The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Dude, Did You Have to Diss Ann Coulter? Also: Obama Has ‘Certainly Been Massively Disappointing to Young People’

Posted on | April 1, 2012 | 17 Comments

Let’s face it: Ever since Ann Coulter volunteered as head cheerleader for Team Romney, some of Miss Coulter’s longtime conservative defenders have been under tremendous pressure to denounce her.

The problem is that nearly all the people who joined the anti-Coulter movement back in the day — and I’m looking at you, Ace of Spades — are also now on the “Roll Over for Romney” bandwagon. So while I defended her when she called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a “raghead” and called John Edwards a “faggot,” I should probably be content to let Ace (and Sean Hackbarth, Ed Morrissey, Joy McCann, et al.) defend Miss Coulter now that she’s snuggling up with Mister Inevitability.

Nevertheless, I was irritated when I saw that Matt Lewis cited Ann Coulter as an example of a media “peacock” in a Daily Caller item he posted last week, even while Matt was making a point worth considering:

[On March 16], there was tremendous buzz about a picture of Rick Santorum sunbathing. I’m sure it got a lot of hits, but  it was completely irrelevant, and utterly vapid. I’m sure we probably ran it — we sort of had to. But can you imagine back in the old days if a reporter had  come to a grizzled, old newspaper editor with the idea of publishing that photo?  The old fella might have said, “Son, we’re not going to run that because it’s  not news. We’re not going to run that as long as I’m here. I don’t care if other  newspapers do — we’re not. Now get the hell out of my office!”
Today, that old guy is dead. Or retired — probably pushed out by some  upstart.

Having dealt with a few grizzled old newspaper editors in my day, I very well see the point Matt is trying to make. What is happening is that the news media are being democratized, for both good and ill, so that the readers get whatever the readers want, including society reporters turned strippers and NFL cheerleader sex scandals.

Yet I’ve always said that if I were ever put in charge of a newspaper, I’d run it like the NY Post: Lots of celebrities, scandals, sports and crime stories to pull in the readers, thus to pay the bills for the political coverage and the right-wing op-ed pages.

So if I were the grizzled old editor and some reporter brought me a picture of Rick Santorum sunbathing, my response would be: “What the hell is wrong with you, kid? I said I wanted Ann Romney bikini pictures! Now get to work on it, or you’re fired!”

Part of what’s wrong with the conservative movement — and maybe we can discuss this at “DoomCon 2012” — is a sense of insecurity that manifests itself as a craving for respectability.

This prudishly superficial concern with being “respectable” causes some conservatives to scurry for cover the minute Ann Coulter says “faggot” or Rush Limbaugh says “slut,” so that all liberals have to do is make a big deal about some silly little “gaffe” or “scandal” and they win.

Wake the hell up, conservatives: Are you going to let Politico and Media Matters pick your leaders and spokesmen for you? Remember Breitbart!

OK, so that’s my rant about that. Meanwhile, via the eminently respectable Washington Free Beacon, we have this delightful video:

Obama has “certainly been massively disappointing to young people,” says Stephen Marche of Esquire, a liberal magazine that features lots of pictures of nearly naked women.

Polls show Obama’s popularity among the young “started at 63 percent and I think it’s in the 30s now,” says Marche. “It just continues to fall.”

Good. Now go get me those Ann Romney bikini pictures.

Update: linked by Fishersville Mike.

Category: Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Election 2012, Matt Lewis, Mitt Romney, R.S. McCain School of Journalism

Comments

17 Responses to “Dude, Did You Have to Diss Ann Coulter? Also: Obama Has ‘Certainly Been Massively Disappointing to Young People’”

  1. Rocky Howell
    April 1st, 2012 @ 3:44 pm

    very nice could not agree with you more 

  2. Shelleys Playtime
    April 1st, 2012 @ 3:53 pm

     Me too, except for the whole Ann Romney bikini picture thing…

     I miss Andrew : (

  3. Adjoran
    April 1st, 2012 @ 4:40 pm

    The images of the “objective journalists” and the grizzled, just-the-facts-dammit editors are mostly fiction, the stuff of movies and television.  Every publisher has had their own agenda, and “accuracy in reporting” is more of a marketing tool, much like sincerity in politics:  once you can fake that, you can really go places.

    From Hearst and the Yellow Kid newspaper wars a century ago through the present time TV news divisions, the major difference between “respected newspapers” and “tabloid trash” has been the degree to which they would debase the culture and distort the truth.  Not “IF” but “how much.”

  4. ThePaganTemple
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:13 pm

    “Objective journalism” was never anything more than a business model meant to attract as many readers as possible while journalists, editors and publishers nevertheless slanted their coverage to promote their own candidates and ideologies all the same. It’s just a failed model now because most people have caught on to the scam. May it die a well-deserved death. And stay dead.

  5. DaveO
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:17 pm

    1. Conservative pundits wrote very persuasive articles/blog posts to promote their candidate, or more usually – to tear down other candidates and their media/blogger supporters. One either writes what they believe, or they work for Redstate.

    2. There can only be 1.

    3. When’s the kiss-&-makeup session for the bloggers?

  6. John David Galt
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:20 pm

    She’s a waste of fine hardware.  That’s reason enough for me.

  7. ThomasD
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:26 pm

    Rush calls some grievance industry shill a slut and the whole world explodes, causing various duck and cover conservatives to wet themselves.

    Meanwhile Obama’s spiritual Godfather Bill Ayers says he wakes up every day hoping to destroy capitalism and the world yawns.

    But Romney’s looking like a lock so all the swells are just peachy.
     

  8. sheryl
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:29 pm

    Don’t worry about defending Ann, she is a big girl. I will never read another one of her books, but of course that is a personal decision.

  9. Bob Belvedere
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:30 pm

    Who is more respectible these days, the ‘respected’ The New York Times or the tabloid New York Post?

  10. Bob Belvedere
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:34 pm

    ‘Objective Journalism’ was invented by the Left once they got a hold of papers like The New York Times.

    Newspapers in this country have always had a slant and, until the Left gained control, never hid it.  Readers knew it.  But in the days before the Progressives took over, no matter whether they leaned port or starboard, most of them were in the mainstream of normal thinking.

  11. TR
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:38 pm

    The problem with DoomCon is that is would be club that you (yourself) have joined or formed and thus could not mock or be resentful towards. The Groucho-Marx paradox would be in play, i.e. why would you want to be in a club that would have you as a member?

    BTW, Ann Coulter has made many snide comments that go way beyond merely cheerleading for Romney.  For example, her arrogance and snobery towards Sarah Palin even provoked Mark Levin to remind folks on air that contrary to Ann’s off-handed remarks, Sarah Palin has been a huge spokeperson and force for conservative progress since 2008.

  12. keyboard jockey
    April 1st, 2012 @ 5:40 pm

    I am done supporting Coulter’s book writing career also. 

  13. AnonymousDrivel
    April 1st, 2012 @ 9:23 pm

    Coulter used to be “Must See, TV” for me.

    I now reach for the remote and skip her columns. Kinda sad it had to happen that way, but I’ve found an ample supply of substitutes in New Media. It’s not the messenger, it’s the message. I can get a better one, and I’m finding more honestly critical too, from literally countless others.

  14. Bob Belvedere
    April 2nd, 2012 @ 8:03 am

    Stacy Tweeted Me: Did somebody say “genius”? and then provided a Google Search link that shows he owns the Google Bomb  ‘Ann Romney Bikini’.

    Bravo sir!  Everything I learned about Google Bombs I learned from you.

    However, considering it’s you we’re talking about here, should that sentence read: Did somebody say ‘sub-genius‘?

  15. Bob Belvedere
    April 2nd, 2012 @ 9:24 am

    Me too.

    No one possessing any sanity would have held it against her if she had supported Mr. Romney because she believed his was the most electable.  But Miss Coulter had to go off and, using Leftist tactics, smear those of us who didn’t buy that argument and then compound that sin with defending Romneycare.  Her nose is now so brown, she has to apply extra make-up to hide it.

    Sad and very disappointing.

  16. 1389AD
    April 2nd, 2012 @ 1:18 pm

    Credibility is like virginity. Once you lose it, there’s no getting it back.

    Coulter lost hers.

    Obama never had any. Those young voters who were stupid enough to put their hopes on him and turn him into a false messiah will be paying for their folly for a very long time.

    Even assuming Obama is defeated and the GOP takes over both houses, the damage Obama has done all over the world is irreparable.

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