God Help Me
Yes. I actually read Ann Coulter’s latest book.
By Bryan Collinsworth
Friday July 7, 2006
I made it all the way to page 145 of Godless: The Church of Liberalism — a little more than halfway through the book — before Ann Coulter finally managed to piss me off.
What I scratched into the margin of that page in the heat of that moment cannot be reprinted (even in a publication as hip and youth-oriented as this one). Let’s just say that mocking Nicholas Kristof for his coverage of the genocide in Darfur as a means of propping up Bill O’Reilly’s mindless blather is seriously messed up.
If there’s anything that might redeem Coulter’s words there, it’s that they’re also the most apt illustration of the central problem with her latest work.
You see, I wouldn’t even have bothered to read Godless, except that the subtitle and opening paragraph made me think she might be onto something. Coulter purports to expose "The Church of Liberalism," revealing that despite any claims of secular enlightenment, "liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe."
As a onetime lefty organizer who has been more than a little disturbed by the nearly identical fashion tastes, food selections, car choices, hairstyles, body types, words, actions, and innermost thoughts of liberals separated by thousands of miles of physical space, I thought I might be able to sympathize with Coulter’s insights here.
I was wrong. I can’t commiserate with Coulter because she hasn’t the slightest interest in making an honest or coherent point — even if it’s the rather damning point that the antics of the left can indeed often rival the absurdities of the religious right.
No, Coulter makes disappointingly few observations to this effect in Godless. While she halfheartedly alludes to her purported “religion of liberalism” thesis in her chapter titles and a few one-liners here or there, she offers no comprehensive case for it, and it quickly becomes apparent that the references she does make are merely a means to her one and only real end: utterly demonizing anyone more progressive than Tom Coburn.
The premise of her book isn’t the only thing sacrificed to this obsession, either. Charm, humor, and basic decency die for it on page 145 (see above). And Coulter repeatedly slices open the chest of logical consistency and gleefully rips out its still-beating heart.
In one glaring instance, she attacks the claims of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose skepticism about the Bush administration’s justifications for the Iraq war eventually led to the retaliatory outing of his CIA agent wife, Valerie Plame. Wilson asserted that documents allegedly proving that Saddam Hussein tried to purchase uranium from Niger were forged and the information contained within them false — an assertion which Coulter dismisses by pointing out "the absurd logic that because documents are forged, what they purport to show has been proven false."
She’s right, that reasoning isn’t exactly airtight. And yet somehow, she completely forgets this when it comes time, a mere two pages later, to slam Bill Burkett as "CBS’s source for accusing President Bush of shirking his National Guard duties based on blatantly forged documents."
Coulter’s shameless use of contradictory arguments within pages — sometimes even paragraphs — of each other tars her as a polemicist far more interested in winner-take-all debate than honest political discussion. She’s even willing to try time travel to score points against her hated liberals. One of the most laughable segments in the book comes when Coulter attempts to illustrate that left-wingers are soft on criminals by pointing to the case of Sacco and Vanzetti. Yes, that would be the Sacco and Vanzetti who were convicted and executed for murder in 1920s Boston.
Apparently, it was revealed in late 2005 that Upton Sinclair, the famed Progressive-era author who wrote a book arguing that the two men had been framed for their anarchist political views, had in fact been privately assured by their attorney that they were guilty as sin, but went ahead and published his text anyway.
Well, that sucks for Upton Sinclair’s credibility. But Coulter’s claim that Sinclair’s dishonesty is somehow an indictment of half the U.S. population nearly a century later is about as ridiculous as arguing that because the Republican Party originated with the anti-slavery movement, it has remained an unwavering political defender of civil rights for the past 150 years.
But oh, wait — Coulter says that, too. At which point you realize the other problem with Godless: its target audience is the haplessly or willfully ignorant.
I’ve encountered brilliant conservatives who can shake my fundamental beliefs to the core without once resorting to intellectual dishonesty. Coulter’s book is not for them. Godless is for the right-wingers who are so stupid or so desperate to validate their beliefs that they won’t bat an eye when she pretends that the realignment of segregationist Dixiecrats to the Republican Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 never happened; who won’t even flinch when she acts as if not a single conservative supported Clinton’s withdrawal from Somalia after the "Black Hawk Down" incident in 1993; who will eagerly swallow the diatribe against evolution into which the last hundred pages of the book devolve (pardon the pun).
It’s when you put these two fundamental flaws of Godless together, though, that the most deeply unsettling facet of not just this but all of Coulter’s work comes into clear relief. The all-consuming goal of these texts is not just to demonize progressives, but worse, to dehumanize them.
Lefties who are prone to spout slogans like "no blood for oil" may be grossly oversimplifying or outright mischaracterizing the motives of their political opponents, but at least those alleged motives are within the realm of human nature. We know that human beings can be perverted by fear, greed, selfishness or lust for power. Part of the reason progressives ascribe these motives to the likes of a Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld is because they have faced and fought with such feelings themselves.
Coulter, though, is playing an altogether different game. To believe her claims about why liberals do what they do, one must abandon any sense that they are fellow, flawed human beings and start thinking of them as some utterly different species — grotesque caricatures motivated by the kind of inexplicably evil intentions that drive cartoon villains.
Godless is rife with such dehumanizing assertions. Coulter insists that liberals have "an obsessive fetish with releasing violent criminals"; that "They just want …to release child murderers"; that "The most important value to liberals is destroying human life."
Liberals’ "governing principle …is to always kill human life (unless the human life being killed is likely to fly a plane into American skyscrapers, in which case, it is wrong to kill it)."
Liberals "enjoy giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats’ behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle."
And finally, of course, "If Hitler hadn’t turned against their beloved Stalin, liberals would have stuck by him, too." (There’s that time-travel thing again. Funny, because I seem to recall that the “liberals” of that era led a reluctant, conservative America into war against the Nazis.)
By the end of Godless, I had serious doubts about whether Coulter herself believes most of what she writes. What worries me more, though, are those readers whom she can manipulate into embracing this invective; for whom her demonizations of the left will do little but relentlessly condition them to see their left-leaning friends and neighbors as otherworldly, incomprehensible, and irredeemably evil.
I can only hope that the folks who consume this diatribe hook, line, and sinker are few and far between. And I do have faith (yes, Ann, a liberal with faith) that America’s democratic discourse is robust enough to eventually relegate garbage like this to its rightful place.
I can’t help but wonder, though, whether in a different context this sort of casual hatemongering would become the bog water in which truly horrific evil spawns. Coulter’s ruthless deceptions and nasty caricatures bring to mind the words of another author whose pinky toenail she will never be worthy to touch. “By shooting at your enemy you are not in the deepest sense wronging him,” George Orwell wrote in August 1944. “But by hating him, by inventing lies about him and bringing children up to believe them … you are striking not at one perishable generation, but at humanity itself.”
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Comments
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Wonderful insight and written brilliantly. Kudos to you on reading it. I read slander, but haven’t head the heart to read Godless. I wonder when we can finally start ignoring her? I think when the right wing stops using her as their darling.
— Lauren Patrizi - Jul 7, 10:23 AM - #IN RE ANN COULTER…..WITH HER TASTELESS TASTE FOR FASHION FOOD CARS ETC DOESNT ANYONE REALLY THINK SHE LOOKS LIKE THE “WICKED WITCH OF THE NORTH” WITH ALL OF HER TV RANTINGS,HER LONG AIMLESS HAIR STYLES…...RIDICULOUS MAKE UP…..
— LUEBY - Jul 7, 12:19 PM - #THE POOR GAL JUST NEEDS A BROOM ON SET TO FEEL RIGHT AT HOME…AND IS IT TRUE THAT SHE’S REALLY MARRIED.????....THAT MUST BE GOSSIP…..!!!!.
MY DEFINITION OF COULTER IS A SMART…HARLDY INTELLIGENT SEXLESS FEMALE WHO IS AFRIAD OF GETTING OLDER AND DEALING WITH THE REAL BRAINS IN THIS COUNTRY ON THEIR LEVEL ..WHICH IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE LASS..LETS KEEP HER ON THE SEAN HANNITY SHOW..THAT’S HER SPEED
LUEBY POPOFF
RETIRED SR. V.P./
CREDIT SUISSE
I wish we could “shun” her, the way the Amish shun undesirables in their community. I hate the fact that she is making money for her sick views.
— Barbara Ehrlich - Jul 7, 12:31 PM - #I only hope that the copy you read was a borrowed one – I cringe every time I think about the money she makes when a copy of this tripe gets sold! Also, I commend you for having the stomach to make it through the experience. I’d have probably thrown the thing out a window by page 2.
— Wendi Staib - Jul 7, 12:33 PM - #You should post this as a review on Amazon.com
— preacha man - Jul 7, 01:07 PM - #Very well written! I enjoyed your analysis of her writings. I do not honestly think that she believes half of the words she utters or writes. She knows she has to sell books, and I guess her way of doing it is through “shock media”. Again, this goes back to a comment I made on another article, that there is a certain level of tact that one can reserve and still convey they point you are trying to make. Her refusal to use tact is pure ignorance to me. I do not mind people believing what they will about wither side of the ideological spectrum, but “dehumanizing and demonizing them” as you put it, is as much a display of a lack of serious points as it is her boundless ignorance. You were better than me, I would not even have looked at the book in the store when I walked by it, knowing the type of research and reasoning she uses to write her books.
— Corey Ponder - Jul 7, 01:16 PM - #Thanks for such an honest review that shows that cow for what she is—a wicked, mean-spirited, mindless mouthpiece for the right wing. Your thoughtful piece shows that you saw through her hate-filled words for the mindless fodder they are.
— Rose - Jul 7, 01:24 PM - #Brilliant essay on Ann Coulter. But you didn’t mention the one basic motivation that drives her—-money.
— james knight - Jul 7, 01:35 PM - #Well done. I, along with other commenters, haven’t the stomach to read Coultergeist’s book, but it’s comforting to know that other intelligent folks are. Somebody’s got to take her on…
— Sabrina - Jul 7, 01:42 PM - #You reached farther into this piece of drivel than I could stomach. She must be laughing all the way to the bank because of us suckers who bought this blathering piece of garbage. Made the mistake of opening up Michael Malkins’ “Unhinged.” while also reading “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire. His was the only one of the three that made any sense.
— PJ - Jul 7, 01:42 PM - #Loved your review and agree 100%. What I don’t understand is why the talk shows continue to interview this despicable person. Can’t stand her and wonder what kind of IQ the people have to believe in her!
— Lynn Williams - Jul 7, 01:54 PM - #Excellent review… very similar conclusion to what Thomas Frank said about her in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” ... Coulter and her ilk are waging a war against “liberals” and are destroying legitimate political discourse in the process. Again, great review.
— John - Jul 7, 02:46 PM - #She is a constantly barking dog. . .as with any constantly barking dog she is and will be ultimately meaningless and simply annoying.
— Ron MacQuarrie - Jul 7, 03:33 PM - #Very good essay. And yes you should put it on Amazon as a review. At least you read the dang thing.
Well, my I.Q. is 142 and while I love Ann Coulter I don’t “believe” in her. I believe in my will to get my ass out of bed before sunrise every day and go earn a living. That’s it. I don’t count on Jesus, Allah, or Ted freaking Kennedy. Many writers, of all political points of view, condemn Coulter’s bombastic style but the proof of its effectiveness can be found right here. Are we discussing the brilliant Mark Steyn? No. Jonah Goldberg? Sorry. We’re talking about Ann Coulter. She holds Democrats in contempt. They cry. Then they lose. More, please.
— jerry - Jul 7, 04:01 PM - #Great review! I agree that this should be published on Amazon.com.
Not that it’s a positive review of Ann Coulter, but man, this review makes me want to ignore this latest piece of heartless venom! :)
— Matt Fisher - Jul 7, 04:03 PM - #Great review! I haven’t read the book, but I am happy that somebody did who can write as beautifully about the Great Lie that she tells as you do.
— Gail Lelyveld - Jul 7, 04:22 PM - #Is this the same book that CNN, CBS. et al, are speaking about as the product of her plagiarism?
— J.C. Westall - Jul 7, 04:31 PM - #If you really want to know about Coulter read Blinded by the Right by David Brock, ex RWing hit man.
No one READS her books, the RWers BUY the books in BULK then dump them—this gives her a status on NYT Best Seller list and perpetuates the illusion.
Coulter’s job is to rant, that is what she does. Hell, everyone has to accept their role in the GOP Noise Machine. Then the corporate media obliges her by giving her what she always says she (and her ilk) never get—a platform Then Coulter maintains her “victimhood” as the lone, selfless salmon fighting the “rivers of liberalism”.
To Jerry who loves her, I think you ought to love yourself more. She is simply a whore who has an adams-apple. She smokes like a chimney & mainlines Chardonnay. She looks anorexic.
Oh Jerry, her MO is to rail against the “elitist liberals from the Northeast, infering the Ivy League. What state do you think she hails from? Connecticut.
The best description of her yet is a Hissing Water Moccasin.
— David T Gray, SSGT, USAF 67-71 - Jul 7, 05:08 PM - #Thank you, thank you, thank you for your intelligent and even self critical essay…the mark of a truly reasonable person! Unlike the scary people like Ann Coulter and others who shall be nameless (WHICHEVER side of the aisle) that get their time on the media.
— Phil West - Jul 7, 05:40 PM - #Whatever happened to the enlightened, intelligent, more modest and reasonable people I have always hoped Americans leading our politics, media, etc., could be? How is it possible that things have gotten this disgustingly, and frighteningly, irrational and shrill?
The first warning shot to listen for when sizing up a worthy opponent or partner in discussion is whether they use broad, meaningless, detrimental summary terms like ‘liberal’, ‘conservative’, ‘black’, ‘white’, ‘TRUTH’.
I could never bring myself to spend a dollar, if a penny of it might go toward enriching Ann Coulter, but I did spend an hour standing in an airport bookstore to look through her latest compendium of intellectual garbage. The most ludicrous part of Godless is the section that Collinsworth apparently skipped, in which Coulter repeats every discredited right wing criticism of evolution she could find. The thing about Ann Coulter is she’s not stupid; she’s just uninformed. Her success comes from being shameless enough to utter extravagant, hate-filled lies with the appearance of sincerity, so she doesn’t need to know much. This is why she resolutely keeps her mouth shut, when she’s on panel shows with well-informed people: she knows she’s an ignoramus. Like bestiality and child-porn, the filth she dispenses will always find an audience at the lower end of the bell curve.
— A.J. Hill - Jul 7, 06:28 PM - #You’re giving Coulter exactly what she wants: attention. Even the dimwitted, Dorito-munching neocon nerds married to their computers realize Coulter, like Limbaugh, Matt Sludge (Dredge, whatever), O’Reilly are entertainment, playing to their bigotry. Why waste time and space on her? Coulter’s star arced coupla years ago.
Let’s focus on the real horrors, media consolidation; GOPs on the board of PBS pushing Bill Moyers into earlier than wanted retirement and reducing NOW to a half hour after that program began asking uncomfortable questions too close to home; on CBS’s shameful treatment of Dan Rather; on ABC pushing Ted Koppel into earlier than wanted retirement after he showed the names of young Americans butchered in Iraq. There are plenty of serious issues, which makes us wonder if many progressives are secretly turned on by Barbie Coulter.— Mike Scott - Jul 8, 12:10 AM - #Wow. This was a really, really well-written essay.
— Superduperficial - Jul 8, 12:30 AM - #High IQ’s & political as well as actual genocide go hand in hand as evidenced by the last century.I suppose all of Coulters friends still mourn for fascism as trains ran on time but never take time to mention who was actually in the boxcars.My opinion is that she is a symptom of a disease but not The disease.I don’t feel she has original thoughts but rather passes off what is said by many on the right behind closed doors.I applaud any person who will swim in her excrement as research but to actually verify if what she wrote is plagarized will mean an extended time submerged in at least one of Dante’s
— Anthony M Dambrosi - Jul 8, 02:36 AM - #rings.
Unfortunately, Coulter SELLS books and people, foolishly, read them, thinking they’re credible; therefore, they need to be refuted for the tripe they are. A dirty business, but, alas, someone has to do it, and I, for one, salute him for the effort!
— John Breslin - Jul 8, 03:46 AM - #Re: Why Coulter drives dems crazy
She is Beautiful, Brilliant, and plays the game tougher than Cindy Sheehan and Larry Flynt put together.
BTW: loved her book :-)
— Bert Hopper - Jul 8, 01:05 PM - #I wondered why Bill Maher had her on his first, cancelled show and concluded he must be getting in her pants. Obviously she invites argument if you take her provocative lies even semi-seriously. Playing the slut roll makes it difficult to consider her attractive much less beautiful; Like Limbaugh, her perpetual screed and gaunt look makes me suspect drug use.
Although not a likely effective therapy, I have to say that the cruelist reaction is just to ignore her.
— Steve - Jul 8, 01:47 PM - #Coulter as beautiful and brilliant? Do you think the devil would appear in cloven hoof?
She doesnt drive me crazy though…she makes me sad for reasonable people the world over. She is an embarassment to my country… the way it rewards people who are part of the problem.
— Brian Levy - Jul 8, 04:28 PM - #Lets face facts- this woman is a mental case, plain and simple. What is she hiding- I can only speculate. She actually makes Bush seem reasonable, although many people seem to be realizing that King George himself cares nothing except for his own political power, he doesn’t care about how he is leading this country to a Christian Theocracy while at the same time not willing to admit his Iraq policy is a total disaster, born of lies, yet he cares nothing for all those true patriots he sent and is sending to their deaths. As for terrorists, what better present could Bush have sent to Osama other then virtually abandoning the hunt for him while totally destabilizing Iraq. We pray for Bush’s total disgrace and impeachment/removal every day, and hope he and the likes of Coulter will ultimately spend eternity living in the devils house.
— Stanley James - Jul 8, 08:06 PM - #Coulter really sucks.
— George Wall - Jul 8, 08:32 PM - #Please please please don’t associate Ann Coulter with the rest of the GOP. As a staunch Republican who has spent many years of my life working to elect Republicans, she is not someone I respect or someone that I think should be paid any attention. I refuse to buy her books and refuse to deal with her because she is exactly what others have said here: spiteful. It is possible to argue against the ideas of both ends of the spectrum on an intellectual level and there are of course people on both sides who are miserable excuses for human beings, but she crosses the line, infinitely. So please recognize her for the anomaly that she is and don’t think her views are those of all of us.
— Tiffany - Jul 9, 11:40 AM - #Seriously, folks. Don’t you realize that Ann Coulter will say anything that will bring her attention and TV/radio coverage? She’s not interested in logic, only self-promotion. What I find astounding (and quite telling, not to mention depressing) is that few, if any, republicans will repudiate her and her twisted comments. There really is something seriously wrong with her.. . and the party that won’t denounce her.
— Jill - Jul 9, 03:27 PM - #I like her message even though the presentation grates like fingernails on a chalkboard. By the way, the last history of World War II that I read didn’t credit liberals (Roosevelt?) with leading the US into war with the Nazis. I seem to recall that Germany declared war on the US on December 11, 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, an apparent discharge of its responsibilities under its tripartite pact with Italy and Japan and even though US support of Britain may have provoked Hitler to take that rash act.
Larry
— Larry - Jul 9, 04:46 PM - #Factoids divorced from context is no way to understand history. As we should all remember from h.s. US history, FDR was hankering to enter the war in Europe because he did see the Nazis as a huge threat. But he had to fight a Congress and a public unwilling to enter a bloodbath. After all, American freedoms were not being threatened by Hitler. Ergo: cash-carry, lend-lease. Remember, Larry?
— Jane - Jul 9, 11:21 PM - #88% of Americans opposed invading Germany prior to Pearl Harbor. Many, many, leftists who admired the Soviet Union were opposed to invading Germany on grounds that Hitler and Uncle Joe were allied. Conservatives of the era opposed invading Germany on isolationist grounds.
— Jane - Jul 10, 01:10 PM - #Ann Coulter, the Wicked Witch of the Worst. Ignore her and eventually she will shrivel up and die.
— RAY MCBAIN - Jul 14, 11:23 AM - #Yes, there were a few stupid “leftists”. Some of them were FBI plants (informers), who opposed the war to instigate turmoil among leftists. Nobody with any sense opposed the war against the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Japanese.
— RAY MCBAIN - Jul 14, 11:26 AM - #A.C. IS a liberal. She dresses liberally. She speaks liberally. She, no doubt, spends money liberally. She dots her script liberally with sweeping generalizations of all she enjoys. Freedom itself is liberal. She was on Hardball last night, and with her snotty elitist tone that she ascribes as a uniquely liberal defect dismissed any and all assertions that she regrets anything she’s ever written. I will give credit to the host who was sitting in for Chris Matthews though, she did (perhaps not knowing she was on camera at that moment) roll her eyes. It was a “Kodak” moment!
— Susan - Jul 15, 09:43 AM - #There is no doubt that Ann Coulter engages in polemics rather than unbiased analysis. But we, as Americans encountered much worse during the founding years of our Republic. Remember the scandal mongers and newspapermen hired by the Jefferson and Hamilton to attack and smear one another? For good or for ill, polemics are as old as our Republic itself. As hard as it is, we might as well get used to it.
— Satya - Jul 18, 12:38 PM - #Typical liberal (in this case meaning “unable to reach rational conclusions”) tripe. Godless tells it exactly as the culture presently exists but which foggy-minded, feel gooders do not wish to admit: that the hate-America-first crowd cannot stand decent, traditional morals and values that once made this country great. I particulalry relish the fact that Coulter, a woman, exposes the liberal hate-mongerers in our society who pretend kindness and caring in all things …. until they run across a woman who won’t go along, then they rip her to shreds as did this reviewer. Way to go Leftists – your true colors come through.
— Zack Fischer - Jul 27, 08:42 AM - #Zack, I do not where or how you base your ultraconservative beliefs but they are 100% incorrect. Same with your buddy Ann. Your blind hatred for opposing ideologies is the reason America is currently experiencing the largest schism between the two ideologies ever since the Civil War. As a liberal I am anything but hate mongering. It pisses me off to no end to see people like me that support and actually perform stem cell research labeled as evil. The only thing I want to do is able to advance biomedial research to the point where we can make progress towards saving lives. However, you are too close minded to see anything past your ultraconservative beliefs. Thank God (yes I am a Christian) the majority of Americans are moderates and not hate mogering conservatives or liberals like you.
— josh S. - Aug 1, 10:32 AM - #Ann Coulter is the best thing that ever happened to this country yall need to set your priorities straight. Liberals have no damned morals what so ever and beleive it or not liberalism is Godless.
— Not Lib - Aug 2, 04:36 PM - #I find it interesting how the lengthy, logic supported, level-headed liberal post above was “refuted” by drivel like this. where do you come up with this crap? and what debate class awarded you a victory for making sweeping generalizations without a single real supporting fact? the liberal posters on this page seem to have the unique (High School graduate, perhaps) ability to present the facts as they see them and reach a conclusion they believe based on those facts, which can then be referenced when said conclusion is disputed while still respecting the opposing arguments of those who have the common courtesy to form their opinions in the same manner. “liberals have no damned morals what so ever” is not a fact and frankly is both blatantly ignorant and deeply offensive. i have to ask: are you stupid? or simply blinded by denial and fueled by an abiding hatred instilled in you during childhood and reinforced by the shared views of your peers…
— Moderate - Aug 12, 01:53 AM - #I consider myself very conservative and even I don’t like her. At the very best, you can say that she’s entertainingly absurd and shrill and fun to laugh at. In the end, though, she ends up making all conservatives look bad. Instead of presenting logical arguments, she raves irrationally and spews hate. And the stupidest part is that people swallow it. Of course there is a lot that can be said about liberalism’s flaws, but she doesn’t do that well at all.
— Megan - Aug 13, 02:12 PM - #Deborah Tannen wrote a book called “The Argument Culture” which analyzes American society as a culture in which there is only “right” and “wrong” and no middle-ground. While I can’t stand AC, I have to say that the comments posted on this site in general (with exceptions) follow this right-wrong formula. By constructing arguments as either ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ with a tacit meaning of ‘democrat’ or ‘republican,’ the middle ground (which I do not believe Ann Coulter espouses mind) is effectively hidden behind a desire for argument, of winning or losing and ultimately getting nowhere except in the hair of other readers. Blind agreement is obviously not an option, with Ann Coulter or the other extremes, but the fact that she and others like her exist must mean there is a market for her and I think some of the more rightist commentators have put their fingers on it, essentially by doing the same thing as the leftists and accusing rather than deconstructing and finding the middle ground. And if anyone can make an argument for AC being the middle ground, I’d love to hear it!
— Tim - Sep 6, 12:05 PM - #