History Forum / General / British History / May 2006

Bravissima!

"If you want to find the cool, anti-establishment rebels who don't answer to
"The Man" on college campuses today, you have to go to a meeting of the
College Republicans.  They are rebelling against at least 99 percent of
their professors.  Even the original '60s anti-war protesters were rebelling
against at least 5 percent of their professors.  Today's college liberals
ape the beliefs of 99 percent of their professors and then pretend they're
on-the-edge radicals." ---- Ann Coulter

DSH
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"APPLE-POLISHER SHOWS P.O.W. REAL COURAGE"

May 24, 2006

Ann Coulter

"This week the world gasped in awe at the raw heroism of Jean Rohe, the
student at the New School who gave a speech attacking the commencement
speaker, Republican Sen. John McCain, at the commencement ceremony.

We mostly heard about Rohe's bravery from Rohe - and, really, who is in a
better position to judge? As Rohe herself put it: "If there's one thing that
I know about myself, it is that I care for people, and in that sense I have
a great deal of character."

According to her posted biography, Rohe "grew up singing and performing folk
music with her family. Jean spent a year at Smith College followed by a
summer at the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba on scholarship where she
honed her Spanish skills, learned about Cuban history, culture and politics,
and made some of her dearest friends" - mostly while waiting in line for
hours and hours each day to get toilet paper.

In other words, Rohe is just a typical all-American girl, right down to a
stint in Castro's Cuba.

Hilarious!  And a Red-Diaper Baby as well? -- DSH

In an unintentionally ironic article about her brave decision to attack the
commencement speaker, Rohe describes going around campus the day before her
speech and discovering how overwhelmingly popular it would be to attack
McCain. At two graduation ceremonies a day earlier, attacks on McCain
brought wild cheers from the audience.

See, where I come from, sucking up to the audience is not called
"courageous." It's called "toadying."

Indeed.  In fact it's called _Toadying Lickspittle_.  -- DSH

Every place Rohe went that day she ran into students and faculty fashioning
armbands and preparing their protests. As she said: "The situation seemed
pretty serious."

Literally every person Rohe talked to the day before the ceremony opposed
the war in Iraq and hated McCain with blind fury. Her mother - the one who
tortured the children by making them sing folk songs - wept when Rohe read
her illiterate speech over the phone.

Rohe's resolve to tell the audience what it wanted to hear, guaranteeing
wild standing ovations for herself, was only hardened when she was told
there would be media at the event.

While some might say it was gutless to suck up to the audience by insulting
an invited guest, they didn't understand the incredible risks Rohe was
taking by attacking a Republican at the New School: You'll be a pariah in
the West Village! You'll never sing in a jazz club on the Lower East Side
again! And don't even think about setting foot on the Upper West Side!

As Rohe later said: "It was something I didn't want to do, but knew I had to
out of an obligation to my own values" - which happened to be the exact same
values as the entire audience, the faculty, her fellow students, her
boyfriend and her mother, each of whom shared the value of being rude to an
invited guest who also happened to be a Republican, a U.S. senator and
decorated war hero.

And so Rohe attacked McCain's speech before he delivered it, with such
devastating ripostes as this:

"Sen. McCain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, 'have
nothing to fear from each other.' I agree strongly with this, but I take it
one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living
planet."

Hilarious!  Naïveté Writ Large.  -- DSH

Except all the people who want to kill us.

Such as, for example, Osama bin Laden - and that's according to Rohe, who is
furious with Bush for not having caught him yet. Isn't Osama a person "on
this living planet"? Does she think we have something to fear from him?

I'm sorry to be a snob, but this trusting view of terrorists is hard enough
to take from smart liberals. When I have to hear the New School version of
it, my eyeballs have rolled not only out of their sockets but out of the
building.

Maybe in her heart of hearts, Rohe does think Bush is an imbecile, McCain a
lout, and the war is wrong. Maybe she would think so even if she had ever
met someone who holds a different opinion.

But then she should just admit: "I know, I know. I'm an utterly conventional
brown-noser, the very definition of going-with-the-flow, middle-of-the pack,
finger-to-the-wind follower, who doesn't have the candlepower to resist
conforming to the beliefs of everyone around me - but that's what I think."

Precisely!  The "Liberal" as lemming.  -- DSH

If you want to find the cool, anti-establishment rebels who don't answer to
"The Man" on college campuses today, you have to go to a meeting of the
College Republicans. They are rebelling against at least 99 percent of their
professors. Even the original '60s anti-war protesters were rebelling
against at least 5 percent of their professors. Today's college liberals ape
the beliefs of 99 percent of their professors and then pretend they're
on-the-edge radicals.

We've always had to endure goody two-shoes apple-polishers - kids with their
hands always up, who turn in talkers when the teacher leaves the classroom
and volunteer for extra work after school. But not until today's college
liberals have we ever had to suffer the effrontery of the ass-kissers
telling us: "I'm bad - I clean erasers for teachers after class because I'm
baaad."

I don't care what liberals think. I don't care that they're spineless
suck-ups. Just don't insult my intelligence by telling me they're brave."
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DSH

Lux et Veritas et Libertas

Vires et Honor