{"id":6248,"date":"2012-04-13T02:07:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T17:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/haakondahl.com\/blog\/?p=2800"},"modified":"2012-04-13T02:07:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T17:07:13","slug":"the-inevitable-yet-breathtaking-decline-of-ann-coulter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/the-inevitable-yet-breathtaking-decline-of-ann-coulter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inevitable yet Breathtaking Decline of Ann Coulter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ann Coulter, high-speed wail, has reached a new low in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anncoulter.com\/columns\/2012-04-11.html\">her column of April 11<\/a>, 2012, and I suspect she is nowhere near quitting. \u00a0Her unsupportable position regarding Romney demands support, and now she must lie and distort in order to make the words come out.<\/p>\n<p>This column is not composed of actual shrieking, which she seems to have gotten out of her system in <a href=\"http:\/\/ricochet.com\/ricochet-podcast\/Get-Your-Mitts-Up\">this Ricochet podcast<\/a>, but it&#8217;s breathtaking nonetheless in its dishonesty and flat-out malice for the Tea Party, which she calls &#8220;conservative primary voters&#8221;. \u00a0 I&#8217;m not going to fisk the whole thing. \u00a0Let me just outline it and poke a limited number of holes in this seamlessly rotten garment.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduces theme of &#8220;fighting the last war&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Pivots to cutting taxes as fighting the last war<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>But establishment Republicans running on tax cuts<\/li>\n<li>While Insurgent Tea Party types demand drastic spending cuts<\/li>\n<li>Paul Ryan budget disliked by Establishment as too drastic, by Tea Party as too little, too late.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Establishes &#8220;once a conservative, always a conservative&#8221; theme<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>Tiresome list of liberal Republican call-outs<\/li>\n<li>Calls hideous Nazi apologist Buchanan &#8220;conservative&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Calls decorated Navy flyer and Director of CIA Geo. H. W. Bush &#8220;betrayer&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Cites Huntsman&#8217;s presence as &#8220;the liberal&#8221; to prove the Romney is conservative<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Huntsman was Obama&#8217;s Ambassador to China, and quit that post in order to run in the Republican primary. \u00a0It is no defense of Romney&#8217;s conservative status to say that the only candidate further to the left was actually working for Obama.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Accuses Tea Party of calling Romney a moderate just to fight the last war<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>Baldly states repeatedly that Tea Party is lying about it<\/li>\n<li>Considers it &#8220;gallant&#8221; that Romney packed it in to support McCain in 2008<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<li>Equates Tea Party with progressives<\/li>\n<li>Blames Tea Party for McCain<\/li>\n<li>Ends on muddled point<\/li>\n<ul>\n<li>Praises his flips, denies that he flops<\/li>\n<li>Issues baffling parting taunt to Tea Party<\/li>\n<li>Hedges against possible Romney victory, worried about credit or blame<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;But the facts are irrelevant to people busy fighting the last war. It&#8217;s not about Romney at all, but their own posing. Romney is the Emmanuel Goldstein of GOP primary voters looking for a moderate to hate because they fell down on the job last time.<\/p>\n<p>Liberal Republicans always lose. Because he is not a liberal, Romney stands a good chance of beating Obama this fall. But if the fantasist posers keep turning this presidential race into their personal &#8220;Dungeons and Dragons&#8221; battle against &#8220;moderates,&#8221; Romney&#8217;s victory will go into the &#8220;Liberal Wins&#8221; column, when it is anything but.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good Lord, &#8220;Dungeons and Dragons&#8221;? \u00a0That&#8217;s almost as good as McCain&#8217;s own attack on the Tea Party as &#8220;Hobbits&#8221; going off to fight the evil in the District of Mordor.<\/p>\n<p>She says you &#8220;can tell who the liberal is by whom The New York Times calls a &#8220;pragmatic&#8221; or &#8220;moderate&#8221; Republican.&#8221; \u00a0I must admit, I agree:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This time around, Mr. Romney faces similar conservative skepticism. While he has increasingly leaned to the right since his time as governor, his embrace of a health care program in Massachusetts similar to one that Mr. Obama pushed years later continues to dog him. His moderate stances on gay rights and abortion also concern conservatives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212; New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/elections.nytimes.com\/2012\/primaries\/candidates\/mitt-romney\">Election 2012<\/a>\u00a0guide to the candidates<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But don&#8217;t take their word for it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cPeople recognize that I am not a partisan Republican, that I\u2019m someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.\u201d \u00a0&#8212; Mitt Romney, quoted \u00a0various places, including this\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/05\/opinion\/kristof-waiting-for-mitt-the-moderate.html\">New York Times column<\/a>\u00a0by Nicholas Kristof<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yeah, I think that about sums that up.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pld-like-dislike-wrap pld-template-1\">\r\n    <div class=\"pld-like-wrap  pld-common-wrap\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-login.php\" class=\"pld-like-trigger pld-like-dislike-trigger  \" title=\"\" data-post-id=\"6248\" data-trigger-type=\"like\" data-restriction=\"user\" data-already-liked=\"0\">\r\n                        <i class=\"fas fa-thumbs-up\"><\/i>\r\n                <\/a>\r\n    <span class=\"pld-like-count-wrap pld-count-wrap\">    <\/span>\r\n<\/div><div class=\"pld-dislike-wrap  pld-common-wrap\">\r\n    <a href=\"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-login.php\" class=\"pld-dislike-trigger pld-like-dislike-trigger  \" title=\"\" data-post-id=\"6248\" data-trigger-type=\"dislike\" data-restriction=\"user\" data-already-liked=\"0\">\r\n                        <i class=\"fas fa-thumbs-down\"><\/i>\r\n                <\/a>\r\n    <span class=\"pld-dislike-count-wrap pld-count-wrap\"><\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ann Coulter, high-speed wail, has reached a new low in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anncoulter.com\/columns\/2012-04-11.html\">her column of April 11<\/a>, 2012, and I suspect she is nowhere near quitting. \u00a0Her unsupportable position regarding Romney demands support, and now she must lie and distort in order to make the words come out.<\/p>\n<p>This column is not composed of actual shrieking, which she seems to have gotten out of her system in <a href=\"http:\/\/ricochet.com\/ricochet-podcast\/Get-Your-Mitts-Up\">this Ricochet podcast<\/a>, but it&#8217;s breathtaking nonetheless in its dishonesty and flat-out malice for the Tea Party, which she calls &#8220;conservative primary voters&#8221;. \u00a0 I&#8217;m not going to fisk the whole thing. \u00a0Let me just outline it and poke a limited number of holes in this seamlessly rotten garment.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Introduces theme of &#8220;fighting the last war&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Pivots to cutting taxes &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/the-inevitable-yet-breathtaking-decline-of-ann-coulter\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><br \/>\n","protected":false},"author":34128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[234,240,254],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-politics","category-conservative","category-newt-gingrich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balldiamondball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}