Friday, October 12, 2007

To tell you the truth, the most annoying thing about this bruhaha so far, to me, was Donny Deutsch going on the Today Show this morning to talk about how the media should all stop paying attention to Ann Coulter. Hmmm... maybe Step One should be that we should stop paying attention to Donny Deutsch talking about the need to stop paying attention to Ann Coulter.

Now, I'm actually not offended by the bulk of Coulter's comments, for the same reason I've never been offended by proselytizers trying to save my soul. They believe that I'm in big trouble if I don't get onto the Jesus page. I get that.

Also, I don't get terribly offended by the words of buffoons, regardless of what they say.

I do have a little trouble with the premise leading into the remarks, that Deutsch -- and others -- seemed to accept. Asked to describe her dream of what the country should look like, Coulter said: "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention.... People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America."

Putting aside what New York looked like, and assuming that she meant the actual delegates to the convention -- they were not all Christian. In fact, they were Jewish (and Catholic, BTW) at just about exactly the same rate as the country is as a whole. And Jewish Republicans were featured prominently at the convention, including the city's Mayor, Michael Bloomberg.

So it strikes me that it's the RNC -- which has been working very hard to court the Jewish vote in recent years, and took great pains during the convention to emphasize the religious diversity of the delegates -- that should be offended by Coulter's remarks.