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Ann Coulter: Get thee behind me
I was once at a party with Ann Coulter. It was summer. Connecticut. A very tony group of literary people. And yet all I remember about Coulter was that she was wearing thin white pants and a navy thong that a blind man couldn't miss--a classy combination, doncha think? My wife didn't spot her until we were leaving. Just as well. Mrs. Uptown is a spiritual person, but she was once a pretty fair boxer. And she loathes Ann Coulter. She could have--and would have--punched her into a hospital bed without thinking twice.
If Ann Coulter inspires extreme reactions, that's her intention. On the right, they love her because she is blond and tall and shows lots of leg and says any damn thing that pops into her head--the women want to be her, the men want to do her. On the left, they're driven mad by her disrespect for facts and her intemperate language. In the middle (in TIME Magazine, for example), they're afraid to miss out on any pop phenomenon, so they write about her, thus legitimizing her.
Last week, Coulter used her visit to the "Today" Show to repeat a slander that appears in her new book--the widows who forced the government to launch the 9/11 commission were bitches who were probably going to be dumped by their husbands. There was more, but I don't get paid enough to type such drivel.
Suddenly, America woke up--for a second, anyway--and began to consider that Coulter really is a world-class skank, a latter-day Joe McCarthy (whom, as it happens, she loves).
There was not much depth in the commentary from the mainstream media. Just hurt feelings that Coulter had gone beyond some invisible border of propriety. (Today, The Rude Pundit offers fairly convincing evidence of two passages of plagiarism in her new book, but as yet only a few bloggers are riled up about this revelation.)
What are we to do with Ann Coulter? She knows no shame; it's not like she'd read a piece of criticism and take it to heart. If anything, as Lance Mannion's brilliant analysis suggests, criticism only convinces her she's on the right path. That is, the path of keeping her name in neon. That is, the path that leads to money.
If you buy Mannion's argument--that Coulter is all about creating an effect, any effect--it follows that there is only one way to deal with her: Make her a non-person. Never mention her again. Declare her, in the words of Stephen Colbert, "dead to me."
This I now do. Barring the truly incredible, I won't be typing her name ever again. I suggest you follow my example. And send your decision--or this blog--on to friends and family. It's a slow process, a kind of moral chain letter. But it has a better chance to working than any other idea I've heard.
If Ann Coulter inspires extreme reactions, that's her intention. On the right, they love her because she is blond and tall and shows lots of leg and says any damn thing that pops into her head--the women want to be her, the men want to do her. On the left, they're driven mad by her disrespect for facts and her intemperate language. In the middle (in TIME Magazine, for example), they're afraid to miss out on any pop phenomenon, so they write about her, thus legitimizing her.
Last week, Coulter used her visit to the "Today" Show to repeat a slander that appears in her new book--the widows who forced the government to launch the 9/11 commission were bitches who were probably going to be dumped by their husbands. There was more, but I don't get paid enough to type such drivel.
Suddenly, America woke up--for a second, anyway--and began to consider that Coulter really is a world-class skank, a latter-day Joe McCarthy (whom, as it happens, she loves).
There was not much depth in the commentary from the mainstream media. Just hurt feelings that Coulter had gone beyond some invisible border of propriety. (Today, The Rude Pundit offers fairly convincing evidence of two passages of plagiarism in her new book, but as yet only a few bloggers are riled up about this revelation.)
What are we to do with Ann Coulter? She knows no shame; it's not like she'd read a piece of criticism and take it to heart. If anything, as Lance Mannion's brilliant analysis suggests, criticism only convinces her she's on the right path. That is, the path of keeping her name in neon. That is, the path that leads to money.
If you buy Mannion's argument--that Coulter is all about creating an effect, any effect--it follows that there is only one way to deal with her: Make her a non-person. Never mention her again. Declare her, in the words of Stephen Colbert, "dead to me."
This I now do. Barring the truly incredible, I won't be typing her name ever again. I suggest you follow my example. And send your decision--or this blog--on to friends and family. It's a slow process, a kind of moral chain letter. But it has a better chance to working than any other idea I've heard.
