ann coulter doesn't have a scrap of integrity, you can't compare her to franken at all. besides to say they are both human... i sometimes even doubt that after reading one of her books. and yes, i read the enemy sometimes...
a little taste of whats wrong with ann coulter.
by Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times [US]
July 22, 2002
If Ann Coulter were a singer, she'd be Ethel Merman. Even her photos are blunt and loud. In the cover shot of Coulter's book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right , she displays the most chilling stare this side of Honey Bunny in "Pulp Fiction."
But despite the vast, left-wing conspiracy working against her, Coulter has appeared on every show this side of "Meet the Osbournes" to plug the book. Slander is No. 1 on the Publishers Weekly list, No. 1 on the New York Times list, No. 3 on amazon.com and No. 1 in the hearts of liberal-bashing Americans from coast to coast.
Seems like a good time to point out just a few of the hateful proclamations, misleading assertions and incorrect statements in the book.
On p. 4, Coulter establishes her tone--and her propensity for twisting quotes like Twizzler sticks to suit her needs--when she writes: "The infernal flag-waving after 9/11 nearly drove liberals out of their gourds. For the left, 'flag-waving' is an epithet. Liberals variously call the flag a 'joke,' 'very, very dumb,' and--most cutting--'not cosmopolitan.' ''
The "joke" quote is attributed to director Robert Altman, who was primarily criticizing the Bush administration. Also, Altman was talking not about genuine displays of patriotism, but the commercialized omnipresence of the flag. As he later told People magazine, "I don't think [the American flag] should be on brassieres."
Hmmm. Sounds likes an opinion Coulter would applaud.
As for the "very, very dumb" remark, the article Coulter cites is a New York Times piece about a controversy in Honolulu last November when an American flag was raised atop the Iolani Palace, the 19th century seat of the Hawaiian monarchy. Reacting to the suggestion that Hawaiians aren't as patriotic as other Americans, University of Hawaii-West Oahu professor Dan Boylan said, "This is when people start acting very, very dumb in their patriotism and flag-waving. I'll take Dan Inouye's empty sleeve as patriotism long before I'll take a passing bumper sticker on my car that says, 'America Forever.' "
Boylan was referring to former U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, who lost an arm in World War II. And I don't see how you can view his statement as anything but intelligent and pro-American.
Finally there's Coulter's charge that "liberals" call the flag "not cosmopolitan." Once again she lifts a statement out of context and makes a huge generalization about millions of people: those dreaded liberals.
The source Coulter cites, yet again, is a New York Times article. (Coulter hates the New York Times, but she uses it as a research tool more often than an undergrad with a double major.) Noting that the American flag didn't have a huge presence in New York prior to 9/11, historian David Nasaw said, "New York has just been too much of a cosmopolitan town for flag-waving. It is the home of the UN, and a place filled with tourists, with immigrants, with people doing trade."
How Coulter decided that Nasaw is a "liberal" is beyond me. In any case, she either fails to understand or chooses to ignore the fact that Nasaw was using the primary definition of cosmopolitan, i.e., "belonging to all the world." He wasn't saying it was uncool to display the flag, as Coulter charges. And he was talking about New York before 9/11.
So to varying degrees, all three quotes are misrepresented by Coulter as emblematic of the vitriolic rantings of anti-American "liberals."
How utterly bogus.
*****
Coulter peppers her prose with terribly faulty analogies, e.g., "Hiring [George] Stephanopoulos [to do television] would be the equivalent of a major network hiring Chuck Colson immediately after Watergate."
Well, no. Chuck Colson was convicted of obstruction of justice, a felony, and served seven months in prison. Stephanopoulos' biggest crime was writing a self-aggrandizing tell-all book.
Coulter also has a habit of chastising liberals for their methodology and then using the same techniques to make her own points. She argues that it's wrong for liberals to compare Rush Limbaugh to the major news organizations because Limbaugh is "a noted polemicist" engaging in "satirical commentary," yet when Coulter needs examples to back up her claims that news organizations target conservatives, she routinely quotes columnists. Um, aren't they supposed to have opinions?
A careful analysis--hell, a casual read--of Coulter's book reveals that she often shines the spotlight on her own mistakes. On p. 51 she writes, "[F]or the media to . . . call you an 'airhead' [Katie Couric on Ronald Reagan]--well, that makes strong men tremble and weak men liberals."
Except Couric never actually called Reagan an airhead. On p. 133 of her own book, Coulter writes that what Couric said was: "The Gipper was an airhead. That's one of the new conclusions of a new biography of Ronald Reagan that's drawing a tremendous amount of interest and fire today." (The book's author, Edmund Morris, had said his first impression was that Reagan was "an apparent airhead.")
So for Coulter to write that Couric was the one labeling Reagan an airhead, would be, let's see, what's the word? Oh yeah. A lie.
More fun with Ann tomorrow.
Part 2: Coulter's 'Slander' a lazy mix of errors, invective
Posted on Sunday, July 28 @ 16:29:32 EDT by JohnBrown
Submitted by sv3n
by Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times [US]
July 23rd, 2002
Part 2 of a 2 part series
In her book Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right , the hyperventilating conservative pundit Ann Coulter states that one of the "unbending rules of the universe" is that "It is horrendous to attack a woman for her looks."
Yet in the very next paragraph, Coulter writes, "A blind man in America would think the ugliest women ever . . . are Paula Jones, Linda Tripp, and Katherine Harris. This from the party of Bella Abzug."
Now that's impressive. With a two-paragraph spread, Coulter just might have set the record for hypocritical invective.
And Coulter must think Rush Limbaugh is "horrendous," seeing as how Limbaugh has mocked the looks of Hillary and Chelsea Clinton and Sally Jessy Raphael, among others.
Speaking of Limbaugh, Coulter tells her readers, "Locating some minor accuracy by Rush Limbaugh ... turned out to be more difficult than I imagined ..." and goes on to speculate about the "off chance that anyone ever ... locate some minor inaccuracy ..." in Limbaugh's work.
Minor inaccuracy? Limbaugh's committed dozens of MAJOR gaffes over the years, e.g., "It has not been proven that nicotine is addictive."
Yippee! Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
*****
An ongoing theme of Slander is that liberals never want to talk issues--that it's all about name-calling and making emotional arguments.
Ahem. From Coulter's own book:
P. 26: "The [Ku Klux] Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals!"
P. 157: "The good part of being a Democrat is that you can commit crimes, sell out your base, bomb foreigners, and rape women, and the Democratic faithful still think you're the greatest."
p. 123: "Everyone knows it's an insult to be called a liberal, widely understood to connote a dastardly individual."
p. 181: Katie Couric is "the affable Eva Braun of morning TV."
Good thing Coulter isn't like those liberals who resort to cheap generalizations and insanely inaccurate accusations.
*****
Coulter demonstrates sloppy bias when she writes, "When ABC was considering scrapping Ted Koppel's 'Nightline' in early 2002 because of its low ratings, the most common reaction was, 'Is that still on?' "
Of course, the primary reason ABC considered dropping "Nightline" wasn't ratings--it was the chance to hire David Letterman. As for "the most common" reaction, Coulter's jibe makes her seem silly and uninformed. Yes, dear, "Nightline" is still on. Tell all your friends.
Coulter is equally disingenuous--or is it lazy?--when she reports what she perceives to be a typical example of liberal bias in the media:
"[Jesse] Jackson's son also got his own television show--while actually serving in Congress. A CBS-owned Chicago television station, WBBM-Channel 2, gave the Democratic congressman his own talk show, 'Chicago Focus With Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.' ''
Wrong again. True, it was once announced that Jackson would be getting a weekly show on Channel 2, but the program never came close to getting on the air. It's been two years since the idea died.
And it's just plain funny when Coulter charges that "the entire information industry works overtime to suppress conservative books . . .publishers don't like conservative books, the major media ignore them, and bookstores refuse to stock them." On the very next page, Coulter cites a long list of best-selling books by conservative authors. So the "entire information industry" is suppressing books by conservative writers, yet many of these books have been top sellers. It's a miracle.
*****
In an effort to illustrate media slant, Coulter writes: "In the New York Times archives, 'moderate Republican' has been used 168 times. [But] there have been only 11 sightings of a 'liberal Republican.' "
But the American Prospect Weblog Tapped did a search of the New York Times archives and found 524 mentions of "liberal Republicans."
I guess some conservatives just aren't that good with a computer.
*****
Coulter repeatedly drags up two tired urban legends about Al Gore --the "invented the Internet" and "Love Story" tales--and passes them off as fact, even though both have been thoroughly debunked.
And she makes the claim that unlike Gore, George W. Bush was no fortunate son: "When Bush was admitted to Yale, his father was a little-known congressman ... His father was a Yale alumnus, but so were a lot of other boys' parents. It was Gore, not Bush, who had a famous father likely to impress college admissions committees."
Right. Dubya was a Phillips Academy preppie whose Yalie father was a congressman and whose Yalie grandfather was a two-term U.S. Senator. I'm sure the whole Bush clan was lighting candles every night while waiting to hear if Georgie boy was going to be admitted.
Coulter reminds me of the little girl in "Hey Arnold!" who shouts in Arnold's face that she hates him--though she secretly loves him.
Maybe that's how Ann feels about liberals. Maybe deep down, she's got a crush on us. It's kinda cute.
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