by John C. Dvorak
I never disliked Ann Coulter. She seemed like one of those brash young Republican women in the KellyAnne whatshername mold. Sharp on TV. Quick. Entertaining. Perfect for talk shows. Welcome to 21st century broadcasting. But politically I think of her breed as Republikan (or even Republicanists) not Republican. We all know the difference. The Republikan is the conservative equivalent of the knee-jerk Democrat. Republikans have a very rigid set of beliefs and anyone who disagrees is a �liberal!� The set of beliefs is quite narrow and always religious. Of late they�ve felt their oats so much that they now openly mock old middle-of-the-road Republicans � derisively calling them Rockefeller Republicans. Goldwater was, maybe, a true Republikan according to these people, except he wasn�t born-again or born-again enough. These Republikans took over the Republican party of the State of California years ago and left us with Grey Davis and two Democratic Senators including the dreadful Barbara Boxer. There is no way to unseat the Senators since the Republikan party will not nominate anyone but an unappealing Republikan ideologue. Few people outside the state appreciated the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, only got into office through a recall backdoor before the Republikans could figure out what to do to stop him. In any normal process in California he would never be governor. Too electable for the party.
More recently the Republikans took over the Texas party and will soon decimate it the way California has been ruined. As a former Republican (and former Democrat too) I�ve become a registered independent and refuse to play this ideology game. I think its cool to have �In God We Trust� on the money, but don�t think children should be hounded by born-again radicals who preach talking in tongues and creationism or, as they call it, creation science. This should not be an option any more than teaching voodoo or Islamism in school. We�re a country built on scientific principles and methodology. The typical Republikan at the core of this movement actually believes that the entire science of radioactive decay (used for carbon dating) is a hoax! And these people are running the party. The average Republican is appalled by these people but the party at-large thinks they are a powerful voting block. They are not. And that�s why I�m certain that Kerry will sweep into office on the backs of Republican voters leaving the Republikans with Bush with whom they can lament and complain.
So back to Coulter. This episode in political history should frighten her fans and anyone in the Republican party. It makes them look crazy. She�s hired to do column in USA Today. This is played up as a big deal. It was supposed to be her take on the Democratic convention. She thinks she�s a comedian and writes a crappy column that is eventually rejected since she refuses to be edited. Any writer that refuses to be edited is an idiot, let me say that right off the top. We all hate to be edited, yes. But professionals always write with edit negotiating in mind. You add something you know they will cut so you can keep something else in, for example. But you never REFUSE to be edited. What? Are you 10 years old?
Shes out! And a controversy ensues.
So Salon publishes a piece on this fiasco calling Coulter an �unhinged buffoon.� This got my attention. It was a funny phrase. But most interesting to me was the link to Coulters rant in Human Events Online (where she apparently is not edited) and feels comfortable enough to make a fool of herself. Here Coulter gives us the entire USA Today column along with the editors remarks. You immediately see that the column is crazy, daft. Maybe she thought it was cute, I don�t know. It appears to be pure Republikan hubris.
But what�s even weirder about the Human Events article, as pointed out in Salon, is that Coulter authored the piece and discusses herself in the third person, She quotes herself and responds to her own quotes. It does not appear to be done as a gag either. Can you spell psycho? Here are a couple of paragraphs. Now remember that at the top this says �by Ann Coulter.�
�Apparently,” said Coulter, “USA Today doesn�t like my �tone,� humor, sarcasm, etc. etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them in the first place. Perhaps they thought they were getting Catherine Coulter.�
In a sort of package deal, USA Today plans to have Michael Moore offer commentary at the Republican National Convention next month. �My guess is they will �get� his humor� said Coulter. We agree.
Her last sentence �we agree� takes on a whole new meaning here.
So it�s probably time to revisit Charles Taylors excellent 2002 essay on Coulter, Kellyanne Whatshername and other women he�s dubbed �Conservative fembots.� I�m sure he�s appreciating the fact that these fembots are now exploding left and right from faulty programming. One interesting comment (pulled below) from Taylor is that he noticed that Coulter never �projected a sense� that she was communicating to anyone outside her closed circle. Many of her �gags� in the USA Today piece reflect that comment. Just like a sorority sister, talking in code. Laughing at the dweebs.
The views of the CFs [conservative fembot] emulsify like a perfect mayonnaise, but what they share apart from ideological consistency is a uniformity of attitude. I don’t know the social background of Coulter, Ingraham, Conway or Pinto, but I’ve encountered their type before. They are the essence of the white, privileged kids at the small New England college I attended during the conservative heyday of the early Reagan years. What characterized those kids and what characterizes the CFs is that they seem unaware that not everyone shares their privileged existence, or seem to believe that anyone who doesn’t has only themselves to blame. It’s a small world, after all, and the CFs are absolutely secure about their place in it and the rightness of their views.
Nobody does smug like Ann Coulter. Like the other CF sorority gals, she is always ready to flash a look of incredulity at anyone stupid enough to hold beliefs different from her own. It’s a look of self-satisfied disdain, and she’s got it down as perfect as Edgar Kennedy’s slow burn. For all of her jibes at the snobbishness of liberals who patronize the people they purport to be championing — and she is often quite right about that — Coulter doesn’t project a sense that she is speaking for anyone beyond her little clique
Other links:
USA Todays Announcement of fiasco
Coulter Home Page
Possible Exchange Between Coulter and the �Simon� website
Accuracy in the Media Report sympathizes with Coulter
I was flipping channels one day and there was a panel discussion involving conservatives including Ann Coulter and some liberals. One liberal was a doctor, as in a medical doctor.
Coulter asked the guy, “Where exactly do you practice? How many patients do you have?”
He replied that he didn’t practice anymore.
So she yelled back, “Then why do you call yourself a doctor when you no longer practice.”
This is where it got REAL funny. Someone else on the panel asked Coulter where she practices law.
She replied, “I don’t practice law, but, I never hold myself as an attorney.”
Then that same other guy said, “Yes you do, it’s right here on tonight’s program notes, “Attorney Ann Coulter.”
The next shot was on a VERY silent Coulter. She said nothing for about three seconds, which is a long time for one of those TV news shows. Finally she spoke, but completely changed the subject.
Who cares if a doctor no longer practices? Why even bring up something so petty in the first place. It was NOT related to the topic, she just did it as an attack. And her “answer” to being accused of the same thing, i.e., ignoring it, shows just what a hypocrite she is.
I should have read her article before posting. By what standard is Coulter pretty?! I agree with Aaron McGruder, she’s really a guy.
Politics is great profession and if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book. It’s all big money, big media and big corporate BS. Look at Rush Limbaugh, who is wildly successful, because of talk radio and some self professed idea and a I know more than everyone else gimmick. Good for you Rush, go pop a pill! As far as Ann Coulter, I’d say cash in on this nonsense corporate PR-BS. Write a book about how dumb the people reading the book are. Hell claim the publishers are morons also and sell 5 and a half million copies for a buck. I’ve just quit paying any attention to all of this political noise and try avoiding the ruts on the left or the right side. Stick with the issues!
I read a couple of her postings, on the Human Events site – and I can see their point – what was USA Today expecting? Didn’t they read any of her posts on that site before hiring her?
They wanted a Conservative with “name recognition” – but they sure didn’t look at her previous postings very closely.
The good thing was, after reading her rants on Human Events, I don’t have to bother trying to read one of her books. But, it scares me that her style of writing is “best-selling”. A sad statement.
Mike
Thank you for saying you are both a former Republican and a former Democrat. So am I. All these black/white oppositions are not only outdated and irrelevant, they seem to be dangerous. I, too, feel as if our country is slowly being taken over by religious fanatics (and not Buddhists, either). So difficult to participate in the democratic process when it is all reduced to flag waving and soundbites.
John, I like your Republikan moniker well enough to steal it.
The most despicable thing this crowd does — as part of their lambasting of traditional Conservatives, who usually have been lifelong Republicans — is the label they hang on them as RINO’s. Republicans In Name Only. This was started by the semi-igneous money columnist, Larry Kudlow. Here’s one of his stellar quotes:
“The stunning Microsoft decision to return more than $75 billion in cash to shareholders over the next four years is a smashing endorsement of the importance of President Bush’s pro-growth tax cuts.” Gee, Bill. Another Microsoft interpreter to contend with. One who has no perception of cause-and-effect relationships.
As someone whose personal politics are Progressive [I know you know what that means, John], I mostly only respect Conservatives because [1] there is a traditional reliance on fact-based decision-making — [2] the Libertarian tradition of free speech and independence from corporate controllers is as strong as any anarchist’s.
Most of my kin in the Great White North still belong to the oldest continuous political party up there, the Progressive Conservatives. No contradiction, at all. You respect the environment. You keep your nose out of other peoples’ business. You pay your bills.
I agree with Mike’s post and the Salon article takes to task USA Today. BUT, no writer takes such an assignment with the expectation of NO editing unles it was contractual. So this argument is bogus.
Oh boy. The irony of bloggers (and the Cluetrain Clueless) complaining about the evils of not “communicating to anyone outside a closed circle”. Delicious.
But you missed the central issue, it wasn’t so much “no editing”, as it was incompentent editing. When you have an Editor, you want someone with a background in said field. Say someone with zero background in things technical,attempted to edit a JCD column, it would be a butcher hack-job. I see this as USA Today flying blind. They should have known what they were getting into and they should have known her writing style. A bad Editor can ruin many a good writer. Ann, it looks like, felt USA Today was ruining her style. And knowing how USA Today is blandly fluff mass-marketed edited, it is very easy to side with Ann. It’s her name, it’s her product. And even if she doesn’t want to be edited, then take it or leave it.
Why the righteous indignation? She is who she is, least she tramples not in the hazy fact zones like Moore does. But in terms of basic market share, Ann wins bigtime. I, personally, seriously disagree with the Wired 1995 Libertarian Bubble-Making crowd, of which Ann is somewhat a part, but at the same time I disagree strongly with the Leftist blogger shrills, that strike me as irrational and anti-intellectual. The world is complex, things don’t neatly fit into nice-little-pretty-packages. Life is absurd.
Side Note: I am not related, but given that she has millions and a nice Miami Beach place and visits the Conservative Wing of Richie Palm Beach from time to time (freq. seen supposedly at 264, Cafe L’Europe and Maison Janeiro, tho been reports of Chuck and Harolds and Taboo), I would very very much like to be related. She’s got a way cool last name tho. 😉
I like the idea of John speaking freely.
I am a fan from your old Tv show and read most of your Ed.
Take Care
Maybe Moore will do a movie called Annie, with a Woody Allen political theme.
Ann falls for Mike and she then goes a bit left and he goes a bit right and they produce a little bouncing centrist baby boy they name Jorge, after John Kerry and George Bush. Now they all live happily ever after in central Chicago.
How about Annie Get Your Gun. Ann walks into a Washington news room with a cigar in that pretty little mouth packing a Glock 40 Cal. autopistol and justs gets the lead a flying. After shooting the place up, she says, “that’ll show’em I mean business, now who’s the editor?”
Go ahead, make my day!
Hey Mr. Coulter. You say that Ms. Coulter ” tramples not in the hazy fact zones like Moore does.” That implies that she sticks to the facts. Mmm….
Here are a couple of great quotes from Ms. Coutler. It sounds like facts are the LAST thing she cares about:
“It’s not as much fun to argue a point as it is to mock people for things outside their control.”
“Bad, vindictive humor with little substance to back it up is Ann Coulter.”
http://www.thesimon.com/magazine/articles/canon_fodder/0633_firing_ann_coulter_real_story_.html
You can defend Ms. Coulter all you want. But it’s pretty apparent to me that she has absolutely NO credibility.
John,
I decided to take a few minutes and read a few lines of Ann Coulter. I can see the reason USA Today gave up. I can get as angry as the next person myself and God knows I have learned to tone it down, before I boil over. She seems really mad. I mean if you can’t deal with politics, go practice law and have a nice life, just leave us out of it. I’m as political as the next guy, so I think these kind of Republicans are really good for nice guy Democrats. I hope she gets a new writing gig soon. A light heart lives longest.
And the one Irishman said to the other, top o the mornin to ya.
Maybe Sir William of Washington will pick her up and she will be hosting a show on MSNBC soon. She’d be great at beating down enemy Linux users. I could here it now, “all Democrats are worthless Linux hacks.” Ann interviews Bill live from his palace in Washington. Bill says, “hey I’ll pay you in MSFT stock and you will be a billionaire on paper.” Bill can buy USA Today and bring Ann in as the Editor in Chief and rename it MSUSA.
Ann Coulter is an idiot.
Does this thing work at all? Posting and posting and no comment is posted.
Bad UI?
I totally disagree with you about nearly eveything, but I love your blog, Dvorak. Keep it up. I’ll be happy to share the bunk with you in the concentration camp that those vile republikans are planning to set up in Texas.
Coulter took a dive with her USA Today column. I think she intentionally wrote a column she knew would never be published just so she could make a big brouhaha about it later.
The piece she wrote for USA Today was terrible. To say it was written by a 13 year old would be unfair to 13 year olds.
However, I checked out her site today and read some of her other stuff. Those other articles managed to stick to a point, were coherently written, and were actually funny.
I have no doubt that Ms. Coulter created this situation to get more press and more TV time.
Wonder how many Democrat rantings will be reviewed here. Just for independent balance, you might say.
John, you wrote, “We’re a country built on scientific principles and methodology.” Help me understand that one. The history books (before any contemporary revisions I don’t know about) described a religiously persecuted group running from a prior home. Our national definition of human in the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence pretty much states the religious connection.
Your comment came and went too quickly. I’d be interested in more development.