Call me Leroy. He's the guy Joe Tex keeps shouting at in his insensitive but very funky '60s hit, "Skinny Legs and All." Hey, Leroy! yells Joe. Why don't you take her! Think the Ann Coulter controversy's over? Not yet it isn't. Mr. Tex hasn't had his say.
Yes, this song is disrespectful to this poor woman. It treats her like an object. But it does the same thing to men in its second verse. And its real venom is directed toward the lady's hypocritical boyfriend:
Say man, don't walk ahead of that woman like she don't belong to you!Just cause hers got them little skinny legs.You know,that ain't no way to do.You didn't act like that when you had her home behind closed doors!By now everybody in America must know about Ann Coulter, this week's "woman with the skinny legs."
But the hypocritical guy who'll take all he can get from her at night, only to act like he doesn't know her by day ... why, that's the Republican Party!
Sure, they're ashamed -- not of her legs, but of her foul mouth and hateful ideas. But they exploit her just as much as the guy in the Joe Tex song exploits his woman. And Miss Ann's got lots of hatemongering friends, who they also exploit whenever they can: O'Reilly, Beck, Savage, Dick Morris ... the list goes on and on.
And there's someone else hanging around these streetwalkers in the dark of the evening -- someone who'll use her and her friends to satisfy his animal needs, only to hitch up his pants and feign an air of respectability come sunrise. That would be the American media, of course. They're always eager to use these disreputable characters to drive ratings and enforce ideological purity.
And just in case you think I haven't over-labored the metaphor already, there's always Leroy. I'm Leroy, and I'll take her. I don't want to exploit her the way they have, of course, but I will use her -- as a textbook example of what the Republican Party and the conservative movement have become.
Why? Because the Woman With The Skinny Legs isn't an exception -- she's the norm. There are hundreds of conservative leaders, politicians, and pundits who are every bit as hateful and as vile as Ms. Coulter. Hate speech has become the conservative platform, and it's time to put it to a stop.
That's why my friend Bob Cesca is wrong, if you ask me. We shouldn't stop talking about Our Lady of Perpetual Bile. We should hold her up to the light like the x-ray of the conservative soul that she is. We should remind people again and again of who and what she and these other people are.
For example, last week she sucker-punched Jean Rohe in order to defend John McCain. I suspect that promoting the Senator from Arizona will soon be her full-time job, especially if he wins the GOP nomination. And after her vile statement this week, did you hear the "maverick" McCain -- the one we're told drips with "integrity" -- denounce her? I didn't.
Somebody needs to put a microphone in McCain's face and get his reaction to this Joe Tex-inspired observation:
Senator,that ain't no way to do. Now you act like you're 'shamed or somethin,
or you don't want nobody to know she's yours.And then there's Rush Limbaugh and his gleeful defense of torture and rape at Abu Ghraib. We need to hammer the Republican leadership with the SECOND verse of the Joe Tex song, just for Rush:
Now why you wanna act like that man ain't yours?Just cause he's walkin with you, with them raggedy clothes.Man just forgot to get his suit out a the cleaners, that's all.Alright...alright... Go on over there and kiss him and hold his hand.Go on..say you ain't gonna do WHAT? Act like that man don't belong to ya!
Of course, they've been kissing Rush and holding his hand all along. Dick Cheney even came on his show and administered a warm spongedown -- without a sponge -- after Rush made his hideous remarks (which endangered the lives of our soldiers and diplomats worldwide). Wouldn't this be a good time to remind the world about that, too?
The GOP has become the Party of Slander and Character Assassination, and it'll stay that way until someone has the courage to place integrity and decency before self-interest. The Lady in in Question has not only revealed her true nature, she's shown the true face of her entire movement. Why wouldn't we use this as a teaching moment?
Cesca may be frustrated that she's selling so many books because of the controversy, but I can live with that. The people who buy those books will never vote Democratic, anyway. And I have no problem seeing her get make money in this case. She's performing a great public service.
And mind you, this piece isn't about "skinny legs" as anatomy. It's about the startling relevance of Mr. Tex's pensées on social hypocrisy in this age of ubiqitous conservatism. The diameter of said conservatives' limbs is, needless to say, beside the point.
And I think the worm is turning for these vile bipeds. At least, I believe it could, if Democrats and progressives stay on the case. But don't worry, Ann honey. Let Joe Tex have the last word -- because as long as a Republican somewhere wants to get elected,
there's somebody somewhere who'll take you, baby, skinny legs and all.