Friday, October 5, 2007

Well, she's right in one instance at least

Ann Coulter is flogging a new book, and in doing so did an interview with the New York Observer, some snippets of which are available here.

Coulter of course is known for her outrageous statements, but one really leaps out at me.

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and 'We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care -- and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?' "


One can, of course, turn this around and ask why the Republican party has so much difficulty getting women to vote for it, and I am sure there a joke just waiting to made there about Coulter's own gender and voting propensities, but I'll leave that to the pros.

Really, though, the statement is a good, brief summation of what values are important to Republicans, or to leading Republican pundits at least - and apparently issues like health care and education don't make the list because they aren't "manly" enough.

No, no, all that seems to matter is the seemingly endless capacity to demand more war, more military spending, more death, destruction and devastation without any apparent plan for actually bringing things to an end. Oh, you'll hear platitudes - "we'll make things safe for Democracy", or "War on Terrorism" or whatever, but any set of actual, realistic, measurable metrics which would denote final success or failure ... not so much.

Heck, even when such metrics are set, then found to not be met, the results are simply ignored. Witness the events of last month.

If I had to choose between providing funding for health care, tuition and day care for working mothers, or funding for the continued armed occupation of a nation which had nothing to do with terrorism before we invaded it, I'll take the former, thanks ... if that places me in "the party of women", I can live with that.

It's better than being in the party of corrupt, fear-mongering, war-mongering, minority-bashing, gay-bashing, mostly white men ... and Ann Coulter.

I don't know if women in general, or even single women in general, are voting stupidly ... but I do know one specific single woman who is.

2 comments:

Michael Bryan said...

A relevant issue to Coulter's comments is why, given her views on womens' franchise, does she insist on voting in more than one jurisdiction?

Enjoyed the blog. I'm Mike from www.blogforarizona.com, a fellow Arizona liberal blogger.

Anonymous said...

I work with educated, supposedly bright women. They're by and large articulate and thoughtful; however, I plan to deck the next one who states "I voted for/plan to vote for xxxx BECAUSE she's a woman."

Since you claim to know at least one specific single woman who is voting stupidly..

I'm wondering if one of my co-workers I speak of is related to you.