Joseph Hughes: The John Hughes of the “Weblogosphere”

We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” are oft told that those of the political Left are more capable of nuanced thought than their opponents. Whereas, apparently, right-wingers are a bunch of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals uninterested in examining matters beyond the black and white, leftists revel in more sophisticated political analysis.

If you ask us, this is complete nonsense: Most people seem to follow politics in the same way they root for baseball teams. That is to say, they are unflagging partisans, capable of spitting back whatever knee-jerk arguments “their side” is currently spewing. Hence the manifest irrationality of so many political conversations between those of opposing views.

Not so, thunder our “progressive” friends. To them, goons on the Right show their intellectual inferiority by clinging to dunderheaded turns-of-phrase like “the axis of evil.” Leftists, on the other hand, realize that Iran, Saddam’s Iraq, and North Korea are actually Valhallas; the US and Israel are the real sources of all evil.

We know what you are thinking: Boy, that’s a heck of a lot more nuanced.

We contemplated the speciousness of left-wingers’ self-advertised political sophistication anew upon reading a particularly inept “post” penned by a progressive “weblogger.” Joseph Hughes, the “web” proprietor of Hughes for America, likely believes that he’s a serious thinker whose intellect is far superior to that of conservatives.

And yet, a gander at his entry “They’re all Ann Coulter” demonstrates that he’s about as sophisticated as a John Hughes movie. He may believe that he’s the Citizen Kane of the Internet, but he’s a lot more Pretty in Pink. For, in this particularly dimwitted rant, the 27-year-old Mr. Hughes opines:

Try as some Republicans might to halfheartedly distance themselves from Coulter, her cancer has completely overtaken their party. They're all Ann Coulter.

Hmmm. Ann Coulter is routinely pilloried (and rightly so) for failing to view contemporary American politics with even a modicum of nuance. To her, liberals are all treasonous weasels.

And Mr. Hughes brilliantly highlights the errors of Ann Coulter’s oversimplification—by suggesting that there’s no difference between Ann Coulter and anyone else in the Republican Party. Uh, can someone please stop Mr. Hughes from aiming that gun at his foot? He’s going to wind up hurting himself.

One can almost see Mr. Hughes make a mental checklist of Republicans:

Charles Krauthammer? Just like Ann Coulter. Edward Luttwak? Dead ringer for Ann Coulter. Alan Keyes? The black Ann Coulter. George Will? Ann Coulter with a penchant for Brooks Brothers ties. Frederick Kagan? A heavy-set Ann Coulter.

Ah, yes: We’re glad that Mr. Hughes has fully learned the errors of Ann Coulter’s ways. Surely he’ll never be guilty of gross oversimplifications. Or splitting infinitives.