archy

Oh, Ann...
Sometimes Ann Coulter is just too silly to ignore. From "Hannity and Colmes," August 25, 2005:

COLMES:...And I want to ask you about something, Ann, that you wrote in your most recent column. You had a very funny line, actually, that it is hard to find a parking spot in New York City. There's no question about it. You've had a pretty good day if you can do that.

But then you said, "It's far preferable to fight them on the streets of Baghdad than in the streets of New York, where the residents would immediately surrender." Now, some New Yorkers...

HENICAN: Ooh...

COLMES: ... felt that you were calling them cowards by making that statement.

COULTER: No, I think I was calling them supporters of Cindy Sheehan.

COLMES: Is that what that is? You certainly don't feel that New Yorkers are cowards?

COULTER: I think they would immediately surrender.

COLMES: So you do?

COULTER: I don't -- I don't think -- I think I'd rather have them trying to invade Mississippi or Georgia, Alabama, you know, the states where I want Cindy Sheehan's bus tour to go.

The Green Knight is good enough to point out to Ann that New York already has been attacked by the terrorists and didn't surrender. Maybe she was to busy promoting one of her books or wishing Timothy McVeigh would attack New York to notice such a small thing. And, since McVeigh was a New Yorker, does that mean New York would have had to surrender to itself? But, I digress.

The Green Knight explains what the problem is for people like Ann.

The right has always been uneasy with the specifics of what happened on September 11, 2001, because the people who were killed, who were permanently injured, who lost loved ones, who rushed heroically into danger to save their fellow human beings, were all mostly New Yorkers. New Yorkers, like other blue-staters, aren't supposed to behave like that, according to the right-wing culture-war narrative. They're supposed to be effete, latte-drinking, Europhiliac, wine-sipping wimps who shriek and run at the first sign of danger.

The right absolutely hated the fact that New Yorkers proved their culture war narrative wrong. It would have been so much better if it had been red-staters that were attacked by terrorists and behaved heroically in response (which no doubt they would have).

So, has Ann reached the point where she is in denial; she's managed to convince herself that New York wasn't attacked? The Green Knight goes on to examine how this narrative has played out on the right. On 9/11, New York wasn't attacked; America was attacked. It wasn't New Yorkers who acted heroically; it was Americans who acted heroically. The "heartland" gets to share in the heroism while minimizing the heroism of the hated coasts.

Ann carries this narrative to the ridiculous and creepy extreme of actually wishing terrorist attacks on the red states. This is not the same as apocalyptic survivalists wishing for the collapse of civilization so they cam prove their toughness (and kill the neighbors). Ann is wishing violence on a place where she doesn't live, so that those other people can prove their toughness while she looks on approvingly from her home in New York.

In fact, the red states have already had their terrorist attacks and behaved just as honorably and bravely as did the New Yorkers. Terrorists, with connections to religious extremists, attacked Oklahoma City and Atlanta. When they did that Ann responded by wishing they would attack New York.