>
> ...In this context, "Ann Coulter" is NOT a woman. She
> is not even a person...
I dig what you're saying and all, but stepping just outside of your specialized context, Ann Coulter _is_ a person, a woman. On the other hand, up the thread I vaguely recall someone implying that women don't rate men like that... ha! maybe on _your_ planet they don't but here on mine I've heard them rating their boy-friends, their ex-boyfriends, their friends's boyfriends and exes, various other local dudes, and also celebrities. (That last category is weird. It sort of makes practical sense to assign a worthiness-to-date value to someone in the locality, but not for my eyeman to say "yuck, Kate Moss has bony knees" and me to reply, "stand back fool, Kate is teh hawtie!" when both of us will surely never interact with Kate Moss ever, and even less sense for the receptionist at my office to tell the HR manager how fatally sexy she found some male actor's _character in a movie_. Didn't stop us from doing it though.)
Anyway there's something vaguely insulting to women in general, including even the physically lovely ones who'd pass the audition, to dismiss Ann Coulter _solely because_ "she's a stringy-ass skank" or whatever, as Anti-Coulterites sometimes do. If she'd look a little more beautiful - like Gisele Bundchen or something - she'd be cool? but she doesn't, so she ain't. Like as though when rating a woman - innocent enough in itself, all guys do that, all girls rate guys - her physical appearance outranks her intelligence, wit, accomplishments and character all put together.
Now this Ann Coulter, fact is to my tastes she's tolerably decent to look at (I've also got 2,147 files in my q:\pix\fashion\kate_moss directory) and I've always liked mini-skirts, and I appreciate the care with which she keeps her long flowing blonde hair styled, but looks aren't everything, she sure ain't "hot" in the sense of me idling over any ridiculous celebrity-fantasy of me and her going out for dinner and drinks; I definitely don't ever want to meet her or interact with her. Because as everybody knows, Ann Coulter's got the rabies. It's not even the politics. I wouldn't mind getting friendly with a smart conservative woman who was reasonably good-natured, if such a person exists. I'd actually enjoy arguing my poorly-informed political positions with a date who could disagree persuasively and intelligently.
Put yourself there, however, sitting at a table in a restaurant across from La Coulter and saying something innocently lefty like "I think the U.S.A. should nationalize health insurance like all civilized first-world countries do." Imagine the ghastly spew of ignorant red-eyed hate-speech Ann Coulter would return to that comment. She could be as beautiful as Ingrid Bergman and as rich as Howard Hughes and you still couldn't tolerate that kinda shit at all. Like this one time thirty years back when I took this physically _gorgeous_ woman out for drinks, where she downed a half dozen double Cuervos and threw up in my car on the way home. No thank you!
Yours WDK - WKiernan at ij.net