By making a "raghead" remark , Ann Coulter has managed to do what she does best (and which I do poorly), which is to generate traffic, interest, publicity. Via Ryan Sager, here's what she said:

"Rag-head talks tough, rag-head faces thunderous consequences."

Insulting someone on the basis of attire is one of those illogical things I generally try to avoid, but hell, sometimes you just want to let loose and yell about the "damned burkas" or "hideous niqabs," which, while allegedly there to protect privacy, just seem so proselytizingly public.

For some reason, burka belittling is considered fair game, but making fun of male Arab headgear, well, that's just not cricket!

And "raghead." While I don't think it's racist (because turbans and keffiyeh scarves are by no means limited by race), "rag" has a certain implication that the people wearing them might not be able to afford anything better. Howard Stern used to say "towelheads." Maybe that's more fair and neutral. Nah, that's insensitive too, as it implies kids playing dress-up games in the bathroom or something.

Unhappy as he is with Ann Coulter, I notice that even Ryan Sager has no problem poking fun at "conservatives in their little conservative monkey suits." As a conservative monkey suit wearer (who isn't conservative enough or liberal enough to suit the standard bearers), shouldn't I be offended by that?

Maybe I should consider this slanderous attack on my conservative monkey suit to be an attack on all the traditions I hold dear! Never will I ditch my conservative monkey suit, which is part of my ethnic pride, if not my white Christian American identity culture!

I'm very, very offended by this slur, and I think thought should be given to the legal question of whether it constitutes "fighting words"!

And what about the "monkey" smear? We all know about that, don't we? Is that not a far worse slander than the deprecation of the cost or origin of headgear cloth? (Well? Can I call a keffiyeh an "Islamic monkey scarf"?)

I don't know. These things are so damned complicated.

I try to avoid ad hominem language, inflammatory rhetoric, and even hyperbole in metaphors to the extent I can, but I admit, many times it's all very tempting, because (as Ann Coulter and others prove) inflammatory rhetoric can ultimately translate into fame and fortune.

You'd think I'd have learned this lesson the hard way. My most popular posts were not the ones on which I spent hours performing careful research and supplying lots of interesting links. Far from it! Overall, my most popular posts by far were the ones involving beheading videos. (I'll get traffic just for saying "beheading videos" again.) And now, the Muhammad cartoons. A post I wrote last month has drawn thousands of hits, from all over the world, and will set a new record for the number of comments on a single post. There are already 200 or so, and they are without a doubt the most inflammatory comments I've had in this blog's history. (The comments will close soon, but I'm leaving them as a sort of "hate museum.") Hell, I suppose if you really wanted traffic to spike for its own sake, you could produce a "Muhammad beheading video cartoon" of some sort.

But like it or not, traffic is what it's all about. While I think there are always people who appreciate thoughtful, well-researched posts and polite writing, let's face it; it's the controversy that brings traffic. And being inflammatory is a shortcut to controversy. If the story isn't all that interesting, yell at the world, and hurl insults.

For people who feel strongly about the horrendous nature of something, there are ways, of course, to express even the most powerful and controversial emotions while remaining articulate. American Thinker provides a perfect example with the following passage from Winston Churchill on Islam:

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.

The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceasedto be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”

-Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).

And he'll remain in more trouble. Nearly a century later, Thabo Mbeki (excoriating Churchill by reading the above in Sudan of all places) is still upset.

I doubt Ann Coulter will score as many points with future Mbekis.

It's all very easy for me to say. I'm no Churchill. (Ward or Winston.) And despite the compliments disguised as insults which some of the leftie commenters have leveled at me, I don't think I'm much of a Coulter either.

I don't know what my problem is. Perhaps I suffer from fearful fatalistic apathy.

What, I'd do better in rag time?

AFTERTHOUGHT AND DISCLAIMER: I do not mean the above post as an attack in any way on Ann Coulter, a cute blonde bombshell who keeps rust from gathering on the First Amendment, or Ryan Sager, who if I said he was cute might take offense but whose writing I've always enjoyed and agreed with, or on Winston Churchill, one of the greatest dead white men of all time.

UPDATE: A commenter below claims the above quotation from Churchill was later retracted. He argues:

If Churchill wrote it and then thought better of it, it’s incumbent upon bloggers, political columnists and those who forward email messages to everyone in their address books to do the same before quoting him.

Furthermore, if the above quote evidences Churchill's self-expurgated dark side, that means he had second thoughts. Am I supposed to be upset if Churchill turns out to be more reasonable than Thabo Mbeki maintains?

Quite the contrary; it only makes me like the guy all the more.

(Of course, I'd say that even if he were alive and decided it was time to dust off what had been deleted!)

MORE: I think it's fair to point out that the prestigious Churchill Center still features the above quote. More about that organization here.

AND MORE: Glenn Reynolds has a very thoughtful post on the whole Ann Coulter "raghead" flap. He wasn't there when she spoke, but now he's being condemned for having been "silent."

But of course!

Why, come to think of it, it was from the "silent" Glenn Reynolds that I first learned about Coulter's inane remarks. (Geez. To think that I actually linked to a "silent" post! That's a new first for me.)

UPDATE: More condemnation of Glenn Reynolds's "silence" here.

Hmmm....

I think Glenn has done a great job of first reporting the Ann Coulter remarks, then discussing them, and now discussing quite openly the mysterious attacks on his "silence."

I must ask: What if Glenn really had been silent?

How would we have ever known?

UPDATE (02/16/06): Ann Coulter has elaborated on her remarks, which she admits are offensive:

If you don't want to get shot by the police, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then don't point a toy gun at them. Or, as I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about "camel jockey"? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?