A Prediction
When the next Democrat President or ex-President dies, the “Ted Rall of the Right” will not write any columns gloating about his death or speculating that he is turning a “crispy brown” in hell. Anyone care to place any bets?
UPDATE: Then again, it’s not a great postdiction, as Coulter does suggest in Chapter 1 that she wouldn’t be terribly wild about finding liberals in heaven when she dies:
Democrats revile religion but insist on faking a belief in God in front of the voters claiming to be “spiritual.” They can’t forthrightly admit they are Druids, so they “reframe” their constant, relentless opposition to every Biblical precept as respect for “science” or the “Constitution” — both of which they hate. Their rage against us is their rage against the Judeo-Christian tradition. I don’t particularly care if liberals believe in God. In fact, I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven. So fine, rage against God, but how about being honest about it? Liberals can believe what they want to believe, but let us not flinch from identifying liberalism as the opposition party to God.
So for those who think timing is the opposite of everything, and that making the same point is all that matters, then I suppose this prediction won’t prove anything – or will prove that Coulter = Rall after all. Oh well, at least Coulter hasn’t threatened to sue Rall … yet.
June 11th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
Depends on how you define “gloating.”
[It wouldn't, though, if she wrote anything that remotely justified equating her with Ted Rall, which of course was my point. -X]
I wouldn’t put it past her for one second — especially if it might help her sell a book.
June 11th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
Well, that might depend on which Democratic President or former President bites the dust first. It would be difficult to picture Jimmy Carter crisping in Hell — unless Hell is where one goes for bumbling idiocy —
[Carter's sins are much worse than that. Actively undermining the efforts of subsequent Presidents is a lot worse than mere idiocy. -X]
and Bill Clinton’s demise would make her work more difficult, in that she really needs a Clinton to skewer.
June 11th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
I could turn the tables and make the same tricky argument going the other way. I don’t believe this, but employing your logic, I could say:
See? I just proved that Coulter is worse, using that good Xrlq logic.
June 11th, 2006 at 10:16 pm
Yes, I’ll bet against P if he’ll take the action. Full comment under “Battered Conservative Syndrome.”
June 12th, 2006 at 10:59 am
Patterico, nice attempt to change the subject, but FWIW, you’re not employing my logic at all when you ask for examples of Rall attacking the same exact people Coulter did. Of course he wouldn’t say such a thing about the NY Times! That’s why I had Coulter gloating/not-gloating over the death of an ideological enemy, rather than making a big deal out of the unremarkable fact that she didn’t personally gloat over Reagan’s death while Rall did.
That said, I have little doubt that anyone searching Rall’s archives would have no trouble finding quotes that were every bit as offensive as the dowdified versions of the Coulter quotes you offered, and significantly more offensive than the full quotes. Here’s the McVeigh quote, in context:
Not her finest hour, to be sure, nor even the best recovery (she should have said “I shouldn’t have said that at any time) but hardly the same as if she had allowed the original comment to stand). Now, on to the Supreme Court quote:
Then again, she didn’t spell things out fully, so maybe she was only kidding about the idea that Justice Stevens eats creme brulee.
June 12th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
“Patterico, nice attempt to change the subject, but FWIW, you’re not employing my logic at all when you ask for examples of Rall attacking the same exact people Coulter did. Of course he wouldn’t say such a thing about the NY Times!”
If only I had made a reference to “any other major media organization” . . . oh, wait — reviewing my comment, I did. So implying that I demanded it be the NYT is not responsive to what I actually said. Make it Fox News. Now it’s your logic exactly. Happy?
My quotes were not Dowdified. I thought you knew what that meant, but clearly you don’t.
Dowdification is altering a quote to change its meaning. It is not simple failure to provide context.
If you want to argue that I didn’t provide the full context, that’s not Dowdification, but fine, make that argument.
If you do choose to make that argument, by the way, my response will be: 1) I disagree that I have done so, but 2) you most certainly have done so.
You want to imply that she showed instant regret over the NYT comment? Then, to provide full and fair context, you might want to add that, when John Hawkins asked her whether she regretted the statement, she replied: “Of course I regret it. I should have added, “after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.”
Har har.
If I Dowdified her quote (and I didn’t), then so did you. I assume you agree that you should not imply that she regretted a statement without mentioning that she made the same offensive point again later.
Also, everyone knew her Stevens comment was a “joke,” and her “clarification” added nothing. Had she said: “That’s just a joke, for you in the media . . . and a damned stupid one, too — unfunny and classless. I should never have said it.” Well, *then* it would have been unfair for me to leave it out.
As it stands, my omission of her “just a joke” statement omits nothing, since everyone knew it was a “joke” in the sense of a classless and inexcusable comment — kind of like telling “jokes” about black people. And if you really want to press the point that it was somehow misleading of me to omit her explanation of the comment as a “joke,” then you still must agree that this omission was far less misleading than your suggestion that she regretted the NYT/McVeigh comment, while omitting the bit where she repeated the same asshole line.
Of course, perhaps you were unaware she had repeated the “McVeigh should have blown up the NYT building” gag. If so, care to reassess your defense of her on that quote?
June 13th, 2006 at 12:01 am
If quoting a single sentence and omitting the “I’m just kidding” line that immediately follows it doesn’t constitute a dowdification, then the word has no meaning. And to claim that I am guilty of dowdification for completing your misleadingly incomplete statement but not bringing up a separate interview that you also hadn’t brought up, that’s just nonsense on stilts.
But then again, so is the entire premise of this thread, which never would have been an issue if you had been content to reasonably argue that Coulter’s statement was out of line, rather than unreasonably equating her with Ted Rall.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:04 am
So: did she regret making the NYT statement or not?
June 13th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Probably not, but so what? It’s clear she was being sarcastic, while Rall made it equally clear both in his original entry and subsequent interviews that he was not being sarcastic about Reagan turning crispy brown – except in the sense that Rall doesn’t really believe there really is a hell.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:16 am
So when you say:
Not her finest hour, to be sure, nor even the best recovery (she should have said “I shouldn’t have said that at any time) but hardly the same as if she had allowed the original comment to stand).
Well, she pretty much did allow the comment to stand, didn’t she? — because she repeated it, and didn’t regret it.
June 13th, 2006 at 12:46 am
Right?
June 13th, 2006 at 3:21 pm
Cue the crickets.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
The crickets are waiting for you to either justify your ludicrious comparison to Rall, or admit that it was unjustified. Allowing vs. not allowing a bad joke to stand has no bearing on that question, one way or the other, so that issue can wait for the time being.
June 13th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
A more transparent dodge, I’ve never seen.
My comparison of her to Rall depends largely upon the fact that both have made venal comments and jokes (Rall’s in cartoon form) and stood by them. If I falsely suggested that Rall regretted one of his bad jokes, and you could prove I was wrong, you’d see the relevance then. Because whether one of them has let their nasty comment stand, or repeated it, or retracted it, is relevant. You have falsely implied Coulter took one of her comments back, and said it would be different had she let it stand. I have shown that she later repeated it, which is worse than letting it stand. Time to admit you were wrong.
June 13th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Or, if you don’t like “wrong,” we can go with “misleading.” I’m flexible.
June 14th, 2006 at 8:44 am
And my rejection of that silly comparison depends on the fact that many of Rall’s worst comments, in cartoons, columns, blog entries or on the radio, are not jokes at all. Rall was repeatedly quizzed in the media about his “crispy brown” comment, and made it clear that the only part he could have been kidding about was the implication that there is a hell, not that Reagan was rotting there if there was.
No, I accurately pointed out that Coulter took one of her comments back, after you had falsely implied she had not. Let’s straighten that part of the story out first. Then we can talk about her later comment on the topic.
June 14th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Consider this hypothetical Patterico statement to Xrlq (it’s all in good fun, folks):
Quiz: which is a more accurate summary of the above?
1. Patterico said Xrlq is a jerk.
2. Patterico said Xrlq is a jerk, but then took it back. It was not Patterico’s finest hour, to be sure — but it’s hardly the same as if he had allowed the original comment to stand!
I submit #1 is perfectly fine. Sure, it omits the take-back that is later taken back. But since the take-back was indeed later taken back, the take-back is sort of inoperative. To the extent it really was a take-back to begin with — which is questionable.
#2 is flat-out misleading.
June 14th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Interesting analogy, but it could use a little more fine-tuning. How about this:
June 14th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
Fine. Have you called me a jerk, in that example — when all is said and done?
More to the point, tell me whether statements 1 and 2 are materially misleading, given your fine-tuning, which I assert makes no significant difference.
June 14th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
Yes.
Statement 1 is not misleading, but it is not representative of what we’re discussing, either. A better question is whether a revised version of Statement 1 is: Xrlq called Patterico a jerk, and hinted that everyone who lived near him was, as well. That statement alone is indeed misleading, as to the neighbors.
Statement 2 is clearly not a dowdification; discussing one incident without bringing up a separate one never is. Whether it is or is not misleading depends on what it is you are trying to prove. If the point is to prove how nasty Xrlq was to Patterico in the wake of some traumatic event, then the fact that he quickly retracted the nasty statement at the pivotal time is relevant, and the fact that he came back years later and said “you really are a jerk” is not. But if your only point is whether or not Xrlq ever said Patterico was a jerk, then I agree that accurately quoting the first exchange can be more misleading than dowdifying the first exchange and omitting the second.
June 14th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
You boys argue like lawyers. Good reason for that, obviously, and I always learn something when I watch since, just as obviously, I’m not a lawyer. But try this:
(The following dialogue is entirely fictional. Any resemblence to any actual Patterico or Xrlq is not entirely coincidental but could be imaginary.)
Patterico: “Ann Coulter is a bitch despite the fact that she is credible and smart about many things!”
Xrlq: “Ann Coulter is smart and credible about many things despite the fact that she is frequently bitchy!”
Patterico: “Though these are our opinions, I must now try to prove mine empirically, for I am a lawyer and must convince at least twelve other people that I am right!”
Patterico sets up numerous hypotheticals, some with bearing on the case and some silly, and he and Xrlq dig in to the minutiae of the syllogisms.
Anwyn: “You boys argue like lawyers. None of this changes the point that Pat thinks Ann was a bitch to say that Timothy McVeigh should’ve gone to the NYT building, whether she wishes everybody inside had been bombed or only a few people she thinks are idiots, and that Xrlq and Anwyn think Ann is mean but smart and take the ‘bomb the NYT’ building thing as what Allah so succinctly calls ‘talking smack.’”
Patterico: “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!”
Anwyn: “Mine is an evil laugh.”
—-
Okay, that last part was Firefly. I don’t usually write dialogue. But my point is … good grief.
June 14th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
You *always* betray me!
Although it could be you comment only when you disagree. Which is fine.
June 15th, 2006 at 12:57 am
Good call. I lurked around quite a bit before starting to comment, and it was a combination of just taking the “first-comment plunge” as well as seeing something I either cared about enough, disagreed with enough, or was confused about enough to jump in. But believe me, agree or disagree, when I have something meaningful to say, you’ll hear about it.
June 15th, 2006 at 1:11 am
Or, at least, I’ll type it, and you may or may not see it. :)
June 15th, 2006 at 1:18 am
I believe you. It’s just that “By gosh! You’re absolutely right, Patterico!” doesn’t necessarily strike you as a “meaningful” comment.
June 15th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Oh, I must be mixed up–the existence of a successful blog means you’re actually *lacking* comments like that?
June 15th, 2006 at 9:35 am
Not really, but perhaps from you. Which is fine.
Anyway, I see this as cross-examination, not argument, and I need to get back to it.
June 15th, 2006 at 9:44 am
Now, Xrlq:
We have established that Statement 1 is not misleading. BUt you assert that a revised version is misleading in that it omits the fact that the neighbors are not the subject of the insult.
Let’s tweak the hypo, then.
Against a backdrop of everyone knowing that Xrlq hates Patterico (again, it’s a hypo, folks!), Xrlq says he would like to bomb Patterico’s neighborhood. He agrees with someone that he shouldn’t say that due to a recent bombing. Later, when someone asks him if he regretted the statement, he says: “Sure. After all, I don’t want to target Patterico’s neighbors!”
Now, is the revised version of Statement 1 misleading? Of course not. Because everyone knew Xrlq’s reference to bombing Patterico’s neighborhood was a shot at Patterico, not his neighbors. The second statement is just a snarky way of repeating the first.
Just as with Coulter: nobody thought she was originally saying that the janitor at the NYT building should be killed — just the editors and reporters.
So really, as regards the real-life example, Statement 1 is not misleading at all. Nor is it a Dowdification.
You agree, correct?
Now, on to Statement 2. You say that “if your only point is whether or not Xrlq ever said Patterico was a jerk, then I agree that accurately quoting the first exchange can be more misleading than dowdifying the first exchange and omitting the second.”
Since we have agreed that Statement 1, as applied to the real-life situation, is not misleading at all, then “more misleading” means “misleading to some extent.” So Statement 2 is somewhat misleading. You seem to agree.
And indeed, my point originally was that Ann Coulter said McVeigh should have blown up the NYT building, which is the analogy. It was not my *only* point, but it was a point that I made in service of a larger point. And the way I did it was not a Dowdification, and not misleading; whereas the way you portrayed her comment was indeed somewhat misleading.
If I missed a step in the logical progression, please tell me where.
June 15th, 2006 at 9:59 am
I’m jumping ahead, which I don’t like doing, but I have to go to work, and can’t take it one step at a time as I’d like to.
June 15th, 2006 at 10:14 am
That depends on what the reaction to Statement 1 was. If the entire outrage had been over the fact that Xrlq took a cheap shot at Patterico, that seems like a strange thing to have gotten outraged about in the first place, particularly among people who don’t much like Patterico themselves. But if the outrage was over the fact that Xrlq had joking about bombing in the wake of a recent, real bombing, and with concerns that such a crack might inspire a real act of terror by some Xrlq-worshipping yahoo who didn’t get the joke, then taking the joke back at the critical period is an important part of the story, and does not become unimportant simply because a kinder, gentler, more obvious version of that joke was reinstated later, at a time when everyone was more comfortable joking about anything.
In other words, two wrongs did not make a right.
And – as with the OKC bombing – anyone else who happened to be in or near the building. They weren’t the targets, of course; just “collateral damage.”
Wrong, and wrong. It is indeed misleading. Whether or not it qualifies as a “dowdification” depends on a semantic meta-discussion I’d prefer not to engage in further at this time. That said, it’s less misleading since the hypothetical retraction only clarifies that Xrlq doesn’t want to target Patterico’s neighbors, while the real one, even if taken seriously, clarified that Coulter would not have been OK with McVeigh going after the editors and journalists at NYT the way he went after the feds in OKC, i.e., not specifically targeting them, but making no effort to avoid killing them, either.
June 15th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
It’s just that “By gosh! You’re absolutely right, Patterico!” doesn’t necessarily strike you as a “meaningful” comment.
All right, then, Pat, as you’re so curious:
I am a fervent believer that Roe and Casey should be overruled
By gosh! You’re absolutely right, Patterico!
See? Just like that, Savage creates the impression that replacing O’Connor with Alito might create a Court with five votes against Roe.
By gosh! You’re absolutely right, Patterico! And man did that tick me off when that was going around. I can count up to five just fine on my own two hands, thanks, Savage.
Michael Schiavo: Heartless Jerk
By gosh! You’re absolutely right, Patterico! I think in another place you also called him scum. Right again.
A little more recent:
Sorry, Times editors. It’s called democracy. It’s messy. It’s run by idiots. It produces unfair results.
As the old saying goes, it’s the worst system out there — except for all the others.
BG!YAR,P!
And because I just … can’t … resist:
You’re jealous … Because we went to see Glen Phillips tonight, and you didn’t.
Wrong. Never ever gonna be jealous of that. :)
June 15th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I *loved* that comment! Except for the part about Glen Phillips. What do you have against him?
June 15th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Just now having read Xrlq’s update to this post (post? oh yeah, post), and having a copy of Godless on my desk that I haven’t dug into yet, as an example of the point of that passage that liberals frequently fake a belief in God and claim to be “spiritual,” I offer a passage just above the link Xrlq already posted to RWN:
“Our sons and daughters need to realize that choosing to be a soldier means a decision to place themselves among “the damned,” since no matter what they end up doing while on the field of battle, they will eventually be damned.. damned if they do and damned if they do not. Realizing that compliance with a superior’s order to shoot and kill the enemy may well lead to the damnation (the self-extirpation) of one’s soul.”
Does anybody here really believe that that could possibly be among liberals’ reasons for being anti-Iraq-war and anti-troops? Concern for the soldiers’ souls? Like Coulter (presumably), I don’t.
June 15th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
PS, in case you didn’t click the link but are wondering, the quoted passage above is from Kos.
With apologies to Xrlq for the continued semijacking of this thread: Except for the part about Glen Phillips. What do you have against him?
Not much, actually, but enough to make me incurious about his other stuff. I didn’t dislike some Toad stuff back in the day, though don’t ask me which songs as it was a long time ago and I’ve had a kid since and men, I’m here to tell you that what they say about a woman’s memory going haywire when she has a kid is *dead on*, but I recently bought the Mutual Admiration Society disc he did with Nickel Creek. As a big Nickel Creek fan, I was seriously underwhelmed. It was less a mutual admiration society and far more It’s All About Glen; the material didn’t impress and neither did his voice or his lack of taste in completely and utterly marginalizing Nickel Creek. I was surprised Chris Thile, not to speak of the other two, allowed the disc to go out like that, honestly.
June 15th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
PPS, I realized I made too much of a blanket statement when I said that concern for the soldiers’ souls “couldn’t possibly” be among “liberals’ reasons.” I have less trouble believing that concern for the soldiers’ souls is among the reasons of individual thinkers among the liberal camp, but presented as a groupthink argument in the larger political arena it rings more than a little hollow.
June 15th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
[...] Ann Coulter defender Xrlq offers still more ammunition against Coulter: her own words. Our pal X provides this link to excerpts from Chapter 1 of her latest book. This way, you can form an intelligent opinion about whether the book is crap without having to pay her a dime. [...]
June 16th, 2006 at 2:55 am
Well, the Glen Phillips show I went to, the one where you weren’t jealous of me going, turned out to be Glen + Nickel Creek for basically the whole night.
June 16th, 2006 at 3:22 am
Bah. I’ve seen Nickel Creek three times and Chris Thile, with others, twice. I don’t need Glen Phillips to enjoy NC. :)