Someone recently accused me of being excessively mean to Ann Coulter. After all, I made fun of her for being an excessively skinny, bulemic-looking creep. Some even suggested that I was a hypocrite, because people would be mad at me if I made fun of a fat person for being fat.
Well, on the second point, I frankly find this ridiculous. We live in a culture which regularly pillories people, especially women, who are so much as 20 pounds overweight as slobs, undisciplined babies, and self-indulgent losers. The next time some college frat boy posts a sign saying, "No skinny chicks!" I'll apologize. Ditto that the week goes by when every issue of Cosmo, Glamour, Elle, and Playboy all feature covers with women who all weigh a minimum of 160 pounds and every issue of Reader's Digest and Woman's Day and Oprah contain front-page articles on, "How to gain 25 pounds in 6 weeks--and feel sexier for the holidays!"
That said, I'll admit, I was a little mean to Ann for saying she was too skinny. Mind you, she is. I think she should seek medical help, and would look a thousand times better if she'd only gain 20 pounds. I also admit, the photo I used of her earlier was not really, necessarily, the best photo I could have picked of her.
So I found another picture of her. One that I think is much more fairly representative of the kind of person she is:
This much more honest and realistic photo of the real person inside brought to you courtesy of The Mo Paul Insitute.
Now thats a funny picture...
As for attacks on Coulter; she'd be the world's biggest hypocrit if she was ever to complain of attacks on her...and, I think she's tough enough to get through them wihtout too much therapy.
Oh, Dean, please! Not right before I sit down to eat supper. What next, are you going to publish a 'goatse' link? :)
C'mon, Dean! I never called you a hypocrite! Did someone else?
And I thought I made it clear that saying she is too skinny seems like a mantra: everyone who blasts her politics goes right on into her skinniness.
Hmmm...although, thinking about it, people do the same thing with Michael Moore's politics and girth, as well.
But linking your post was only the stimulus for the point I was trying to make: frat boys aside, our society at large (no pun intended) seems to be able to pile on when it comes to criticizing skinniness in women (or fatness in men?), but not fatness.
And I think it is because of the "Supersizing of America". So maybe I'm making my data fit my theory instead of the other way around.
160 pounds? I'd say it's more like 130 minimum.
Ummm....Playboy's models are usually not skinny these days. Victoria's Secret models, yes.
But most Playboy models don't look chunky because of a) airbrushing, and b) good camera angles/posing.
I'd daresay there are at least 2 models a year that are over 160 pounds, and the rest are all over 130.
That wasn't true in the 80s, sure. That's not true of other mags, perhaps, dunno. But the days of athleticly slender models at Playboy have been gone for years. They are soft and cuddly these days.
Yeah, I think when you can see a woman's individual vertebrae in her throat, she's too skinny. *shudder*
Or is that an adam's apple?
Looks like a cross between Lurch and Marty Feldman. Downright hilarious.
Mark: you are right, of course, but so what? AFAIK, Ann Coulter has not left a single comment on Dean's blog. So it is irrelevant that she herself would be a hypocrite for complaining about him being mean. It doesn't mean others can make that complaint - and it also doesn't make Dean himself any less hypocritical for attacking her for being mean.
Dean: your argument that it's OK to make fun of overly skinny people because society only picks on the fat is not unlike the popular meme on the left that it's OK to be racist against whites and/or Asians.
Frankly, I wish people would quit harping on that issue anyway. I can't stand Michael Moore, but that's because he's a liar and an asshole, not because he's overweight. Given a choice among alternate universes, I'd much rather deal with a non-asshole Moore than a thin Moore. And ditto for Coulter - would you really like her any better if she put on a few pounds?
Given how often Ann Coulter's fans talk about how "hot" she is, and how she herself often poses for photos like a model to emphasize her "glamorous" looks and so on, I feel not the least bit guilty about mentioning the fact that I have never, ever, found her in the least bit attractive.
There are good-looking politicos. Peggy Noonan's always been a looker in my book. Most of the Kennedys were attractive in their youth. Nixon was a pug-ugly bastard from day one who only got uglier as he aged. Jesse Ventura is sexy to plenty of women, and I can see why they think so. George W. Bush? I like the guy, but he's got all the sex appeal of a tow truck.
Oh, and Bill Clinton? Hell, I'd do him.
So what's the big deal with Ann Coulter? Just listen to any one of her defenders who talk about how "hot" she supposedly is. Or who even who ask stupid questions like, "do you think she gets taken less seriously because she's so beautiful?" Gack. Looks are something she goes out of her way to emphasize, and so far as I'm concerened she's as ugly on the outside as she is on the inside.
You forgot to mention her really annoying hyperventilation laugh.
No kidding. I just don't understand when people point to her as a "hot conservative babe".
There are certainly some of those around, but not her. Eeish.
Given how often Ann Coulter's fans talk about how "hot" she is, and how she herself often poses for photos like a model to emphasize her "glamorous" looks and so on...
Consider the possibility that they are fans because they think she is hot. I think a lot of her fanboys don't really care all that much about her politics. If she were a liberal, they would be too.
Some guys LIKE skinny chicks. Some guys like fat chicks. (Me, I just like chicks. :)
And if you think Peggy Noonan is a babe now, you shoulda seen her back in the day.
She's disturbingly thin, but I like her because she lets the libs have what they so freely dish out. And skinny or not, I'd go down on her.
Now, don't mention Rosie to me.
It's allright to be excessively mean when it comes to Ann Coulter's writing and political views. Maybe her eccentric rants and delusions are a result of her apparent anorexia. Just think, if she put on 20 lbs., she might be able produce a book that isn't a waste of paper, and at that, maybe her political views might shift from the far right to the center of the politcal spectrum.
I still say those of you obsessed with Miss Annie's looks are juvenile and absurdly petty. I'm also fascinated at your familiarity with her looks and voice when you excoriate her views. Myself, I am familiar with Michael Moore's looks only because I am assaulted by them when I enter a bookstore or unwittingly surf to a site with his picture up. I can honestly say I have never heard his voice long enough to distinguish it from any of a million other people. Proud of that I am.
I am not fooling myself; I know exactly what people despise in Ann and looks have nothing to do with it. I would be screaming my loathing for her also, and no doubt reducing myself to insane and inane pettiness and triviality if I were still the far lefty loon I was for 32 years. The very things I would have loathed about her before, I love now. Believe it or not, some of us can and do grow up; by that I mean learn not to attack physical characteristics when it is ideology we abhor.
Two Nathans! Impossible!
I was just saying that it isn't very nice to make fun of someone because of his or her appearance, and that it weakens one's argument.
Additionally, saying that this is okay because fat people get more grief than skinny people is rather poor logic. What about ugly people? Do they get the second tier on the hierarchy of the oppressed? Come on.
Have I ever mentioned that Michael Moore is a fat, smelly, slovenly, pug-ugly piece of excrement?
Well now I have. ;-)
I'm glad that Ann Coulter (to whom I'm grateful because I laugh whenever I think of her) has those who see her as beautiful. But Dean is under no obligation to see her thus, and I'm glad he has the integrity to say so. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder (which makes it _more_ spiritual not less), and I thank all the Gods and the Goddesses that I have eyes with which to behold beauty, just as I have ears with which to hear music. That is the purpose of having eyes and ears, that is the purpose of being alive.