The Pharisee In The Mirror: A ClownHall Parable

Intellectual proctologist Doug Giles, who must get paid by the forced pop-culture reference, weighs in on the Coulter-CPAC contretemps with his usual tin ear.

When it comes to unleashing humorous and scathing vocal invectives, Jesus was King of Kings. Yes, the Prince of Peace punk’d people like no other could. Would He have used the word “faggot” in one of His verbal chainsaw massacres upon the political and ecclesiastical morons of His day? Absolutely … not.

No, Christ would not have called some soulless, Aqua Net addicted, duplicitous politician who hires anti-Christ, homely bloggers a fag. That would needlessly offend the homosexual community by comparing them to a skanky politician. Having said that, I have no doubt Christ would have cranked out a cut down on a first century Edwardsian equivalent that would have sawn the boy down to the ground—Dorothy Hamill hair cut and all.

Hanh? Ex-squeeze me? What the hell is this guy talking about? Is there some sort of Shecky Christ I missed out on in Sunday school, hurling borscht-belt invective at his opponents? Before he digs himself in any deeper, Doug may want to consider prying the schtick out of his own eye.

Or not. Let's face it, someone has to account for the world's oversupply of stupidade, and let it never be said that Dougie doesn't draw his fair share from the stupid well. So let it be written; so let it be yocked.

If you’re a conservative who purports to be a Christian, then you’re to get your behavioral and communication cues from Christ—not some Politician (past or present). And FYI . . . the Lamb of God was no Lamb Chop in word or deed.

Yea, verily, for when He spake, "Why shouldn't we fight a war for oil? We need oil.", He meant exactly what He said. And it was good.

Look, let's take a quick second and do a snap autopsy on Coulter's little "joke". Far too much attention has been paid to her use of the word "faggot", while ignoring the backstory. The full comment was an oblique reference to a Grey's Anatomy actor basically having a choice of losing his career or getting an attitude adjustment. This was not forced on him by any liberal PC movement; this was a public-relations, human-resources decision made by a business. No political entity that I know of said boo about Washington's comments, which were simply ignorant more than anything else.

But this is where people like Coulter do their best work -- what she did with her "joke" was to associate and conflate the meme of political correctness with another pernicious meme, that of effete Democrats. Neither is true of Edwards, but that doesn't matter; the point of propagandists is merely to caricature straw men and affirm their fans' projected anxieties.

And that is the real crime of people like Coulter. They constantly, consistently keep debate points as specious and irresponsible as possible. Every person at CPAC either has a medical problem, or knows or loves someone who has one. There is a very good chance that, even if they or their loved ones have insurance, said medical issue is extracting a financial toll on their already overburdened personal finances.

John Edwards is trying to make health care reform a cornerstone of his campaign. In the real world, people lose their houses trying to pay exorbitant medical costs. It's an uphill struggle for them, and it's certainly an uphill struggle for Edwards to take on this issue; he has insurance companies, pharmaceutical conglomerates, and rapacious HMOs stacked up against him, cluttering the legislative body with lobbyists and grease and pork. There are a great many people whose paychecks depend on deflecting the debate from these fundamental issues of $150 asthma inhalers and $5K per year insurance policies, while the middle class continues to disappear, the underclass continues to swell, and the income disparity gap widens.

But John Edwards is a big gay homosexual. Oh ho, did I just say that out loud? Silly me, I'm such a cutting-edge provocateur.

And leave it to a knuckle-dragging fool to further clutter the debate with irrelevant nonsense about Jesus' reputed sense of humor. Modern religion is a scam and a joke, because it allows goofballs like Giles to project their own desires and aspirations onto that little-known tabula rasa named Jesus. There's nothing new about that, obviously; what's fairly innovative about Giles' cynical attempt is how utterly useless it is.

Even if one were to accept that Jesus was some sort of Levantine Bill Hicks, unleashing torrents of scathing insight and polemic upon the weasels and hypocrites, at least one assumes that He operated from a factual base. The Pharisees were a bunch of sanctimonious dicks; Jesus said so and challenged them.

Democrats are not a bunch of effete pussies simply because Ann Coulter says they are. They only become so if they continue to let these jerkoffs push them around.

Let me ask the Ann pooh-poohers on the Right a question: What exactly is one allowed to say or not say? Can I say pooh-pooh? What words are verboten? What about phrases? Analogies? What about body parts? Hair? Pot bellies? Tones? Can we have a tone when we talk? Can we roll our eyes? Snicker? Yawn? Can we cough, “bull$#@&” when we hear something ridiculous? Can the British still call a cigarette a fag?

Please, help us endangered brutish beasts of the baser sort to understand the Nancy world of civility that some are sweetly rollerblading into. Also, for clarification, which pundit[s], blogger[s] or radio show host[s] now determines what’s cool and what’s not cool? Will it be a group thing or do you have one Dandy you’re looking to?

I think all the stink that’s been made on the Right regarding Coulter’s joke is simply envious folks trying to get their slice of the Ann power pie. Of course, they’ll never confess that, because envy is the one sin people never like or admit they have.

You know, there are certain phrases one hopes to reach their grave without ever hearing, and "the Ann power pie" is certainly up high in that list. And frankly, I actually agree with Giles on the point civility and "proper" language. I agree that civility is overrated, practically useless these days. It is merely a hedge used by Broderesque idiots to conceal their asinine conciliatory tropes, which do nothing but enable and further embolden the people who got us into this mess.

I don't know how much more clearly I can put it -- I don't want to reconcile with the sorts of people who comprise the CPAC. I want nothing to do with them, and my political choices will reflect that. Period. They are dangerous, contentious suckers, who have gotten this country into the fix it's in. I want them back on the margins where they belong.

And I'm glad Doug brought up Jesus' comments regarding the innate hypocrisy of the Pharisees, because it's exactly what I've been thinking about these professional political evangelicals for years:

"But they do their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries, and lengthen the tassels of their garments." (Matthew 23:5).

....

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the Law; justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you ought to have done without neglecting the others." (Matthew 23:23).

....

"Even so you too outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:26).

Sound like anyone you know? I'm sure that, right up to the bitter end, Ted Haggard considered liberal political correctness to be a Pharisaic interpretation of what they presume to be God's law. Why would Giles be any different?