Ann Coulter
This Ann Coulter article really pissed me off. I really don’t like Ann Coulter — now there’s a surprise! In any event, in this article she is being critical of how people around the country are gushing because Nancy Pelosi will be the first woman speaker of the house. Her main point is that we should be past these politically correct milestones. Her secondary point, which is to show how ridiculous all the uproar is, demonstrates that Bush has appointed the most diverse cabinet ever. She calls it the Benetton-ad presidency. *eyeroll*
Now what exactly pisses me off about this article is really hard to articulate, so that’s why I’m blogging about it. For me, it goes back to Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas politics. Clarence Thomas was appointed by the right wing administration precisely because he was black, but his politics were neo_con as the authors in Race-ing Justice, En-gender-ing Power write. It’s the reduction of difference to its visible signifiers that pisses me off; it’s that whole white liberal guilt thing that I hate. It’s why I choose not to identify myself as a liberal unless I absolutely have to. When people play that kind of politics, it practically authorizes people like Ann Coulter to make their snide commentary.
I agree with her about the “first” thing, but for different reasons. The whole “first woman” tokenizes Pelosi’s accomplishments and “spotlights” her as a female, as I wrote in my master’s thesis about the first black woman speaker. It’s like calling her speakeress of the house.
OTOH, it is something very momentous and it should be acknowledged.
So it all comes back to the whole difference/identity debate in one momentous package.
I like what Pelosi said in the press conference announcing Hoyer as house majority leader. She said something to the effect that while a lot of people are making a big deal out of her being the first woman speaker, the bigger deal is that she’s a democrat and it’s time for change.
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