‘Bag it?’

March 7, 2007

OK, one more follow-up on Coulter’s latest outrage and then I’ll stop mentioning it. In this case, I feel compelled to mention the funniest of all possible responses.

Now, the right has offered a variety of defenses for Coulter having referred to John Edwards as a “faggot,” but Concerned Women for America’s J. Matt Barber published a piece explaining that Coulter was “apparently just telling the left to back off.”

As for Coulter’s specific comments, she apparently intended a dual connotation. She seemed to either suggest that Edwards is in fact a homosexual (not likely) or that he is somewhat effeminate and/or “wimpy” in terms of his positions on public policy issues – that he politically embodies certain stereotypes associated with homosexuality (probably more likely).

Additionally, Coulter was making a clear reference to the recent uproar which ultimately resulted in Grey’s Anatomy star Isaiah Washington giving into PC pressure to check into “homophobia rehab” after calling his homosexual co-star T.R. Knight a “faggot.” […]

So, while making her inflammatory comments, perhaps Coulter – in her own less than glorious way – intended not only to question John Edwards’ political machismo but to suggest that America’s self-appointed thought police stop trying to force those who dare to violate their politically correct word-code into Orwellian, re-education “rehab” camps. When Coulter spoke last Friday, everyone heard the word “faggot.” But if you take her words – abrasive as they were – in their full context, she was apparently just telling the left to back off and “bag it.”

I knew, eventually, if given enough time, someone on the right would say that Coulter had been taken out of context.

Just to be absolutely clear, Barber’s column is intended to be serious. This is not, all appearances aside, intended as humor.

It just worked out that way.

Someday Coulter will lose what small physical attractiveness s/he still possesses, and then nobody will care about her anymore. She’ll already have more money than God by then so she won’t really care but it will be nice not to have to hear her rhetorical smut all over the place.

  • Yeah, that’ s what those two cowboys meant when they hung Matthew Sheppard on that fence too.

    Coulters been doing too many show at colleges where drunken young Repubs love her nuance.

    I’m sure Coutler was referring to the “joke” that rehab was the place that celebs go when they do a faux paus. It’s not a re-education camp though, it’s a luxury place to lie low till the press heat lets up. Amanda at Pandagon joked that we would see Tim Hardaway in rehab soon after his remarks.

  • “Additionally, Coulter was making a clear reference to the recent uproar …”

    Baaaawhaaaa haaaa haaa! Wow. That’s funny. “clear reference!” You mean with footnotes and everything?

    Have you heard the one about Ann Coulter gettng trapped in an elevator with Glenn Beck and OJ Simpson for a week? It’s a scream!

  • This kind of insightful parsing of the many layers of nuanced meaning to a well-crafted Ann Coulter ‘joke’ is scintillating.

    Still, I have no desire to censor her though and not just because I love that she’s become the current face of the GOP. I think the backlash/uproar is the appropriate response in the “marketplace of ideas.” She has put her idea out there; some laugh, some try to soften it, most find it repulsive. Therefore, the corporate sponsors start pulling away and, voila, the market has spoken.

    She should always be free to spew her venom. But I always have the right to tell others (people, politicians, corporations, etc.) that I will not associate with them if they choose to associate with her.

  • They won’t mind if we start calling all of their people this and that all the time, then.

    We’re just telling them to bag it, if we do.

  • So, apparently the Haggot Raggot meant “bag it.”

    Dag it! I guess we libs had it all fagged up.

  • TuiMel,

    That was a great insightful article. TC might be right. A stake and garlic might be necessary.

  • These people really can’t get a story straight, ever. I mean, WTF? Was she “just telling the left to back off” or were her comments “entirely inappropriate”?

    And I guess Barber is saying that Coulter wanted to get hit by all those liberals (and all the liberals who have cleverly been posing for decades as conservatives).

    Right. And she wanted to lose several sponsors too. Probably wanted to get kicked out of several newspapers.

    And maybe he’s suffering from PTSD*, but he says: “…to hear the left talk about it, you’d think Coulter had gone so far as to pine for the assassination of the Vice President of United States or something…”

    Of course everyone knows she did exactly that, only regarding the President. But that was OK, because it was a long time ago and the President was named Clinton. Then she “pined” for the killing of “all the Arab leaders”.

    And “back off”? The poor little WATBs want us to back off?

    In the immortal words of Dick “Leaky” Cheney…

    GO F*** YOURSELF.

    The right wing noise machine needs to be burned to the ground and buried under six feet of concrete. When that’s done we can back off.

    *PTSD in this case would have been induced by repeated collisions with cold, hard, reality, resulting in traumatic memory loss. It’s a common condition among conservatives seemingly in every generation.

  • No, no, she just meant “faggot” like a bundle of sticks! She’s trying to say he’s wooden, like Al Gore.

  • So would it be considered a joke if someone referred to Condi Rice as “butch” or a “dyke”?

  • “To bag” is a colloquial hunting term, meaning “to shoot.” Now, if I’m understanding this correctly, I can only assume that the suggestion has been made to “bag” (read: HUNT WITH A WEAPON FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF KILLING THE DAMNED THING) Ann Coulter.

    We could always label it as a not-for-profit fundraiser, and donate the proceeds to the USO….

  • It’s interesting to note that Concerned Women for America has men running the show. But given that CWA believes women shouldn’t have the vote and should stay at home and raise their children to be good little Taliban warriors, it’s not all that surprising.

  • For a party that doesn’t really get parody, sarcasm, or irony, Coulter is going pretty deep on this one.

    Take you average Republican and ask them what she said and how they understood it and I think you will get the real reason she said it and what she meant.

    No deeply hidden satirical funnies going on.

  • America’s self-appointed thought police stop trying to force those who dare to violate their politically correct word-code into Orwellian, re-education “rehab” camps.

    Yeah! How dare those lefty thought police try to tell us what to do? We’re the ones who tell everyone what to do and who to do it with and how often they can do it! But we do it because we’re concerned. We love you all. Now report to the MiniLove for re-education.

    CB – Just a suggestion to raise the hilarity value of this post. Provide a link to piece you (or Morbo) ran on CWA’s response to Chris “Has Been” Hardaway’s homophobic tirade.

    tAiO – Still too classy to say what CWA really stands for, but it goes twice for Herr Barber.

  • Did you mean this post from a “This Week In God” post a few weeks ago, tAiO (post 17)?

    Reader M.W. noted that Concerned Women for America, a leading anti-gay religious right group, condemned Hardaway’s comments. That’s the good news. The bad news was CWA’s motivation.

    “Hardaway’s comments are both unfortunate and inappropriate,” said Matt Barber, the policy director for Concerned Women of America. “They provide political fodder for those who wish to paint all opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as being rooted in ‘hate.’”

    But Barber then fires off his own anti-gay broadside: “It’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral.” […]

    [Barber] added that gay activists are at least partly to blame.

    “Hardaway’s comments only serve to foment misperceptions of widespread homosexual ‘victimhood’ which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured,” said Barber in a statement.

    If I’m understanding this properly, I think Concerned Women of America believes Hardaway’s anti-gay bigotry was bad, because it might discourage others from embracing anti-gay bigotry.

  • J. Matt Barber ought to get know some of the gays he’s probably surrounded with whether he knows it or not. There is no more connection between being gay and the stereotypes he seems to accept than there is between being black and acting like Stepin Fetchit.

    Both those stereotypes were a way, in unenlightened ages and places, for those in a subdominant category to get along with (i.e., not threaten) those in the dominant category. “Hi, handsome” is right down there with “Yassuh, massuh”.

    I’m sure any gay currently serving as a Marine in the Iraq Quagmire (or playing professional sports) could teach J. Matt Barber a thing or two about manly behavior.

  • Steve, enough w/the anal cunt, already. i mean, i love you and all (one of the only 5 pol sites i still read) but enough is enough.

    /she’s/ prolly enjoying it though (in an ‘any publicity is good publicity’ kinda way), the stupid twat (and yeah, i’m a grrl–sue my ass [not you, Steve]).

  • That’s the one Michael W, thanks!

    I think your analysis is spot on too. I never knew there was an Hatemonger Etiquette Handbook, but I can easily imagine the CWAs sipping tea with their pinkies extend as they discuss the proper way to chase the godless homosexual from the shores of their great nation.

    I’m still not sure why Ann must be protected from the “Thought Police” while Mr. Hardway gets rebuked. Well, I have a guess, but given the people involved, I don’t care.

  • Her saying f___ in a joke is exactly like a white person using the word n___ in a joke. It is unacceptable to most people. I suspect that many who are uncomfortable with homosexuality still object to the f___ word because it is hate speech, plain & simple.

  • Yes, I buy that explanation. Anne was just telling the left to give her a little breathing space because their merciless criticism of her was hurting her career and her family life. I mean, the left really had her on the ropes. Uh huh.

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