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'Coulterizing' the Left: A Review of ''Slander'' ANN COULTER
GOPUSA ^ | June 27, 2002 | Doug Patton

Posted on 07/02/2002 4:09:10 PM PDT by anncoulteriscool

'Coulterizing' the Left: A Review of ''Slander''

By Doug Patton

GOPUSA News

June 27, 2002

(GOPUSA News) -- They have called Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas ''Uncle Thomas'' and ''lawn jockey for the far right.'' They hope out loud that ''his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies early, like many black men do, of heart disease.''

They called Newt Gingrich ''stupid.'' Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush are just said to be ''dumb.''

Linda Tripp, Paula Jones and Katherine Harris were pronounced ''ugly.''

And, of course, Christian conservatives are always dubbed ''right-wing extremists,'' ''ayatollahs'' or simply ''the religious right.''

''Racist''... ''bigot''... ''fascist''... ''homophobe''... and, of course, the always popular, ''Nazi'' -- these are the terms reserved for anyone whose political views fall to the right of The New York Times.

Oh yes, and conservatives are also ''hateful'' and ''mean-spirited.''

Welcome to the down-and-dirty world of American politics, where, in her latest book, ''Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right,'' attorney/pundit/best-selling author Ann Coulter quotes the left, well, liberally, and takes no prisoners in the process.

American political thought has become increasingly influenced by a group of tough, conservative, independent-minded women. Their ranks include, among others, Laura Ingraham, Monica Crowley and the late Barbara Olson. They are attractive, successful lawyers, journalists and PhDs whose books, columns and radio talk shows display creative, conservative ideas while exposing the outrageous crimes and vacuous lies of the left.

No one does this better than Ann Coulter. She is smart, well educated, secure in her values and in possession of a laser-like ability to cut to the chase. Oh, and, at the risk of sounding chauvinistic, she is also a delight to behold.

Peering out from behind a newspaper emblazoned with the title of this anxiously awaited new work, her photo on the book's cover displays a coy smile slightly reminiscent of the mysterious Mona Lisa.

That, however, is where the mystery ends. Read a few paragraphs of ''Slander'' and you quickly realize why Ann Coulter is a nightmare from which the left cannot awake. Her first book, ''High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,'' should be required reading for every United States Senator, Republican or Democrat, who averted his or her gaze from the mountain of evidence and voted against the removal of the president in 1999. Evidently, a great many Americans found the book compelling, because it soared to the top of The New York Times bestseller list - much to the chagrin of the left. I don't need to be a prophet to predict that ''Slander'' will do even better.

This book has been described as ''picking up where Bernard Goldberg's 'BIAS' left off.'' That is a fair assessment, but it doesn't begin to tell the whole story. As an admitted liberal himself, and a broadcast journalist more accustomed to verbal than to written communication, Goldberg takes the reader only so far into the world of media bias and its impact on our political life. We sense that there is much more he could have told us.

As an attorney, a keen observer of the social and political scene, and a very good writer, Ann Coulter takes us much deeper into the prejudice and collusion of the left. Indeed, she illustrates how inane, hate-filled rhetoric becomes a mantra that permeates the thought and speech of the entire liberal establishment, from Democrat political hack James Carville to United States Senator Ted Kennedy to the editors of The New York Times - a one-note cabal she calls the ''Blabocracy.''

Liberals have become intellectually lazy, she contends, because they are never challenged by media sycophants to defend their ideas. Therefore, emotion has replaced thought and name-calling has replaced rational argument.

Coulter fires her opening salvo in the book's first paragraph and never looks back:

''Political 'debate' in this country is insufferable. Whether conducted in Congress, on the political talk shows, or played out at dinners and cocktail parties, politics is a nasty sport. At the risk of giving away the ending: It's all liberals' fault.''

With chapter titles like ''Liberals Unhinged,'' ''The Gucci Position on Domestic Policy'' and ''The Joy of Arguing With Liberals: You're Stupid!'' I knew at first glance I was in for a treat. Some of Coulter's cutting wit actually made me laugh out loud, as when she referred to the Clintons as ''the felon and his bride.''

No area of American political life escapes Ann Coulter's attention. She tells us why liberals love abortion but won't use the word, why they detest religion while pretending to be more pious than mean-spirited conservatives, and can't abide the growing popularity of Fox News (they thought TV news belonged to them). She even scolds ''moderate'' Republicans by quoting Winston Churchill: ''Appeasement reflects the hope that the crocodile will eat you last.''

But it is Coulter's sardonic, razor-sharp wit that produces some of the most memorable quotes in this book. Consider these classic Coulterisms:

''Liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race.''

''Only when you appreciate the driving force of snobbery in the liberals' worldview do all their preposterous counterintuitive arguments make sense... Secure in the knowledge that their beachfront haciendas will still be standing when the smoke clears, they giddily fiddle with the little people's rules and morals.''

''Even Islamic terrorists don't hate America like liberals do. They don't have the energy. If they had that much energy, they'd have indoor plumbing by now.''

There is also a respectful side to Ann Coulter's writing. I was touched as I read her tribute to a much-maligned conservative pioneer, Phyllis Schlafly. Coulter seems to understand all too well that as a conservative woman in the new millennium, she is standing squarely on this great lady's shoulders. She writes:

''...the national news media maintain a rigid radio silence on Phyllis Schlafly, while endlessly celebrating mediocre feminist shrews. Her very name prompts derisive hoots from Hollywood starlets who couldn't approach Schlafly's IQ if they were having brains instead of silicone injected. To listen to the cool people, you could be forgiven for thinking Schlafly is one step above a cretin. In fact, Schlafly is one of the most accomplished and influential people in America.''

Coulter wants us to know that Schlafly's 1964 book, ''A Choice, Not an Echo,'' sold three million copies and helped hand the GOP presidential nomination to Barry Goldwater, thereby paving the way for the Reagan Revolution. She also was almost single-handedly responsible for stopping the speeding freight train known as the ERA dead in its tracks. A noted scholar, tireless campaigner and committed pro-life activist, she did it all while raising six children.

Coulter goes on to contrast the life of this brilliant woman with the empty but celebrated life of failed feminist Gloria Steinem, whose greatest claim to fame is a bankrupt magazine and a silly slogan: ''A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.''

Exhaustively researched, meticulously documented and bitingly written, ''Slander'' is destined to take its rightful place among the great handbooks of conservative political strategy. Expect a firestorm of protest from the left. Like a tumor in the path of a laser, they have been ''Coulterized.''


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: coulter
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I can't wait till my copy arrive....sorry guy..i dont know how to post pictures on FR.
1 posted on 07/02/2002 4:09:10 PM PDT by anncoulteriscool
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To: anncoulteriscool
OK, pictures of Ann please! =)
2 posted on 07/02/2002 4:18:51 PM PDT by Lunatic Fringe
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To: anncoulteriscool

3 posted on 07/02/2002 4:19:10 PM PDT by Henchster
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To: anncoulteriscool

4 posted on 07/02/2002 4:20:47 PM PDT by martin_fierro
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To: anncoulteriscool
Just finished it. I was planning to write a review for next week. Every word of this one is true, as are Ann's trenchant observations. THis book will be to liberals what garlic is to a werewolf.
5 posted on 07/02/2002 4:21:08 PM PDT by IronJack
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To: anncoulteriscool
I just finished reading it....the book is awesome...and funny.
6 posted on 07/02/2002 4:25:49 PM PDT by big'ol_freeper
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To: anncoulteriscool
More good reading:


7 posted on 07/02/2002 4:25:57 PM PDT by martin_fierro
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To: anncoulteriscool
I'm about half way through. I just read the part about the Florida election scam. She doesn't come out and say it....but I certainly smell a rat. The networks all call Florida before the panhandle closes - costing Bush 10,000 votes. Did anyone investigate this???? No way....

That's a heck of a lot more votes than libs voting for Buchanan

8 posted on 07/02/2002 4:26:09 PM PDT by The Raven
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To: anncoulteriscool
35 pages of footnotes - truth kills lib/dems. And this book is a killer!

If we're going to clone - we need about 100,000 of Ann Coulter.

9 posted on 07/02/2002 4:33:26 PM PDT by anniegetyourgun
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To: anncoulteriscool
I got mine last week and I've finished it. Awesome! I'm so proud of her!!!! You will love every minute of it.
10 posted on 07/02/2002 4:39:04 PM PDT by RAT Patrol
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To: anncoulteriscool
It's in my shopping cart.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: 8

11 posted on 07/02/2002 4:44:09 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: martin_fierro
To my dearest Ann:

Yours are the sweetest eyes
I've ever seen

Love always, Illbay

12 posted on 07/02/2002 5:04:04 PM PDT by Illbay
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To: anniegetyourgun
If we're going to clone - we need about 100,000 of Ann Coulter.

Oh, nononononononono! She and I are simply going to mate and produce prodigious offspring! Hey, we're conservatives; we like doing it the old fashion way.

A lot.

13 posted on 07/02/2002 5:06:38 PM PDT by Illbay
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To: anncoulteriscool
a one-note cabal she calls the ''Blabocracy.''

Does this mean that a Liberal who wants to ban non-PC language is a member of the Bleep-ocracy?

14 posted on 07/02/2002 5:57:41 PM PDT by syriacus
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To: The Raven
The networks all call Florida before the panhandle closes - costing Bush 10,000 votes. Did anyone investigate this???? No way....
Florida does have a recourse, for the future. It is only necessary to enforce the secret ballot laws strictly. That would suppress exit polling and journalism would be denied any basis on which to call the results before the constituted authorities of the state of Florida announce them . . . after, let us hope, the closing of the polls in California--and most certainly after the closing of all the polls in the state of Florida.

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate.


15 posted on 07/02/2002 7:11:17 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
>>Florida does have a recourse, for the future.

I'm curious as to the past. Were the libs behind the early and wrong Florida call for Gore in 2000?

The computer spit the numbers out early.....the only way Gore can win is if Florida goes Dem. And looking at the poll numbers - eastern Florida was a dead heat, western FL was Bush country.

My guess is they had this figured out a week earlier. If Florida wasn't solidly in Gore territory (including the panhandle) - they'd pull the trigger, and use an insider to feed incorrect data to the lib networks (FOX called Bush correctly at 2:00AM)

16 posted on 07/03/2002 1:56:14 AM PDT by The Raven
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To: The Raven
I'm curious as to the past. Were the libs behind the early and wrong Florida call for Gore in 2000? The computer spit the numbers out early.....the only way Gore can win is if Florida goes Dem. And looking at the poll numbers - eastern Florida was a dead heat, western FL was Bush country. My guess is they had this figured out a week earlier. If Florida wasn't solidly in Gore territory (including the panhandle) - they'd pull the trigger, and use an insider to feed incorrect data to the lib networks (FOX called Bush correctly at 2:00AM)
Well, as you know from the link in my post, when you say "the libs" that includes journalists as a class. I do not see the need for a conspiracy theory when stupidity is an adequate explanation, tho. "Stupidity" in the sense that people very often believe what they want to believe. Stock market did that, didn't it?

Reporters wanted to think, and consequently easily believed, both that their poll-watching system was accurate and that Gore was winning. In fact, Gore was losing and their system wasn't telling them so.

Patently their data system was biased by a few points toward Gore, as the quick calls of Gore wins and the s l o w calls of equally wide Gore losses makes manifest.

The lesson I take from that is, not that journalism should call the states quicker for Republicans, but that journalism should not call states at all. Certainly not when the polls are still open in California. And absolutely not when the polls are still open in the state they're calling!!

Broadcast journalism very nearly tipped the election for Gore with that call, and whether it was malicious or not is moot. The FCC did nothing about it, and the Senate committee called in the FCC licensees and said, "If you don't mind, may I ask you a question?" Exactly as if broadcasting were a First Amendment right; if you think it is, try doing it without an FCC license the way you can speak and print without any license! The First Amendment was framed to prevent the government from ever making "some animals [politically] more equal than others," as Orwell put it. The government created the FCC, created broadcasting, by doing precisely that.


17 posted on 07/03/2002 3:21:03 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
>>Broadcast journalism very nearly tipped the election for Gore with that call, and whether it was malicious or not is moot.

...moot?? Why do you say that? Severe punishment would be in order. If they got away with it, we're inviting more brazen behavior.

18 posted on 07/03/2002 4:04:02 AM PDT by The Raven
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To: anncoulteriscool
This is the first book review I have ever bookmarked. It's that good. Thanks for posting it.
19 posted on 07/03/2002 4:18:02 AM PDT by Skooz
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To: IronJack
THis book will be to liberals what garlic is to a werewolf.

The "reviews" at Amazon.com prove your point. Of course, I don't for a minute believe those libbies read the book before posting their drivel.

20 posted on 07/03/2002 4:30:06 AM PDT by Skooz
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