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Ann Coulter's Godless: The Church of Liberalism
O ur society is flogged daily by the manic ravings of paid politi
cal hacks who seek not to illuminate issues but to obfuscate,
to dissuade citizens from coherent thought, to demagogue.
Most of these hacks are right-wing conservatives—Neo*Cons—in
tent on demonstrating that a conspiracy of liberals, feminists,
homosexuals and secular humanists is undermining the sacred
foundations of American civilization.
Primary among them today is Ann Coulter: graduate of Cornell
University, former lawyer, muckraker journalist, opinionator, politi
cal spinmeister. Her primary strategy is provocation. Provocation
in how she speaks, how she dresses, how she attacks those she
disagrees with, how she abuses and manipulates information, his
tory and other points of view.
Coulter's latest travesty has been to accuse widows of victims
of the World Trade Center attacks of enjoying and exploiting their
misfortune and their grief by speaking out in a political way about
the attacks, the war on terror and the United States government.
She has called these women “witches" and "harpies" who ought to
pose for Playboy, since they are losing their notoriety as widows.
Why is Ann Coulter privileged to speak her mind when these
victims are not? Why does losing a loved one in a terrorist attack
oblige you to silence? Coulter believes these women should be si
lent because she disagrees with them.
A number of public commentators for the conservative side of
things speak with intellect and force of argument. Pat Buchanan is
one example. So is George Will. Ann Coulter
is not in their class. Matters of fact and
issues of logic do not matter to her.
Fairness and accuracy do not concern her.
Instead, Ann Coulter speaks with
fierce indignation and acerbic disdain
for those with whom she disagrees. She
encourages others to follow her exam
ple—not to try to understand issues
and the people who confront them,
but to blindly oppose intelligent dis
course and points of view she does
not share. In addition to her attacks
on World Trade Center widows, she
has accused disabled Vietmm vet
erans of losing that war. She has
written, "If you don't hate Clinton
and the people who labored to
keep him in office, you don't love
your country." She has advocated
public flogging. She has suggested
that the Emancipation Proclamation
should be repealed and that women
should be allowed to own guns but
not to vote. She has explained that
"God gave us the Earth. We have do
minion over the plants, the animals,
the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours.
Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'* The fore
going comments, made by Coulter on
various talk shows and in various maga
zines, are representative of the careless
and irresponsible ways in which she is
prone to speak.
In commentaries on her website,
Coulter has made such assertions as the
following: Princess Diana "ostentatiously
(had) premarital sex in front of her children." New York Times
articles about the arrest of a former White House aide, an African
American, are "the revenge of the queers." Liberals are "dangerous
psychotics." Al Gore is "clinically insane." Democrats "long to see
U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle."
They "fill the airwaves with treason" and are "gutless traitors."
According to Wikipedia, Coulter wrote an article for USA Today
in which she described the 2004 Democratic convention as the
"Spawn of Satan convention" and referred to certain women at the
convention as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra need
ing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie
wagons." (USA Today did not publish the article and found another
writer to cover the convention.) In a 2002 interview, Coulter stat
ed that "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is [that] he did not
go to the New York Times building." In a 2006 speech at Indiana
University, she stated that "Liberals hate both God and America."
Coulter's extreme views, and her ways of expressing them, have
cost her jobs with the National Review and MSNBC. Many conserva
tive leaders have tried to distance themselves from her. But like
poison ivy, she won't go away.
Coulter has publicly stated that her attractive appearance
empowers her to speak her mind. Sadly, there's little on her mind
that logic and reason wouldn't dissolve. This exploitation of what
she and others regard as her sex appeal is evidence of her desire
for celebrity. For interviews and talk shows, she typically dresses
in a tight, black, low-cut and short cocktail dress, so that as she
blathers on she displays ample expanses of chest and thigh. As an
example, see the cover of her latest book. This exhibitionism dis
tracts some viewers from what she is saying and imprints on them
her appearance rather than her ideas {or their absence). Cocktail
dresses don't win respect for the logic and force of your points of
view, but they do get people who don't care about logic and argu
ments of substance to look at you.
Coulter's new book, like her others an attack on all the boring
evils of liberalism, is Godless: The Church of Liberalism. She argues
that liberalism is a religion. On her website, in her own review of
the book, Coulter explains that it "examines a set of beliefs known
as 'liberalism.' It is the doctrine that prompts otherwise seemingly
sane people to propose teaching children how to masturbate, al
lowing gays to marTy, releasing murderers from prison, and teach
ing children that they share a common ancestor with the earth
worm. (They haven't yet found the common ancestor... but like 0.
J.. the search continues.)"
Among the many flaws in Coulter's argument is the idea that
liberalism is a coherent and monolithic ideology. It is not. Neither
is conservatism. On many issues the great
majority of liberals, conservatives and
moderates would likely agree. Within lib
eral and conservative ideological camps,
you would likely find a significant range
of opinion on many issues. But Coulter
and others of her ilk define liberalism
as a series of bilzz issues: abortion,
homosexuals, religion, flag burning,
the "loss of values." If you believe
in the right to choose an abortion,
for instance, you automatically fall
into the enemy camp (though polls
show that many conservatives do
not oppose the right to choose).
There is no room for ambiguity or
uncertainty. Coulter is not inter
ested in exploring the issues that
divide conservatives and liberals.
She is not interested in dialogue or
in arguing the issues in any kind of
meaningful way. Despite her efforts
to present herself as a conservative
intellectual and ideologue, she is a
propagandist, a thinly veiled spin
doctor for a particular wing of the
Republican Party. She doesn't need
or want to understand the issues
about which she rails. She needs only
to speak loudly and at length, know
ing that she can win her argument not
by logic, evidence and persuasion, but
by drowning out other points of view,
by outrageous attacks on those she dis
agrees with, by accusing her opponents
of treason, of being psychotics, of being
unpatriotic.
I would buy and read, and maybe review. Godless: The Church of
Liberalism, except that I've absorbed enough specious drivel from
Coulter's magazine pieces and commentaries, and her appearance
on talk shows and news channels. I read her summary of the book
on her website. My aging brain is sufficiently damaged. I won't
deposit a single tarnished penny in her bloated bank account.
(Money is, I suspect, of great importance to Coulter.) Someone
else can write the review.
Alongside Ann Coulter are such infernal figures as Bill O'Reilly,
Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North, Pat Robertson, Jerry
Fa'well and others. They are big fat bullies of the public airwaves
and media. They line their coffers by posturing and strutting and
puffing themselves up like adders whose bite infects with the
worst sort of poison and putrefaction. They suck the intelligence
from those who respect them. At least this is what Ann Coulter
would say if she were a liberal. By discouraging rational thought
and intelligent discourse, all of them endanger democracy and im
peril our nation.
Old Smiley hltpy/oldsmiley.blogspoLcom.
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