Having recently read a short biography of Ann Coulter,I did not see anything about her having been in the U.S. military. It seems that the way she refutes other people's patriotism, she should have at least three purple hearts and a bronze star. It's the privileged that stand by while the less fortunate among us bear an unbalanced burden in fighting for this country.

I take great offense at Ann Coulter's comments about teachers. The assumption is that we are well-paid agents of some socialist agenda, equipped with our orders to indoctrinate - then we get lavish summer vacations. People simply do not understand that teacher's responsibilities almost always follow them home. Grading, lesson planning, etc. are activities that add an additional 20 hours to most teacher's work weeks. English teachers like myself spend nearly another 10 hours on top of that reading and grading student essays. As far as pay goes, the shortage in math and science teacher is not based on the lack of desire to teacher, but, rather, the desire to make a much better living working in the private sector. In the community I teach in, my salary is half of the median household income, and the highest level of pay a teacher can make still is nearly 5,000 less than this median household income. The irony is that our teacher's contract is one of the better agreements in the state.

With all of this in mind, I believe we all need to set aside these blanket assumptions about what group you claim to be from. I am of a somewhat conservative mindset, but I prefer to think issues through, and make my decisions based on a more open-minded approach. Ann Coulter in NOT a good representation of a conservative or a Christian, for that matter. Like many of you have suggested, she is basically looking for attention and trying to shock with her ideas. So as I'd like to sit down and explain to Ann Coulter what it is really like to be a teacher (If I could get a word in edgewise), I think we all need to re-examine where we stand, why we are standing there, and why we are thinking the way we do. I think many of these psychobabble talking heads like Alan Combs, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, etc., etc. would be surprised to see that most Americans can actually think for themselves, and there are many of us with conservative tendencies and gay friends that seem to be doing okay. Also, after spending time in various parts of the country, I can attest from experience that there are democrats in Missouri and Massachusetts, but they are FAR different entities in and of themselves.

Name calling and assumption accomplishs nothing.

-RM

Coulter's opinions about liberals are about as perverse and scary as Hitler's characterizations of Jews. If you have the stomach for it, imagine what the perfect world would be according to AC. All of her opponents would be locked up at black sites, and those remaining in lock-step would be deprived of their civil liberties. The thing to do with Coulter is to throw her back in the Republican's faces, the way the right does with Michael Moore. For example - "Tom Delay, of the same virulent strain of nasty conservatism as Ann Coulter..." or "Ann Coulter hates America - she hates the majority of Americans who disagree with her. Use the witch. It won't work to ignore her.

Please. Ann Coulter is not a conservative pundit. Please don't call her conservative; pundit, maybe, broadly interpreted. Not conservative. Hysterical hard right might be an appropriate label. pb, Ollympia WA

Without being able to observe the body language and hear the vocal intonations that typically accompany the presentation of an idea, it can be difficult to separate emphasis from aggression from passion, etc. [ e.g., when reading posts on-line]. Your interpretation of my post as aggressive is incorrect, unbeliever.

Now, now. Iconoclast makes a good point, albeit one that is utterly misplaced in the context of responding to my earlier post. Obviously, words like mastermind or genius should be kept to a minimum, lest they lose their meaning; that is why I did not use them to describe poor little Annie C. Iconoclast's misplaced aggression proves my point--- the Right has short-circuited our ability to think critically... and read carefully. (Oh, the use of the phrase sheer brilliance should not trick you into thinking that I am ranking Coulter with Einstein. That would be a mistake. The collective enterprise of the Right as they dominate the way language is interpreted in contemporary political discourse is fairly impressive, and Coulter is part of that, but that moment of brilliance does not make her a genius. Do you see where iconoclast went wrong? Einstein's genius was sustained and sustainable brilliance...Coulter's is not. Just because I make a brilliant golf shot does not mean that I am Tiger Woods. But, I digress....)

So, can we agree that Coulter is no genius, but that the strategy of message control that the Right has developed over the past years is much closer to brilliant than it is to stupid or insane?

I hope unbeliever will forgive me for not seeing "sheer brilliance" here, but instead unrestrained grasping. It would be nice if it were possible to raise the bar for certain definitions. Words like "genius" and "mastermind" should be reserved for people like Newton and Einstein and their counterparts in other fields. It somehow cheapens their meaning when they are casually used in reference to people with at best above-average capabilities, but who make up for their lack of outstanding ability by having the-end-justifies-the-means mentalities. There could be many more "geniuses" by the current definition if so many people were not constrained by moral standards. Take Rove for example. Sure, he understands the nuances of politics better than most, but certainly no better than a lot of people. The difference is he is willing to throw ethics out the window to get what he wants. An even less palatable example is Coulter with her quest for riches and attention by serving as a demagogue to the right wing. And the worst example is referring to people who convince other people to become walking bombs for the killing of innocents as "masterminds." None of this isn't brilliance or genius! It's the amoral preying on the ignorant at the expense of the rest of us.