Maybe Coulter was so jonesing for another R rated Bill joke--the joke: Hillary will be "the first woman in a Clinton administration to sit behind the desk in the Oval Office instead of under it,"--that she could overlook Clinton administration women like Janet Reno, Donna Shalala and Madeleine Albright.
It still doesn't excuse a line like, "If you've ever wondered whether the Democrats have become a bunch of women, consider that they have now adopted the feminists' motto: "That's not funny!"
Yes its 1972-style woman bashing! Packed on ice from the days when classified ads read, "help wanted Gal Friday" and letters began, "Sir."
Even though it might be said of Coulter as it's been said of Madonna that she has the body of a hooker and the mind of a pimp, she still must realize that speaker and reader are not presumed male in 2007. And that the Speaker of the House, many senators and several governors are a bunch of women.
Finally, there's Coulter's writing itself--or to be more accurate, pasting. There is no bigger giveaway to creeping obsolescence and pedantry than quoting and repeating yourself.
Except for about 20 pages of new material, If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans is nothing but out takes from previous books and forced attempts at one-liners.
And like the worse pastiche of homespun aphorisms, the sayings are thrown together without any order or organization.
Coulter even seems to recognize this shortcoming, making the joke early in the book that if she's too "disjointed.. Barack Obama might accuse me of stealing his act." No worries there.
May I share a few thoughts regarding Ms C. (Around here we try to avoid speaking her name, so we say: "that big mouth, bottle-blonde with the mental disorder.")
1. DON'T "buy" her book: if you "must" read it, check it out at some public library - whatever you do, do not circulate money to satisfy your curiosity. The reason: authors like AC don't care what you think about the crap they write... they just want you to BUY their book. So they write the most outrageous crap they can get away with to create a buzz about it hoping that will increase sales.
2. AC suffers from a mental disorder (which is probably listed in the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual or Mental Disorders somewhere) which causes her to feel a constant need for a certain type of attention and validation to such a degree that "she" is willing to do or say the most outrageous things to get that attention. The "disordered" component of her illness is that there is no satisfaction level which can be reached that will calm her desire for attention. i.e. no amount of attention will ever be enough to calm her attention-seeking compulsion. Consequently she is condemned to forever repeating those behaviors which, in her deranged state, she believes will produce a return on investment in the form of more attention and more approval. Other public figures who suffer with this illness - since many are driven by their attention & approval seeking behaviors into professions where they will get just that - are O'Reilly and Limbaugh who also engage in outrageous monologues to pique the attention of the public. They are stuck in a juvenile loop of needing gratification in the form of (parental) attention and approval: "Look at me. NO, Mommie, LOOK at ME! Me! Me! ME!" Forever.
Seeking after attention and approval is not in and of itself the aberration, rather it is the fact that in some (deranged) personalities there is no level of satisfaction that can turn off the need for ever more and more attention. AC suffers this in an extreme form. She has found her niche in that the most suitable method for "her" is making outrageous political accusations regarding her fellow citizens. She is both unable to quit and equally unable to assess the inappropriate nature of some of her more bizarre utterances. To her, anything which results in the attention she is needs is appropriate.
3. A parallel point regarding the "Democrats:" make a slight twist to the premise of her book - we could ask the rhetorical question: "With Democrats like these who needs Republicans?"
As long as we are on the subject of personality disorders in public figurines, let's turn to Dick C. who also lacks the ability to achieve satisfaction, except for him it is a need for power. This little man has felt so powerless and unattractive all his life that it has driven him to become a political figure and then a fascist political figure . No amount of power will ever fill his need to feel powerful, so he is compelled to engage in behaviors which he believes, in his deranged state, will somehow deliver the satisfaction he cannot experience. One part of his need for power comes from doing "that which is forbidden." He believes if he has the ability to do what others say must not do - "that" is the ultimate power. His problem lies in the simple fact the "the switch" at the top of his "needs reservoir" which should tell him when he has had enough: that switch is broken. He is driven by strong internal needs to seek more and more power because no amount of power will ever tip that balance. For him the ultimate power is doing those things which are forbidden such as, committing mass murder on a grand scale. The rest of us are doomed to watch this play out unless some brave individual is willing to step up and say: "You've had enough, Dick...That's quite enough!" Because he is certainly incapable of doing that himself.
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 296 comments)
on Sunday, October 28, 2007 at 12:45:41 PM
