The Coulter/Limbaugh Republicans head over a cliff

A reader tells me that she has had to turn off the Rush Limbaugh program several days in a row because Limbaugh begins each show with a long harangue about the “Breck Girl,” his offensive, demeaning characterization of John Edwards. “Are there no issues to discuss?” she asks. “Are conservatives left with cruelly and unnecessarily making aspersions about a man’s masculinity, a man who is a husband and father, because they have nothing else to offer?”

I add in commentary: it’s becoming more and more difficult to support the “conservative” movement and the Republican party with which it is closely aligned, as more and more conservatives and Republicans subscribe the idea that the badness of the left justifies conservatives and Republicans in any lowness. They are wrong, and their wrong-headed attitude, combined the Giuliani candidacy, whose advocates relentlessly push the message that morality does not matter in American public life, dooms the Republican party to defeat.

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Geoffrey in Connecticut writes:

Love your site. Best conservative site on the ‘net. Rigorous logic and conservatism! Visit every day.

Seriously though, John Edwards displays all the worst aspects of a woman (primping narcissism, feelings run rampant and an unerring ability to get other men to pay the bills) with none of the redeeming features of a man (strength, consistency and doing a real job of work).

He is, in modern web parlance “ghey”. That is: he displays all the Metrosexual’s feminized traits while still being, technically, heterosexual.

In “regular” guys the reaction to this varies from mild disgust to outright hostility (the same reaction reserved for movie stars who portray strong action characters on screen but display none of those traits in their personal lives).

Basically, with Edwards, the willing suspension of disbelief breaks down when we see video of him primping and preening like some kind of exotic bird.

LA replies:

“Seriously, though … “

You mean you weren’t serious when you said you love the site?

Re Edwards, I have said myself that his pretty-boy demeanor is fair grounds for criticism or even ridicule. But when you call a man a girl (and not just once, but repeatedly), as Limbaugh has done, or when you call a man a “faggot,” as Ann Coulter has done, you have crossed the line. That is low, immature, and contemptible. It is totally unacceptable. Do conservatives want to lead America, or indulge in adolescent insults?

I remember a few years ago when conservatives and Republicans were scandalized by raw insulting comments Whoopy Goldberg made about President Bush at some award ceremony. Now they can’t be scandalized any more, because they have their own Whoopy Goldberg, Ann Coulter. Instead of beating the left, they’ve joined them.

And this fits the pattern I’ve decried over and over again: as the left keeps moving further to the left, the “right” follows them, so that the “right” is always just a tiny bit to the right of the left. This in turn results from the fact that today’s mainstream conservatives primarily define themselves, not by what they themselves believe, but by their opposition to the left. They don’t stand on ground of their own, which would force the left to fight on conservative ground. Instead, wherever the left goes, the right follows them and fights on leftist ground.

David B. writes:

If Limbaugh wants to criticize politicians for their appearance and manner, he can find plenty of subjects in his beloved Republican Party. Many Senators in both parties have “unlived-in” faces. They look 10-15 years younger than their chronological ages. In keeping with their looks, they force things like open borders on Americans while keeping themselves and their families insulated from the consequences.

Back around 1976, an older man pointed this out to me. Then candidate James Sasser and another politician were on the front page of the Nashville Tennessean. “They look soft,” my friend said. He was saying that modern politicians had a soft look about them you didn’t see before the 1970s.

LA replies:

While I agree with David about the disconcertingly soft, weak look of many people in positions of authority today, when it comes to the U.S. Senate it seems to me that most of the senators, far from looking too young, look superannuated. When you watch a Senate committee hearing on tv, it seems like a retirement home for narcissists.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 19, 2007 01:10 PM | Send