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KU KLUX COULTER
Jonah Goldberg Marries John Ashcroft's Senior Policy Advisor
10/5/01 10:57:29 AM
Justin Raimondo / Antiwar.com
Commentary -- [LSN Note: Anyone remember how enthusiastically John
Ashcroft was embraced by
the ADL? Now Jonah Goldberg has married his senior policy advisor. Just
one of
the many interesting things to note in this column.]
October 5, 2001
KU KLUX COULTER
A spat on the Right reveals a lot
Justin Raimondo -- Antiwar.com -- http://www.antiwar.com
Ann Coulter is a leggy, sassy blonde telebimbo, (and constitutional
lawyer)
whose career as a TV talking head took off during the Clinton scandals –
and,
like Clinton, she never really went away. Her column, distributed by
Universal
Press Syndicate, has been a mainstay of the firebreathing Right, and she
is (or
was) a regular on such venues as Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect and
Fox
News. Ms. Coulter is now embroiled in one of those intramural spats on the
Right that reveal more about the participants than anyone ever intended, a
scrap which underscores the new era of ugliness that now seems to be
dawning in
wartime America.
CONVERSION BY THE SWORD
Coulter's post-9/11 column, "This Is War," offered this charming
prescription
for prosecuting the war on terrorism:
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to
Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only
Hitler
and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians.
That's war. And this is war."
MILITARY EVANGELISM
Having established that Coulter's regard for human life is on a par with
Osama
bin Laden's, we note that this jeremiad advocating mass murder appeared in
National Review – which regularly carried her column – without any
apparent
trouble. Although a Republican President has gone out of his way to make
the
point that Islam is not the enemy, perhaps NR's editors rather liked the
ironic
implication that Muslims would be forcibly converted to the One True
Faith.
(That, after all, was one of the main methods of "proselytizing" for Islam
in
an earlier time, especially in the Balkans.) They also weren't too
perturbed at
her effort to portray Arab-Americans as fifth columnists:
"People who want our country destroyed live here, work for our airlines,
and
are submitted to the exact same airport shakedown as a lumberman from
Idaho.
This would be like having the Wehrmacht immigrate to America and work for
our
airlines during World War II. Except the Wehrmacht was not so
bloodthirsty."
WATCH THOSE SICILIANS
The policy implications of such a statement ought to be clear enough, and
Coulter spelled out just what she thought ought to be done about it in her
next
column: we not only need to carpet-bomb every Arab country on the map, we
also
need to conduct a war at home, especially on "swarthy males," who need to
be
singled out at airports and elsewhere. Ah yes, we always knew to keep an
eye on
those Sicilians. While just as bombastic and off-the-cuff as her last
effort,
this particular piece wasn't all that bad: aside from the domestic
passport
riff and that remark about "swarthy males," the bulk of it was devoted to
sneering at the so-called security measures taken at airports in the wake
of
9/11. I particularly liked the reference to airport workers as "McDonald's
rejects" – and I know for a fact that her description of the laxity still
endemic at airports is all too true. I flew from New York to San Francisco
2
weeks after 9/11, and the "security" procedures were perfunctory, at best.
GOLDBERG VS. COULTER
It was her relatively moderate second column, however, that got her the
boot
from the sacred precincts of National Review, and started a ruckus on the
Right
which is more than just a cat-fight between two rather self-involved,
self-
indulgent conservative "personalities," Coulter and NR Online editor Jonah
Goldberg. The explanation offered by Goldberg is that NR ran her first
column "by mistake," and then rejected the second post-9/11 screed, not
because
they disagreed with its content, but on purely literary grounds. Goldberg
avers
that the first jeremiad slipped through the cracks, somehow, without
really
being read – not very believable, is it? – and then goes on to describe a
series of emails between Coulter and the real editor of National Review,
Rich
Lowry:
"She wrote back an angry response, defending herself from the charge that
she
hates Muslims and wants to convert them at gunpoint. But this was not the
point. It was NEVER the point. The problem with Ann's first column was its
sloppiness of expression and thought. Ann didn't fail as a person – as all
her
critics on the Left say – she failed as WRITER, which for us is almost as
bad."
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
Nowhere does Goldberg take issue with what she actually wrote: only her
mode of
expression seems to have offended him. "It was Ann who severed her ties
with
National Review, and not vice versa," he tells us, underscoring the non-
ideological nature of the breach. What really seems to have happened is
that NR
posted "This is War" with full knowledge, understanding, and agreement,
and
only began to back away when they caught flack for it. NR Online has run
plenty
of material that mirrors Coulter's hatred of all things Arab. Paul Johnson
penned a little essay for NR claiming that Islam is an
inherently "imperialistic religion," and John Derbyshire's sneering
contempt
for the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent was succinctly and nastily
expressed in his summation of the Gulf war:
"The superiority of one culture over another has not been so starkly
demonstrated since a handful of British wooden ships, at the end of ten-
thousand-mile lines of communications, brought the Celestial Empire to its
knees 150 years earlier."
THE PARTY LINE
Islamophobia is quite the "in" thing on the neoconservative Right today.
Stephen Schwartz, a former Trotskyite who now writes for The Weekly
Standard,
has likened the Wahabi sect of Islam – whose "quintessence is war on
America,"
and is favored by both bin Laden and the Saudi royal family – as a moral
threat
on a par with fascism, and a geopolitical threat equal to that of the old
Soviet Union. Norman Podhoretz, writing in the Wall Street Journal, avers
that "We have all been repeatedly instructed in the past few days that
suicide
bombing, whether in Jerusalem or New York, represents a perversion of
Islam
fostered by a tiny minority of fundamentalists" – and snidely adds, "This
may
well be so." Yeah, right, Norman – we all know what you really think.
WHAT'S CHANGED
What's really ugly – what's really changed, post-9/11 – is that Podhoretz
and
the others are barely even trying to hide the hate. The only difference
between
this crew and Coulter is that the blonde bombshell is upfront and in our
face
about it, while the Goldbergs, the Buckleys, the Schwartzes, and the
Podhoretzes make at least a feeble attempt to mask it: they don't hate
Muslims,
just Wahabi Muslims. They don't want to invade all Arab lands and kill
their
leaders (and a good deal of the population): just those resident in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
A FAMILY MATTER
I suspect that the real reason for the sudden crackdown on Coulter by
National
Review Online was due, not to the draconian measures she proposes, nor to
her
confrontational literary style, but to Goldberg's recent marriage: his
spouse
is chief speechwriter and senior policy advisor to Attorney General John
Ashcroft. Coulter's column, which ridiculed lax airport security measures,
came
just as Ashcroft was assuring the country that security was being beefed
up,
while the President was telling us to go on vacation – and be sure to fly.
Never mind Coulter's declaration of war against Islam – that has been the
neocon line all along – what really got to Goldberg was a perceived attack
on a
member of his family. Surely Ann didn't think that he would permit an open
attack on Ashcroft – his wife's boss – in his webzine. So her column was
axed,
and, when Coulter griped about it to the Washington Post, and on Bill
Maher's
three-ring circus, she was axed, too.
AN AGE OF MADNESS
We keep hearing about how "everything has changed." Oh me oh my, we'll
never be
the same again: the rules have changed, the game has changed, it's the end
of
innocence. Of course, some people would very much like for "everything" to
change: you see, there's a little document called the Constitution that
some
folks just have no use for, and they would like to ditch it – in the name
of
the post-9/11 national emergency – because we supposedly can't afford the
luxury of civil liberties right now. The President's spokesman has
proclaimed
the necessity for everyone to "watch what they say," and anyone who so
much as
breathes a mention of US foreign policy while discussing our national
tragedy
is branded a latter-day Benedict Arnold. Traitor! Fifth columnist!
Defeatist!
The War Party has dispensed with the necessity of even constructing an
argument
by unilaterally declaring that there will be no debate. "Which side are
you
on?" is their belligerent riposte to any and all arguments counseling
restraint
or trying to give some historical context for the September 11 attack. We
are
living in an age of madness, most of it self-induced.
THE HATERS
One thing that certainly has changed since 9/11 is that all too many
Americans
have become unashamed haters. In spite of the President's admonitions
against
scapegoating, Arab-Americans (and those who might be mistaken for them)
have
been subjected to literally hundreds of attacks in the aftermath of 9/11.
Several have been shot, others beaten up, many have had their property
damaged:
Arab-American children are routinely threatened and attacked at school. I
have
read about at least one attack every single day since the 9/11 attack, and
one
can only wonder how many go unreported. The latest is the case of Abdo Ali
Ahmed, who stumbled out of his San Joaquin (California) convenience store
at
around 4 p.m. the other day, and into a next door tavern, where he died
from a
gunshot wound to his midsection. A carload of teenagers was seen speeding
away.
Ahmed had received threats the previous evening, making it clear that he
was
targeted on account of his heritage (Yemeni).
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
But the death of Mr. Ahmed is just collateral damage as far as Ann Coulter
is
concerned. In her latest tirade. "Detainment Isn't Enough," she screeches
that
we must "deport all immigrants" from "terrorist-producing countries." No
word
yet as to whether she means to include the Irish, but I suspect not.
Coulter
rants:
"As unfair as it sounds, deporting immigrants from suspect countries will
actually minimize cruelties toward vast numbers of vaguely Arabic-looking
people. Although many immigrants will be swept up unfairly, all the Sikhs,
Hindus and Arab Christians will be relieved to discover they don't scare
people
anymore."
'I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN'
Having read this poisonous claptrap, my heart wrenched as I recalled this
part
of the Abdo Ahmed story in the San Jose Mercury News:
"'I am an American citizen,' Ahmed would say, according to family members,
when
someone taunted him or asked if he were related to Osama bin Laden."
ONE HARSH HARPIE
I doubt whether Coulter cares if Ahmed was an American citizen or not, for
this
hair-tossing Harpie wears her hate on her sleeve, to wit:
"Surely, thousands of immigrants could be waived in instantly on the basis
of
reliable evidence either that they are not Muslims, or that they are the
peaceful, law-abiding variety not planning mass murder – as opposed to the
peaceful, law-abiding Muslims who recently slaughtered thousands of our
fellow
countrymen."
Gee, I guess that means Mr. Ahmed might have been allowed to stay – for
all the
good it would have done him.
HOROWITZ SNAPS HER UP
It was only natural for David Horowitz to snap up Coulter just as fast as
NR
Online dropped her. After all, if you're a professional hater, then you go
where the hate is, and certainly these two self-promoting careerists of
the
Right have a lot more in common than a shared distaste for "swarthy
males." In
announcing his newest acquisition, Horowitz attributed Coulter's
contretemps
with NR to "PC McCarthyism," and downplayed the rest of her comments as
not to
be taken seriously:
"As a Jew, I could be uneasy at Ann's suggestion that mass conversion to
Christianity should be wielded as a tool of foreign policy were it not so
obvious that her comment was hyperbolic, tongue firmly in cheek. … In the
final
analysis, nothing Ann said should have caused a scandal. Not in a
reasonable
and open society."
A STEELY GLINT
How we could tell when Coulter is being hyperbolic, as opposed to serious,
is
beyond me. At any rate, Horowitz has a distinctly odd conception of what
"a
reasonable and open society" would look like. In a pro-war ad published in
college newspapers, he admonishes antiwar protesters with his belief that
their
activities cross the line between dissent and outright treason. After
railing
on for paragraphs about what a noble cause the Vietnam war was, and how
wrong
he was to oppose it, this ex-Stalinist no doubt gets a steely glint in his
eye
as he writes:
"If I have one regret from my radical years, it is that this country was
too
tolerant towards the treason of its enemies within. If patriotic Americans
had
been more vigilant in the defense of their country, if they had called
things
by their right names, if they had confronted us with the seriousness of
our
attacks, they might have caught the attention of those of us who were
well-
meaning but utterly misguided. And they might have stopped us in our
tracks."
TREASON AND TEASIN'
But how, one wonders, could they have stopped the antiwar movement in its
tracks – except by illegalizing it? His word for what the antiwar movement
was
doing is treason, and quite clearly he believes that today's protesters
are
guilty of the same transgression. Treason is not a political stance, it is
a
crime for which there is a penalty. Traitors are jailed, and sometimes
they are
executed: is this what Horowitz envisions? Or is his tongue, like
Coulter's,
planted firmly in his cheek?
IN WHOSE CHEEK?
His tongue is planted somewhere, alright, but it isn't in his cheek. There
isn't a retrograde trend on the Right that this Commie-turn-conservative
hasn't
tried to suck up to. For a while there, hardly a day went by when visitors
to
his website weren't reminded that blacks commit crimes way out of
proportion to
their numbers in the general population: he teamed up with James
Lubsinkas, an
editor of the white supremacist organ, American Renaissance, to denounce
the "racism" of many blacks. Back when Chinese-Americans were the "fifth
column" of the moment (oh, how long ago all that seems!), Horowitz was
busy
whipping up Sinophobia amongst his knuckle-dragging followers. Now that
Arab-
Americans are the pariahs of the moment, Horowitz's opportunistic impulses
immediately told him what to do: as always, pile on the "enemy" of the
moment,
and exploit it for all it's worth.
TWO BULLIES
It is always "the enemy within" that Horowitz emphasizes in his wartime
commentary: we hear hardly anything from him about how to get to the
source of
the terrorist threat, which is overseas. Horowitz is fighting this war, as
he
fought all the others, on the home front – and, like any bully, he goes
after
the weakest, most defenseless members of our community. This is what
Horowitz
and Coulter have in common aside from their knee-jerk politics and
calculated
incivility: they are both of them bullies looking for an easy victim and
some
cheap publicity.
THINGS ARE DIFFERENT, NOW
It is sickening, really, to contemplate that these people have any
influence,
or are worthy of note: but that is what is so different about the
post-9/11
era. Normally, such losers would be consigned to the margins, howling
their
hate in the wilderness. But these people are emboldened by war, they come
to
the fore in bad times, when they are positively brazen. So brace
yourselves, my
friends, and hold your nose for the duration: from now on, life – or, at
least,
public life – just isn't going to be very pretty.
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