Annie Banannie and Theodore Cleaver

A few days ago, Ann Coulter made a comment about John Edwards. If you missed it, go look at a news source, I'm not gonna quote it. Suffice it to say, (s)he used the word "Faggot" in an exceptionally perjorative sense and implied that Mr. Edwards was such.

It was rude. (S)he claimed it was a joke. Whatever.

That really isn't what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is the concept of "Conservatism".

The Republican party has for some time claimed to be the bastion of "Conservatives". The party that stands for all those things that are good and wholesome and healthy for a country and an economy and the citizens - Freedom, Democracy, Family Values, Truth, Justice, The American Way, Hot Dogs, Mom, Apple Pie...

Given their "druthers", the Republicans would allegedly send us back to the 1950's, when Dad went off to work in his suit with freshly ironed french-cuff white shirts, and Mom stayed home and baked cookies for Bud and Sis. We'd all live in the suburbs next door to the Cleavers and Eddie would compliment our Mom on her frock.

Or even better - back to the 1800's when women didn't vote or get involved in politics, but stayed in and did the ironing, and the mending, and embroidered flowers and aphorisms onto squares of linen, and when they went out they wore bonnets and gloves and carried calling cards and took tea at each other's parlors full of antimacassars and aspidistras. Heck, back then they even had to ask PERMISSION to read the newspaper. There were no unions, no mandatory OSHA regulations, no “Worker’s Compensation” benefits.

Now, I can understand the conservatives longing for a simpler, less complicated time, when there weren't any scarey people in the Middle East, when a penny saved was a penny earned and worth something to boot, when employers could treat workers just like the scum they are, when there were plenty of manufacturing jobs for the taking and nobody had to be unemployed unless they WANTED to be, (sarcasm) when the "darkies" and "white trash" knew their place (/sarcasm) and they could live without worry or care.

Ann Coulter wants to be considered a "Conservative" - in fact, (s)he is flagrantly rude, verbally abusive and often crude in her commentaries on "Liberals". (S)he wants to be the mouthpiece for all those things, that whole way of life that embodied “everything good about America” and wants to be taken seriously.

Which is a shame. I was born in those 1950’s. I was raised in the 1950’s and 1960’s. My grandparents told many, many stories about the 1800's to me while they lived, and I can tell you this without a smidgen of a doubt – no lady would ever have called Mr. Edwards what (s)he called him. At least not one who wanted to continue being considered a “Lady”. In fact, a female who spoke the way (s)he did would have been considered the equivalent of what Rush Limpbaugh refers to as a “Femnazi”.

I scent a credibility deficit.