Paint and bodywork by Earl Scheib.
Freaks of nature.
Posted on 08/21/2002 3:59:38 AM PDT by Liz
Ann Coulter, author of the No. 1 best-selling nonfiction book in America—Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, a small book coruscating with giddy bile—was 20 minutes late to lunch at Michael’s, the sunlit media-centric restaurant on West 55th Street. I’d been so excited to meet the glowing scimitar of the American right that I hadn’t fallen asleep until 5 a.m. the night before.
Now I was worried that Ann had backed out. Had she figured she’d be un-welcomed, hissed at, throttled at the hub center of the media elite?
Bobby Zarem, the publicist, waved to me from a nearby table. He was sitting with a male writer and a female television producer. Both their composures underwent a remarkable transformation when I told them who would be joining me.
"She’s the devil," said the producer, adding that Ms. Coulter was "ultraconservative."
"She is the Antichrist," said the writer. A piece of food flew out of his mouth. "We might have to leave."
Yes, mention Ann Coulter in New York and food tends to fly out of people’s mouths. Then they get a knowing look that says, Are you kidding me? Well, I’ve got her number, oh yes I do …. Then, invariably, these people will use the same two words to describe her: either "crazy" or "insane." She is a lunatic "right-wing nut," and also a dangerous, demonic one.
Her book has been No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction since the first week it came out, in early July, which means that the people who dismiss her also have to deal with a secondary emotion: envy. This was true as well in the case of the drenchingly beautiful blonde Clare Boothe Luce, who reveled in writing hit plays when she wasn’t wittily attacking New Dealers; the liberals were supposed to be the wits! It was also true of well-haberdashered libertarian Ayn Rand, and peppery magpie Phyllis Schlafly, whom Ms. Coulter champions in her book for bringing down the Equal Rights Amendment.
On page 2 of Slander—before she begins carving up "unhinged liberals" like Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Dan Rather, Gloria Steinem and Walter Cronkite—Ms. Coulter attacks the "pathetic little parakeet males and grim, quivering, angry women on the Upper West Side of Manhattan hoping to be chosen as that day’s purveyor of hate": the letter-writers to The New York Times.
At that point, I thought I was already falling in love.
However, in the second chapter I experienced an emotion I was less sure about.
"Every pernicious idea to come down the pike is instantly embraced by liberals to prove how powerful they are," Ms. Coulter writes. "Liberals hate society and want to bring it down to reinforce their sense of invincibility."
Now Ms. Coulter had triggered something else in me: I was getting really pissed off. I felt … infuriated … stirred up.
I looked around Michael’s restaurant. They were everywhere.
No one at Michael’s really noticed Ms. Coulter when she showed up, a sluice of sweat dripping off her long, perfect New Canaan nose, apologizing profusely—radio interview, subway, late for everything. She was wearing a simple black dress and black closed-toe heels. She looked nice, not evil.
"I’m never an insider," Ms. Coulter said, looking around the room, not recognizing anyone. "No, I don’t know who they are, I don’t care who they are. I don’t want to go to their cocktail parties, and I no longer want to bother writing articles they ask me to write, only to have them killed when they discover, ‘Oh, maybe we don’t want to publish a conservative after all.’"
So just write books? I chirped.
"That’s right," she said. "That’s right. The American people like me; editors don’t. I’ve arranged my life so that I am unfireable. I don’t have any bosses. The only people who can fire me are the American people. That’s part of the reason I’m not anxious to have a TV show. Who’s gonna give me a TV show? I didn’t work for an impeached, disbarred President who was held in contempt by a federal judge. That’s what they look for in objective reporters."
Next she mentioned some unfair treatment she’d received by Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz, and a recent appearance on MSNBC in which she was attacked by the host, Mike Barnicle (whose name she had trouble remembering for me), and "this Communist yapping at me"—who turned out to be Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor of The Nation.
"I think, on the basis of the recent Supreme Court ruling that we can’t execute the retarded, American journalists commit mass murder without facing the ultimate penalty," Ms. Coulter told me. "I think they are retarded. I’m trying to communicate to the American people and I have to work through a retarded person!"
I must have been looking a little terrified.
"So you know, you say something and somehow ‘Betty Boop’ comes out ‘Adolf Hitler’!" she said, laughing. "What?"
The gaunt Connecticut beauty emitted a horsy laugh.
There are 780 footnotes in the back of Slander, and so far, Ms. Coulter said, only two minor, irrelevant errors have surfaced. "‘Do you realize what this means?’" she said she told her agent. "This means the rest of this book is true! This is scandalous!"
Even though Ms. Coulter’s previous book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, was a best-seller, the publication of Slander did not happen smoothly. At the end of last year, her editor at HarperCollins, Robert Jones, to whom Slander is dedicated, died suddenly of cancer. Then her book was killed by HarperCollins. It took her agent, Joni Evans, two months to find a publisher. Ms. Coulter was told that conservative books don’t sell. An editor at Doubleday informed her that "this book does not move the national dialogue forward," to which Ms. Coulter replied, "That’s funny, because I thought book publishers made money on the basis of how many books they sold."
The Crown Publishing Group finally came through.
"I don’t know—if I were Rupert Murdoch, I think I’d fire some of the people at HarperCollins for turning down the No. 1 best-selling book of the summer for purely ideological reasons," she said. "I think if I were a stockholder in HarperCollins, I’d be interested to know they turned it down because they personally disagree with it because they’re Manhattan liberals."
She’s been having fun on her book tour. Her recent appearance on Today was "fun" and "fantastic." She’d called Today co-host Katie Couric "the affable Eva Braun of morning TV" in her book, and the media had a glamorous pre-fab cat fight. Larry King Live didn’t work out as well. Ms. Coulter was told they’d only have her on with Whitewater figure Susan McDougal. Then Phil Donahue wrestled her unpleasantly on MSNBC.
An old-timer at the next table who’d been staring into space walked by Ms. Coulter and said out of the side of his mouth, "I love the part of your book where you finally nail Reagan for inventing the Al Qaeda," and kept walking.
Ms. Coulter smiled but didn’t look up. "I think he’s a crazy person," she said. "There’s something about celebrity—it attracts people with the tin foil on their heads. I think that was a guy with tin foil on his head."
Ms. Coulter’s book is filled with insults. Christie Todd Whitman is a "birdbrain" and a "dimwit," while Senator Jim Jeffords is a "half-wit." The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin is a "political hack duly celebrated for making things up, engaging in unethical behavior, and sliming other liberal journalists for a want of alacrity in bending over for Bill Clinton." Ms. Coulter described this as "colorful commentary." And she said it’s all backed up with footnotes.
She called herself "an open controversialist," as though it rationalized everything. Ms. Coulter’s gazpacho was taken away. She was served a hanger steak.
Mr. Zarem and his two friends got up to leave. I told Ms. Coulter they’d called her the Antichrist.
"Excellent!" she said. "Excellent. It is a good thing, not a bad thing, to be attacked by the enemy."
Before her book was published, Ms. Coulter had an idea to only run endorsements by her liberal enemies on the jacket flap, but her publisher said no. Instead, there are quotes from Rush Limbaugh, Bill Maher and Geraldo Rivera. Ms. Coulter said she’s also friendly with MSNBC commentator and West Wing writer Lawrence O’Donnell and Saturday Night Live political satirists Jim Downey and Al Franken. Ms. Coulter said she handed a copy of her book to The New York Times’ David Sanger, who looked it over, then replied: "You know, I’ve got to start e-mailing you my articles because there’s a lot more you could have attacked me for!"
One of Mr. Sanger’s colleagues was not amused. "Frank Rich," she said, "is the only person ever who has refused to be in a green room with me." But former Times White House correspondent Frank Bruni, now in Rome, is a friend of hers, and she said that Times columnist Maureen Dowd doesn’t mind her, even after being heaped with abuse in Slander. "She’s attacked me," Ms. Coulter said. "I think it’s good P.R. In fact, I’m a little disappointed she hasn’t attacked me recently."
I asked Ms. Coulter if she wanted a world without liberals.
"Yes! They’ve nearly wrecked the country. Off with them!"
--SNIP--
Go to source link for rest of lengthy article.
You may reach George Gurley via email at: ggurley@observer.com.
This column ran on page 1 in the 8/26/2002 edition of The New York Observer.
Excellant, most excellant!!!
Ms. Coulter smiled but didn’t look up. "I think he’s a crazy person," she said. "There’s something about celebrity—it attracts people with the tin foil on their heads. I think that was a guy with tin foil on his head."
Seriously, Ann, be careful out there.
So that's what they call implants these days?
the rule is
any
article about Ann C. has to have a photo..... I don't make the rules... I just enforce them.. hahahahahahahahaha
Paint and bodywork by Earl Scheib.
Freaks of nature.
Precisely what the author intended.
From the right: The Boob, the *itch, the Boychik, and the Bimbo
You have to admit, it is much more artistic than saying "bazooms". ;)
Regards, Ivan
I didn't know any of that about HarperCollins refusing to publish it. I agree that some heads should roll there for their stupidity...not to mention for their stupid ideology.
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