And the Ann Fans Scramble

I enjoy Ann Coulter's columns. I don't read every one, but catch probably one in three. It's refreshing to read conservative snarkiness; most conservatives are a bit too genteel to really draw blood with their remarks. Not Ann.

Unfortunately, in recent months, she has apparently decided to become the Lenny Bruce of the Right. She has been appearing more frequently in left-wing media circles, due in part no doubt to an increased tendency to say even more intemperate things. This plays nicely into the liberals' meme of the Mean Conservative.

Thus, I was not really surprised by her latest controversy, remarked upon here by David Hogberg:

What's a conservative to do with Ann Coulter? She is one of the political right's most popular, witty and outrageous pundits. She also has a side that is vile and ugly.

If you've paid much attention to the blogosphere the last few days, you are probably aware that during her Friday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), she made the following "joke": "I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'rag head talks tough, rag head faces consequences.'"

How stupid are such remarks? Let us count the ways.

Well, before you start counting, David, let's take a deep breath and note that the "rag heads" she's talking about are radical Islamists of the al Qaeda and Hezbollah stripe. I don't see how calling them names hurts the war effort anymore than calling Germans "Ratzis" or the Japanese "nips" or the North Koreans "gooks" did. Hating your enemy is eminently useful in wartime. I frankly wish my fellow Americans hated bin Laden and Zarqawi more, and saved their characteristic American magnaminity for after we've won the war.

Secondly, this isn't racism, properly understood. The Middle Eastern headdress denoted by the perjorative Coulter employed is worn by a large number of different ethnicities. Moreover, there is nothing preventing a caucasian from having this insult properly applied to them---after all, the headgear is worn due to a religious affiliation, if not due to a practical requirement of living in a desert with sand whipping about.

Thirdly, since when is political correctness the obsession of conservatives? Aren't we being a little too quick to condemn a joke? Aren't we acting in the same humorless fashion that we decry in the frowning Left?

I recently watched "The Aristocrats", Penn Jilette's documentary of comedians telling the foulest joke imaginable. A few weeks after 9/11, Gilbert Gottfried stood up at a Friar's Club roast of Hugh Hefner and commented at how hard it was to get a nonstop flight to LA that didn't connect through the Empire State Building. Tasteless? Probably. Too soon? Almost definitely. But there's a catharsis in taboo humor, too.

We don't yet know if we're going to prevail in the War on Terror. We don't know how many more terrorist attacks we'll have to endure until we do, nor how severe they'll be. Ann's sneering disdain for the terrorists is something I rather welcome as a result---it bucks me up in much the same fashion (while lacking the polish) of Churchill's tirades against Hitler.

Finally, don't you find it a wee bit ironic that the same conservatives who lambaste the media as cowards for censoring the Danish cartoons are so quick to decry comments made in the same vein?

Look, I personally wish Ann Coulter wouldn't go the shock jock route. But in the big scheme of things, I also wish we had more folks on our side with her, ahem, brass.