What has the world come to when Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly represent the rational side of the Republican Party?
Though the House just voted unanimously to affirm that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, conservative members of the U.S. Congress have played a significant role in making sure the allegations about President Obama's birth certificate remain in the news. But it's been pundits like CNN's Lou Dobbs who have done the most to fan doubts about Obama's citizenship by giving airtime to proponents of easily debunked myths.
However, some of the conservative movement's most notorious and recognizable media personalities haven't jumped on the Birther crazy train. On Monday, Bill O'Reilly joined those media conservatives -- like Ann Coulter, who dissed them on Friday -- who've bailed on the Birthers. Here's a list of notables who have either spoken out against the Birthers or who at least have kept quiet about the issue recently:
UPDATE:
The National Review Online has also gotten into the Birther-denunciation act. In an editorial today, the conservative publication's editorial board comes out staunchly on the side that Obama is an American citizen -- though the piece heavily condemns Obama's policies:
Much foolishness has become attached to the question of President Obama’s place of birth, and a few misguided souls among the Right have indulged it. The myth that Barack Obama is ineligible to be president represents the hunt for a magic bullet that will make all the unpleasant complications of his election and presidency disappear ...
One of the unfortunate consequences of this red-herring discussion is that there are plenty of questions about Obama’s background and history that we would like to have answered. In spite of two books of memoirs, there remain murky areas in his biography. And when it comes to those college transcripts, count us among those who’d love to know whether Dr. Bailout ever took an advanced economics class and how he performed in it.
Barack Obama may prefer European-style socialized health care. He may consider himself a citizen of the Earth and sometimes address his audiences as “people of the world,” as though he were born not in another country but on another planet. Like Bruce Springsteen, he has a lot of bad political ideas; but he was born in the U.S.A.
Whenever the latest Republican politician is caught with his zipper undone, a predictable moment of introspection on the right inevitably ensues. Pundits, bloggers and perplexed citizens ruminate over the lessons they have learned, again and again, about human frailty, false piety and the temptations of flesh and power. They express concern for the damaged family and lament the fall of yet another promising young hypocrite. They resolve to restore the purity of their movement and always remember to remind us that this is all Bill Clinton's fault. What they never do is face up to an increasingly embarrassing fact about themselves and their leaders.
They're really just liberals in right-wing drag.
The proof is in the penance, or lack thereof, inflicted on the likes of Mark Sanford, John Ensign and David Vitter, to cite a few names from the top of a long, long list. For ideologues who value biblical morality and believe in the efficacy of punishment, modern conservatives are as tolerant of their famous sinners as the jaded libertines of the left. Even after confessing to the most flagrant and colorful fornication, the worst that a conservative must anticipate is a stern scolding, followed by warm assurances of God's forgiveness and a swift return to business as usual.
Mark Sanford may have forfeited his presidential ambitions, but the South Carolina governor seems determined to hold onto his office despite his escapade in Argentina -- and if he is thrown out, the reason will be his offenses against good government rather than his betrayal of his marriage vows. John Ensign isn't expected to step down from the Senate, despite the mounting evidence that he concealed his extramarital affair through the misuse of public funds; even now he remains more popular than fellow Nevadan Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader. And then there is David Vitter, the Louisiana bon vivant whose evangelical constituents seem inclined to reward him for consorting with prostitutes by giving him another Senate term. The safest prediction is that these pharisaical pols will continue their careers without suffering the retribution they have earned.
According to the Old Testament -- a text regularly cited by these worthies as the highest authority in denouncing reproductive freedom and gay rights -- the proper penalty for adultery is death by stoning. Leviticus is quite clear on this point (as any truly strict originalist could hardly deny). Fortunately for all of us, biblical law doesn't rule this country, despite the zealots on the religious right who disdain separation of church and state. Very few Americans believe that we should impose state sanctions, let alone the death penalty, on private peccadilloes. But civic tolerance doesn't excuse the limp, smiling attitude of the Republican right toward the infidelity of its leaders.
That flabby acceptance contrasts sharply with right-wing screaming about the iniquity of the opposition. As understood by conservative commentators, this is not mere rhetoric but a theory of civilization's rise and fall. Ann Coulter believes that liberals actively "seek to destroy morality" by "refusing to condemn what societies have condemned for thousands of years," including "promiscuity" and "divorce." Dinesh D'Souza once recommended sarcastically that the Democrats adopt the mantle of "moral degeneracy" by forthrightly advocating "divorce, illegitimacy, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality and pornography."
The supposed depravity of the Democratic Party has long been a favorite theme of conservatives, dating back to the rise of Newt Gingrich, who distributed an official campaign lexicon to Republican congressional candidates that featured such defining insults as "decadent," "permissive," "sick," "selfish" and, of course, "liberal." Back then the Georgia Republican was on his second marriage and carrying on a clandestine affair with the young Capitol Hill clerk who would eventually become his third wife (after he converted to Catholicism and had his union with wife No. 2 annulled). In 2007, he admitted on James Dobson's radio show that he was cheating on wife No. 2 with future wife No. 3 while he was publicly chastising President Clinton for consorting with Monica Lewinsky. Gingrich has remained a consistent favorite among his pious comrades.
Today, in fact, Gingrich is fully rehabilitated as a party spokesman, still nurturing presidential ambitions. So why should any other Republican fear the wrath of the righteous? The disappointment in Sanford and Ensign among the devout must be particularly keen, since they have so rigorously aligned themselves with the most fervent elements of the religious right.
For more than a decade, Ensign lent his name to Promise Keepers, the all-male Christian prayer movement run by a former Colorado football coach, whose mass rallies highlighted men's integrity, purity and uncompromising domination of family life. Both he and Sanford have worked closely with the Family, a secretive Christian fellowship on Capitol Hill that maintains a brick townhouse where Ensign and other members of Congress have resided. Over the years both men have won the highest marks from the Family Research Council, the Christian Coalition and the American Family Association -- and until the other day, Sanford was featured as an invited speaker at the Family Research Council's upcoming Values Voters Summit 2009. (As Pam Spaulding and Think Progress noted, however, the FRC removed his photo from the summit Web site immediately following his confessional press conference.)
Certainly there is considerable pressure for Sanford to resign in South Carolina, and perhaps he will surrender. But he might well ask whether that is fair when Ensign is hanging on and Vitter appears to be in the clear. For a while, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins had threatened to challenge Vitter in the Republican primary next year, but last March he announced that he won't run after all -- and instead endorsed Vitter for reelection. Amazingly, Perkins then hosted a radio broadcast with Vitter as his guest, where they tut-tutted over the alleged ethical problems of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Nobody had the poor taste to mention the infamous black books in which Vitter's friendly madams in Washington and New Orleans had inscribed his name and phone number.
By the way, while Vitter, Ensign, Gingrich and perhaps Sanford have been able to retain their positions and political viability, the same cannot be said for the most recent offenders on the progressive side. Neither Eliot Spitzer nor John Edwards, each among the most promising figures in the Democratic Party, will ever be a candidate for public office again, although their misbehavior was no worse than what their Republican counterparts did.
If they looked honestly at themselves, religious conservatives might notice that they are morally lax, socially permissive and casually tolerant of moral deviancy -- just like the liberals they despise. So as they wonder aloud why the same salacious nightmare haunts them, year after year, the best advice they can get happens to come from that old sinner Clinton. As he so often says, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome.
If there's anything I agree with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas about, it's ethnic groupthink. During his 1991 confirmation hearings, Thomas' resentment at people who treated a black conservative as a sellout was almost palpable. So was his bitterness at those who saw his as an "affirmative action" appointment.
Due to the circumstances of my birth and upbringing, as they say in 18th-century novels, I was exposed early and often to the crippling idea that ethnicity was destiny. As a teenager, I felt very daring reminding certain relatives that Ireland was a foreign country they'd never visited. Today, I'm more apt to joke that I only look white, that in fact, I'm Irish.
In New York or Boston, this remark can get a laugh. Where I live, it's "Do what?" Southern for "Huh?" Because in most of the country, the clenched jaws, knotted fists, bloody-minded determination and narrow-minded chauvinism I grew up with hardly exist anymore. Nor in today's Ireland, for that matter.
Even so, I've watched "The Departed," Martin Scorsese's film about Irish-Catholic cops and gangsters, several times. I recognize all the characters; I don't have to like them to know exactly how they think and feel. While I quit being a mick, it didn't entirely quit me. That's how ethnicity works in our pluralistic democracy. It marks you, but it needn't define you.
This brings us by an even more circuitous route than usual to the ridiculous, media-driven controversy over President Barack Obama's appointment of federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
During an academic conference in 2001, Sotomayor spoke about racial discrimination and the law, uttering the now-famous 32 words: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Interestingly, she never said what that conclusion should be. Indeed, as an appeals court judge, Sotomayor sided with the defendant in race-discrimination lawsuits 80 percent of the time. Which could mean that one thing a wise Latina woman knows is how often people blame bigotry for personal failures. Or how hard such cases are to prove.
One thing it doesn't suggest is a bias toward "people of color," as academic jargon has it. Anybody who read Sotomayor's speech would understand, as Obama indicated, that she doesn't subscribe to "identity politics" at all. "In fact," he said, "what she really subscribes to is the exact opposite."
Elsewhere in her speech, Sotomayor noted that "nine white men" correctly decided Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 decision declaring legal segregation unconstitutional. Also, however, that "until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case."
Here's the heart of it: "Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see ... I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that ... I re-evaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires."
In short, a Puerto Rican woman may see things differently from an Irish-Catholic man like Chief Justice Roberts, but her decisions need to be grounded in the facts and the law. It's boilerplate Americanism.
Enter the clowns, stage right. Ann Coulter raced Rush Limbaugh to the TV cameras to declare Sotomayor "racist." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich twittered, "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."
That great apostle of racial harmony Pat Buchanan asked readers to "imagine if Sam Alito had said at Bob Jones University, 'I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his life experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic woman, who hasn't lived that life.' Alito would have been toast ... He would have been branded for life a white bigot."
Sure he would. Because his meaning would be entirely different. "Could a white man get away with saying something comparable about a Latina?" wrote conservative columnist Kathleen Parker. "Of course not. After Latinas have run the world for 2,000 years, they won't be able to say it ever again either."
Parker's a pragmatist who sees things from the perspective of the elected wing of the Republican Party. Conservatives like her understand that portraying Sotomayor as a racist hothead is a long-term losing strategy. Hispanics vote.
The GOP's entertainment wing has a different agenda. For Coulter and Limbaugh, there's money to be made playing to the right-wing id -- stoking the fears of a minority to sell books and stimulate ratings.
Increasingly, moreover, TV news networks and "mainstream" newspapers behave as if they think presenting news as melodrama is in their interest, too: the main reason Sotomayor's inoffensive truisms were presented as incendiary.
© 2009 by Gene Lyons.
Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Assn.
I’m always up for a figurative orgy of conservative pundit-bashing, but this Playboy piece is after something a bit more literal. Author Guy Cimbalo counts down the top 10 most fuckable conservatives, from Michelle Malkin to Laura Ingraham -- though don't worry, he hates them, too. Cimbalo managed to get one or two guilty smiles out of me, but the overall effect is beyond creepy. Cimbalo seems to think he’s shielded himself from obvious criticism by wildly overshooting the target. If bashing conservatives makes sexism okay, irony makes it even more so; Cimbalo can’t be a genuine misogynist if his jokes are so hep, dig?
Of TownHall columnist Amanda Carpenter, Cimbalo writes, “The Hate Fuck Rating: This foul temptress is a walking, talking Faustian fuck bargain.” Michelle Malkin is a “highly fuckable Filipina” and a “Beelzebabe.” And "The View"’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck is just begging for defilement: “She’s the clean-cut American sweetheart who elicits our filthiest thoughts. Endlessly perky, this golden goddess probably has her Catholic school uniform still in the closet, and she wouldn’t mind putting it on before taking it off for a session of sweaty, anti-American hate fucking.”
Usually, I don’t go in for declaring certain jokes off-limits, but at some point, this passes from gross into vile. Cimbalo is also playing right into the hands of the conservatives he claims to hate, becoming not so much a critic of Michelle Malkin's reactionary ideas as an accessory to them.
It’s no coincidence that conservative punditry is full of women who give Cimbalo sort-of-guilty ideas about using sex as punishment. Nobody makes Michelle Malkin dress up in a cheerleader outfit. The style of conservatism she and her ilk espouse feeds directly off men who are unwilling to view them as equal citizens. Ann Coulter -- possibly the original “conservative pin-up girl” of this generation -- loves to talk about repealing women’s right to vote. And if that half-joke, coming from her, is delightfully sinful to certain men, it’s because she, “Limbaugh in a miniskirt,” is sending the message, “Remember what women are for.” (Hint: It's not voting.)
Cimbalo’s conservababes are parasites on the body of feminism, free-riding on its gains to denounce its goals. The image of Coulter or Malkin in a miniskirt denouncing, say, the Equal Rights Amendment is supposed to thrill us with its irony: the whole point is to elicit exactly the kind of response Cimbalo offers up so willingly. Rather than deign to respond to the awfulness of their ideas, Cimbalo’s article echoes their irony, practically screaming, “I’m a liberal, but what these crazy bitches need is a good fucking.” And though these pundits shouldn't be taken especially seriously, the mockery they deserve is the same kind that Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly deserve. Trying to mask a degrading fantasy behind a thin sheen of would-be cool, liberal kidding around isn’t anywhere near convincing. And, ultimately, not really that funny, either.
UPDATE: Playboy has since pulled the article.
Newt Gingrich must have a new ghost-Twitterer! My daughter caught him, typos and all, Twittering about his April visit to Fordham University last month:
On the way to new yotk to talk tonight at the fordham university bronx campis tonight for a speech on 2 plus 2 equals 4.
Wednesday his Tweets were all properly spelled, despite some capitalization issues, but nonetheless much more stupid: Gingrich used Twitter to call Judge Sonia Sotomayor a "racist" and to urge her to "withdraw" from consideration for the Supreme Court. Oh, that new media Newt! Here's what he said:
White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.
32 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
Imagine a judicial nominee said "my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman" new racism is no better than old racism
42 minutes ago from TwitterBerry
Kos joked a few weeks ago that "RNC" now stands for Rush, Newt and Cheney, but you could also make that Rush, Newt and Ann Coulter, and that unholy trinity weighed in unanimously on Wednesday to label Sotomayor a "racist." On "Good Morning America," Coulter said, "It does a disservice to minorities -- to women and minorities -- that we are supposed to be empathizing for ... Saying that someone would decide a case differently ... because she's a Latina, not a white male, that statement by definition is racist." And of course Rush has called Sotomayor racist repeatedly since her nomination Tuesday morning.
The Republican Party really is in a jam: To their credit, the party's elected leaders are mostly trying to sound reasonable notes about Sotomayor, who is in fact supremely qualified, and much more moderate than they might have expected for Obama's first appointment. As Slate's great Dahlia Lithwick told Rachel Maddow Tuesday night: "I think that if you look at her record -- and I've spent the day doing it -- she's pretty text based ... I mean, she is not the liberals' answer to Scalia or John Roberts. She is very, very much a moderate, temperate, minimalist, careful liberal." I tried to say something similar to Pat Buchanan on "Hardball" earlier that day.
But while Republicans who actually have to get elected are being fairly cautious in their reactions to Sotomayor, their unelected and unelectable stormtroopers are leading a public crusade against the well-qualified working-class daughter of the Bronx. Karl Rove likewise weighed in for good measure, ridiculing Sotomayor by saying, "I know lots of stupid people who went to Ivy League schools." Well, we know he knows at least one: His famous boss was a legacy admit to both Harvard and Yale -- but unlike Sotomayor, Bush didn't graduate summa cum laude or Phi Beta Kappa. I found myself wondering: Is Rove, like Cheney, trying to undermine his former boss? Because that comment was probably more damaging to Bush than to Sotomayor. Who didn't make the association I did?
It's enough to make me almost feel sorry for Republicans who are trying to figure out how to right their ship after 2006 and 2008, and contribute to fixing the country Bush-Cheney-Rove-Newt-Limbaugh-Coulter and Co. wrecked. Of course Gingrich, who hasn't won an election since 1998, is pretending he's a presidential contender. Trust me (and I was right in 2008), Gingrich is the Rudy Giuliani of this cycle: He'll attract some faux-macho support, but the voters can smell a phony like him a mile away, all posturing and zero charisma. Also, Giuliani and Gingrich have in common their three marriages, and it's not being two-time marital losers that will doom them (most of us fail to live up to our own standards when it comes to marriage); it's the unique way they both humiliated their first two wives. They are punks, not mensches, and nobody wants a punk for president.
This is the crew that is savaging Sotomayor. Rest easy, President Obama. Lose sleep over your disturbing preventive detention proposals. This decision will work out fine.
I find myself in Rush Limbaugh's library standing next to a leather couch upon which Ann Coulter is perched. The room is festive -- crowded with relatives, wineglasses, cigar smoke and loud conversation. I am glaring silently at my mom from across the room with my arms crossed in the "unapproachable way" I know she hates. Mom says I have to introduce myself to Ann because everyone else in the family has met her, Thanksgiving vacation is almost over, she is Rush's guest, and I am being childish and rude. I have never spoken with Ann or read any of her books, but based on her public persona, I have decided that she is someone I hate. I feel fine about this -- happy about this -- why would I want to talk to her?
And suddenly I realize that I have become the person I can't stand.
You see, I'm judging her based on her public persona before ever meeting her. And if we talk, and I actually like her, which I might -- that will mean she's become one more person I have to admit I like even though I'm not supposed to.
From third grade on, I have been asked, "Are you related to Rush Limbaugh?" My teachers' whispered questions about the man on the radio made me feel important, even though my 8-year-old comrades had no idea who he was, since he didn't appear on the Disney Channel or in ABC's Friday-night sitcom lineup. During those years, I didn't know who he was either. I knew Cousin Rusty kicked a football pretty well and always brought Cuban cigars to family gatherings. Sometimes he would get Aunt Patty to smoke one and my cousins and I would laugh at her coughing as we watched from the neighbor's trampoline. I was proud of him like I was proud of my brother, who's older than your brother and can beat your brother up.
It was pretty hit-and-miss but clear-cut all the same. People either didn't know who he was or didn't care or loved him or hated him. There was no like in the equation. If they had an opinion about him, once they learned of our connection, they offered that opinion.
"Really?! Well, this is what I think of him …"
Just when a school would know me, know my family, know Rush was my Dad's cousin, ask the questions, tell about their love or hate, my dad's career as a lawyer in the military would move us and the process would start over. Once again, new friends and acquaintances would introduce me as "the girl related to Rush Limbaugh."
And I would evaporate.
Limbaugh -- it was like when my dad would pick me up from middle school in his '87 maroon conversion van with the canoe strapped on top and my dog slobbering out the passenger window. Dad loved me and I loved him, but I just wanted him to disappear so I could blend in on the bus like all the other kids.
And it's still like being the girl who threw up in seventh-grade science class 15 years ago; the story/rumor/legend that no one has forgotten. (Her name was Eva.)
My cousin warned me before I left for college that it would continue. She had attended my university a few years before. On her first day of class, her professor asked about Rush and proceeded to tell the whole class why he hated him so much. She told me to be careful. She told me which professors not to take -- classes where I might suffer grade bias. But I didn't think anything of it; I mean, everyone has family members others don't agree with. I'm sure you have a grandpa or uncle out there who complains about the "queers" and the people who speak "Mexican" ruining his neighborhood. I don't like that, but I bet you're OK.
Then there are the questions. What's he like? Do you know him? Is he an asshole?
Well, he's the relative you don't see much, who shows up on Christmas Eve on his own plane with an anchor lady you didn't know he was dating until your friend's dad told you the night before. He's fairly loud, but all the Limbaughs are. He's that one over there with the cousins singing rowdy Christmas carols around the piano. Yeah, the one with the cochlear implant, the guy holding a humidor. He's Cousin Rusty, and he's OK.
Sometimes he invites you to his house for Thanksgiving, you and every single one of your relatives, all expenses paid, and he puts you up in a resort that makes you feel like a movie star. He gives you a room key that doubles as his credit card and you can't help but charge Chanel sunglasses on it for everything he did the previous year that had made your job as a new teacher in a liberal high school any harder.
He's the guy who puts "March of the Penguins" on his home movie theater screen for the little cousins to watch and makes sure his candy bowls are filled with jelly beans and doesn't swear when my nephew tries to throw his antiques down the stairs. He's the guy who came from nothing to something and knows what it feels like to miss Missouri.
One Thanksgiving he stands in front of all us relatives in his Versailles-looking living room, and before my grandpa prays over our meal, Cousin Rusty apologizes. He says he's afraid he has made it tough to be a Limbaugh this past year, and his voice breaks like I have never heard it do before. Cousin Rusty is OK.
Now that I'm at Columbia University, some relatives like to ask about the "climate" at school, and if I'm becoming "liberal," like it's a disease. I don't think they understand that you don't have to agree with your family to love your family.
Yet when people ask me about him or when I hear my name during roll call the first day of a new semester, I still get this complex. Will they like me less? Do they already have a view of me? Have they pegged me as loud, opinionated and ultra-conservative? Should I raise my hand less? Do they think I'm looking at their Obama buttons with disdain? Should I wear a T-shirt announcing I didn't vote for Bush or McCain?
Would it be OK if I did?
I didn't.
Typically, I catch myself. Hey, slow down, psycho, take a deep breath. Most likely, other people aren't thinking anything. They probably weren't even listening when you were introduced, or already know, or really don't care. Who am I to think anyone would care about my stupid last name?
This is the camp I'm in most of the time. But then, just when I'm sitting pretty with all the Smiths and Joneses, I find myself with the registrar of my college trying to pay my library fine. I use my credit card and the little old lady asks to see my I.D. She looks like my grandma, and I smile. She smiles.
She peers through her thick bifocals at my I.D. and says, "I bet you're not too proud of that last name right now," and I know she's referring to Rush, something he's said, something he's done, but all I want to do is reach over and slam her face into the counter. Not too proud of my last name? Not too proud of my family?
And a year later I find myself talking to my mentor the first day of the school year -- my first day as a high-school teacher. I ask my mentor if she thinks my last name will be a problem with the students or parents because the district the school is in tends to be very liberal. She looks surprised at my question and asks, "Why would it be a problem?"
"I don't know," I say, feeling silly. "It just sometimes is." And as we're talking, she walks me to the main office to show me the mailboxes and to introduce me to the secretary. Upon introduction, the secretary says, "So, do you do drugs too?" and I try not to look upset, but I also don't want to laugh it off, because I don't think what she said is funny.
Then I am standing at the ticket counter at LaGuardia Airport, trying to get on another airplane because my flight to Chicago has been canceled. The man behind the counter tells me, "You're out of luck because I'm the biggest Democrat you'll ever meet." And instead of sputtering and fuming with indignation, I sputter and fume with shame because as I walk away, I say over my shoulder, "I didn't even say I was related." Not too proud of my last name? Not too proud of my family?
Even though our ideologies do not align, I have always admired Rush for his humor and savvy. I would like to believe that he has created a semi-tongue-in-cheek persona for entertainment's sake, a self-aware self-parody, the original Stephen Colbert. While his haters have always been too busy running in angry frenetic circles to notice the irony, Rush Limbaugh, the caricature, has had the time of his life; and there's something to admire in he who gets the last laugh.
Rush once told me, "The only way to make millions is for half the nation to hate you." He told me this at his mom's funeral when I was 13, and I think the reason he was talking business was because he was trying not to look so sad. It's funny how the subject of half the nation hating him could effectively lighten his mood. I wanted to say, "But I don't want half the nation to hate you."
Yet lately, I must admit, being a Limbaugh has been a little tough. When listening to Jon Stewart or just about everyone lay into the latest outrageous thing Cousin Rusty has said, it just doesn't seem like he's in on the act, and that makes it hard for me to separate my cousin from his persona. Maybe it's just me -- afraid of facing my student loans in our crumbling economy, or maybe I have officially become one of the "crazy liberals" my uncles always warn me of, but it seems that Rush is no longer just playing the political game he plays so well. Rather, he has been attacking hope, and now it feels like there's little room for that.
I rarely listen to Rush on the radio. But when I do, it's because I'm scanning stations while driving, and I happen to hear his voice. As a family member I'm not as close to him as my mom and dad, my grandma and grandpa, but his voice still reminds me of home. He sounds like my dad and a few of my uncles, he sounds like himself, and it makes me homesick, if that makes any sense at all. So I listen for a few minutes. I rarely agree with or even like what he says, but I can't hate him. In fact, I love him. He's family.
And as for Ann Coulter? Well, my mom was watching me closely and I had to think of something to say. "Hi," I said. "Your hair is really long." And that was about the closest I could come to being nice.
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