Republikkans- tribal, reactionary republicans.

Does Ann Coulter support groups like MEChA? If not, then who does?

okay this is kind of off topic but is Erick Erickson his real name?

Sure is.

Why aren't the Republican politicians forced to justify the presence of these type of evil people in their conferences when Dems are forced to be on the defensive when the Michael Moores who are nowhere as extreme as Coulter show up at  a DNC convention.

I don't know what the best way to handle Coulter is. We can't just ignore her, because she is an important part of the "conservative" enterprise. But responding to her infantile insults just calls attention to her and increases her fame. Besides, complaining just makes us look like whiners, and responding in kind would make us as disgusting as she is.

So I'm not happy to see that Edwards had David Bonior send out a message to his e-mail list with the subject "Shame on you, Ann Coulter" -- that just seems to reinforce the message that Edwards is a wimp.

There have been two successful ways of dealing with the upper class faux toughies of the the prep school set.  The best way is to defuse it with a mix of obviously upper class humor, actual toughness, and a constant willingness to confront one-on-one.  Only Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy have been able to pull this off over the last hundred years.  The second method is to be scrappy.  Confront their fake toughness with the real thing and be in your face obnoxious about it.  Politically, think Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and a little bit of George Wallace.

Avoiding it or leaving it to a subordinate does not work.  Coulter and Limbagh are way more important than any Mitt Romney piece of trash.  He's one of the interchangeable Republican rich guy pols.  Limbaugh has been partially defanged but remains dangerous.  Coulter is the undisputed champ of the big mouths.

Of course, the neat thing about Coulter is that the public is really tired of those fake friends of the working poor from the swankiest of the Connecticut suburbs.  Whoever takes her on and brings her down will become a major hero, the next Joseph Welch or Edward R. Murrow.  America wants her greedy, obnoxious pinata of goo punctured but fast.  No, this job was one for Edwards.  The really important people have not wanted to dignify Coulter but instead have appeared to be scared of her.  Bring her down and watch the people cheer but take her on one on one.

She sure IS their problem.  Even if she's an outlier (if so, they've got one hell of a pack of outliers - Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, etc.), they embrace and applaud her rather than disavowing her.  Mitt Romney praised her, and got her endorsement in return.  You didn't see him turning that down.

The question is, how do we turn this to our advantage?

The way I see it, confronting this stuff directly is OK, but it doesn't get us very far.  We all know the notion of a right wing that embraces its kooks isn't part of the media narrative; the "fever swamp" is on the left, don't'cha know?

Best thing to do is just collect incidents like this in a file, saving them up for the next time the Right Wing Noise Machine and its helpers in the mainstream media are either (a) attacking us for our 'incivility', or (b) trying to force a Dem or progressive to disavow someone for something unremarkable they've said.

Then we can pull out the file and say, "Did you get Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and Sam Brownback to disavow Coulter's remarks at CPAC 2007?" plus whatever else we've got in the file by then.

IOW, it's really a counterattack weapon, but given that we don't have our own noise machine, I think that's just life.

Have any of the attempts to straighten out the media had any affect?  Does anyone expect them to?   Since Bill's Telecom Reform Act of 1996 and Bush's successes in deregulating the media I have noticed no change except that it is getting worse.  Big money supports big money and I do not expect any changes.

Support Progressive Media.  The progressives in England are smarter than the ones in the U. S. and already have their own progressive media.  The ones in the U. S. are either too cheap or not smart enough.  

I was watching CPAC coverage yesterday on Countdown with Keith Olbermann and then on CSPAN, and the one thing I felt was motivation. All of the speeches and stupid comments reminded me that when Democrats win it drives these wackos nuts.  It also reminded me that when Progressives win it keeps these jerks from being anywhere near power, and the ability to screw up the country.  Let's not get mad these guys, let's kick their ass every chance we get.

It would be interesting to see a graphic representation of the relationships between these conservatives and their corporate parents, kind of like those that show how few companies truly own everything.  Reminds me of 9/11 when all 200 cable channels ended up being like 3 or 4.

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