting the thoughts/beliefs of a significant portion of the community. She is quoted here, for example, as an authoritative source for our political consideration. Her book sales are significant and she is frequently on political discussion shows, as you know. She's not politically benign in the manner of Mick Jagger's 27 ex-wives. Folks read her, listen to her, and model their political discourse styles after hers. I think we would agree that her intention is NOT to be a benign celebrity but to be an influential political agent. And one can't properly consider her as a something like a single bird singing in a forest...she's part of a team with a strategy to be influential. That team, which isn't roughly configured, creates a planned uniformity and breadth of voice. The goal is serious political influence.
I don't know if you saw Jon Stewart's visit to Crossfire, but if you haven't, you ought to
See Here (quicktime will come up automatically)
Simply because the style of discourse has evolved in the way it has in the US doesn't entail that this evolution is either inevitable nor, more importantly, that is is positive. I think it is deeply negative in the manner Stewart argues. And I think Thomas's arguments would head in this same direction.
There IS an acutely important difference between traditional journalism and what Coulter/Moore are up to. For journalism, truth and carefulness are critically important. For Coulter or Begala perhaps, that is not so - partisan gain is the more important goal.
A highly negative consequence of all this can be seen voiced by numerous folks here and elsewhere...namely, that "all political writing or commentary is merely opinion". Thus any one source is exactly as worthy or truth-laden as any other. The Globe equals the Chicago Tribune. Blogger Bill Schwartz equals David Brooks. Of course, what is equal here
is the right to voice opinion, but quality of opinion and quality (in the journalistic sense) of commentary is not.
If you watch PBS News, you'll know that Friday nights includes a review of weekly Washington/world events with David Brooks and Mark Sheilds queried by Lehrer. It is slow and careful and without rancor. There is little of that style remaining now elsewhere, and that's not a good thing.
The common rap on this style of TV discourse is to label it 'talking heads', and what's implied there more than anything else is BORING. That is a key to this whole story. Who would value exciting bad discourse over boring good discourse? And that's clear...whoever it is fighting for viewer share and advertising dollars.
If one objects to the debating styles of Ann Coulter, Paul Begala, Bill O'Reilley, Jeannine Garafalo et al, one need only turn the channel. If one prefers the more civilized approach of Shields & Brooks (I like Brooks but preferred Gigot), it is available.
It is not as if Coulter and Co. are appearing on shows which draw young viewers with impressionable minds. No one is going to need to install a V Chip to ban their kids from watching
Scarborough Country or
Hannity & Combs, and if they can't ban themselves from what might be bad for them...well, I'm in favor of legalizing all drugs too.
I doubt that Coulter would claim to be a journalist and so any argument concerning her corruption of the profession is off the mark.
She is a
pundit One of many and more entertaining than most. Eleanor Clift is a pundit too, but she is every bit as strident as Coulter, totally humorless and physically unattractive. When the Hag of Newsweek begins to speak it is like nails on a chalkboard, and I either find solace in hurling filthy insults at the screen or turning the channel. I abhor Clift, but I would hardly describe her as menace to democracy.
I think you are ascribing to Coulter a more significant agenda that she actually has. I'm sure she would like to think she influences people's thoughts. Who wouldn't? Al Franken surely does as does Barbara Streisand, Jeannine Garafalo, Mark Shields and David Brooks. That she does actually influence some people's thoughts is probably the case but then so does Michael Moore. Neither are advocating violence. Both may lead soft heads to wrong conclusions, but that's the inherent risk of Free Speech. And you know what? If the softheads weren't hanging on the words of Coulter and Moore, they would find equally bombastic influences. They would not turn to The News Hour.
Coulter has hit upon a schtick that works and it is clear, at least to me, that she is more interested in riding that schtick for all its worth than in forging the opinion of the masses.
I do agree with Thomas to the extent that I am also put off by the faux earnestness of folks like Moore and Franken, but I hardly see either of them as a threat to democracy.
I think Coulter bases her screeds on her fundamental beliefs but it is apparent, to anyone without an axe to grind, that she goes baroque in her attacks against the Left, because such a schtick sells, and, by all indications, sells well.
Earning millions by insulting Lefties is a pretty good gig.
Not that they are household names, but how many people in America would know who the hell Franken or Garafalo were if they had not chosen to become political? At least Garafalo is a talented actress who might have continued to secure quirky romantic lead roles, but how much money would Franken have made ever reprising his SNL role of the pathetic nebbish?
Just what harm is Coulter responsible for?
At best she is a wit who skewers folks who some of us enjoy seeing skewered. At worse, she is a hyperbolic harpy.
Your paranoia is showing when you suggest she is a member of a team with a polished agenda.
Generally, I like Jon Stewart. He's bright and he's funny. I did see his antics on Crossfire and I thought them pretentious and the critical equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.
Let's face it, taking on Crossfire is hardly the equivalent of taking on Joe McCarthy. If he has the fire in his belly to attempt cultural reform, better that he train his aim on truly degenerate shows like Jerry Springer or Maury Povich. I can't be certain, but I would venture a modest bet that the viewership of either of these skeezoid productions is greater than that of Crossfire.
As tiresome as the format of Crossfire might be, at least it addresses current events and concepts that rise beyond the emotions surrounding rutting like a boar in the woods.
I suppose it's a matter of perspective but if I am going to make any attempt to restrict Free Speech, it will not be in the political arena. Rather will it be in the entertainment arena which works, far more powerfully and insidiously (intentionally or otherwise) than Ann Coulter, to coarsen and debase our culture.
Case in point:
Actually Love. Overall a splendid movie that conveys an admirable message about love and, to a lesser extent, family, and yet it's creators found it impossible to make a witty and moving movie without including a sub-teen character who curses like a sailor, his loving step-father who can't seem to resist making overt and crude sexual references to the young lad, and a sweet commoner girl who, apparently, has to prove her
authenticity by yelling "Where the **** are my ******* shoes" in front of her mother father and juvenile siblings.
Call me a Puritan, but whenever I applied the most intensely caring mode of fatherhood to my children, at any point in their lives, I never found it necessary to discuss with them how I would have to boot them from their rooms because I might need to shag their step-mother in every room in the house.
Case in point #2:
An otherwise wonderful movie for children in the early 90's called "Monster Squad." My kids loved it and I had no problem with them loving it except for the fact that for some reason the creators of the film felt it absolutely necessary to put this dialogue in the mouth of a five year old character: "Hey you guys, don't be chickenshit!"
Now comes the argument that it is nothing for our children to swear like longshoreman or render pre-pubescenct sexual references, as long as they don't advocate that Liberals are traitors, or that we should not, as Ann as suggested, kill Muslim leaders and convert all Middle Easterners to Christianity.
One can hope that the absurdity of such an argument is self-evident.
Rendered, my argument is that if we are going to make an assault against Free Speech, better that it be done when that speech is directed towards children than adults.
Coulter is an entertainer as is Limbaugh, Franken, O'Reilly and Garafalo. That they might aspire to, and occassionaly succeed, in influencing the opinions of their audience in no way raises them to the level of significance of players like Bush, Cheaney, Pelosi, Dodd, Schummer, DeLay, Ginzberg, Reid, Frist, Norquist, Soros, Rice, Clinton, Rove and Kerry.
The former are people who do not shape public opinion as much as they tap into it and recast it in a form that the public finds entertaining.
