Fascinating article and a real thought-provoker. Thanks for posting.

A sharp and interesting essay. I think he comes down too hard on Paglia, I liked her recent essay he pillories, but I agree with his conclusions - that Mitt was a weak candidate (even though I thought he´d be a good president) and new critics and new ideas are needed.

For me, the important thing is that the GOP not become the party of austerity, the tax collectors of the welfare state. Instead of cutting benefits on social security for instance, why aren´t we talking private accounts - a la Chilean Model - that can never be stolen or used as a constant political football and that pay us a 9% return over 30 years instead of a zero-to-negative return? That´s the opposite of austerity. The Heritage Foundation thinks cutting benefits is a dandy idea. The Cato guys say Chilean Model or nothing and the Cato guys are right.

Even the greats are bound to hit some sour notes. I was always more partial to Coulter than Paglia, though. Paglia´s critique of feminist culture was great, but her odd worship of Madonna has never made sense. Madge shares Camille´s Italian heritage, but beyond that, I don´t get the artistic kudos Camille heaps upon her. She´s an awesome self-marketer, though.

Ghastly article and not the first one from this clod. So Mitt was a weak candidate and we sat at home and didn´t vote for him and now we have a moron, tax raising, globe trotting, stupid dolt in the White House. Ain´t that grand. I do not know who watched the debates and speeches that Mitt gave but they were tons better than flappears and his complete stupidity and now we have people dying while he flies to Las Vegas saying it was a bump in the road.
I am not a big fan of Ann, but I agree the American people deserve what they get, if they live through this administration.

"Interesting article," I said to my fellow Titanic passenger, as we smartly decided a better way to arrange the deck furniture.

"Yes," she replied. "Too bad about Paglia and Coulter jumping the shark and all that."

"Yes," I said. "Too bad. Say, what should we do with this big fat overstuffed white couch from New Jersey?"

"Put it over there in the sun," she said. "It´s looking a little moldy and stained lately. What about that weird, skinny little black and white chair that nobody ever sits in?"

"Put it in the middle of the deck, where everyone can see it," I answered. "It seems happy there."

Elegy? As in "dead"? I don´t think so. All writers/commentators come up with duds every now and then. The biggest hazard for them is to not fall into the trap of having a shtick that takes over and starts to control them. Then the freshness of their thinking disappears and they become driven by the shtick to predictability and excess.

That, my friends is their real problem now. I continue to find both of them having interesting and thought-provoking ideas, but much of their delivery now is unfortunately predictable and shrill.

I don´t know about Paglia but this dude is way off base on Coulter. So what if Romney has blemishes? He was running against Obama and he should have won. I didn´t like a lot of what Bush did but he wasn´t Gore and he wasn´t Kerry and we were the better for it.

I do hope we all get out of the dumps over this election... we´re going to need to fight for a spot in the life boats when the Titanic goes down. Of course we just tell people they can get double rations on their food stamp cards and then they should wait in their cabins for their new 5G Obama phones while the ship is sinking we won´t have to fight for life boat spots at all....

I´ve been unhappy with Ann Coulter since she pushed Mitt Romney so hard. I think he would have made a good President, but obviously as a candidate he was not the best.

And yes I do believe that there was enormous cheating in the battleground states, probably enough to have changed the outcome.

What is so annoying is that we have to hear the pResident gloating about how he won. How low class is that? Whatever happened to being gracious to the other side which lost? I HATE the coarseness which I am afraid has become the norm instead of an aberration.

Another good article, although I´m saying that just from a thought-provoking view and not because I necessarily agree with its premise. The comments after it were even more interesting.

I would like to posit that the conservative problem of the "browning of America" has more to do with the mindless willingness of the majority of those certain classes of people to allow themselves to be defined by their race/color/gender - and the conservatives unwillingness to address that. The great conservative minorities like Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Clarence Thomas, Marco Rubio, etc... and the conservative female heroines, have no intention of ever being defined as a hyphenated American.

The liberals are hell-bent on maintaining the race (and gender) classifications - they know that is their bread and butter voter. And that´s why they relentless eviscerate those who dare stray from the plantation. Conservatives best chances in future elections will come by making more people refuse their liberal-made and kept classifications. Break down THAT wall!