Posted on 10/08/2004 11:23:10 AM PDT by FrontPageMag.com
The Most Unpublished Writer
By David Horowitz
I've taken to reading Ann Coulter's new book How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must) whenever I need respite from the cacophonies of the current campaign. After Tuesday's Vice Presidential debate it was salutary to read her chapter on "Kerry's Puppy" about his pick of ambulance chaser (and not to be corrected fibber) John Edwards for the second spot. I have to say I am getting physically ill watching a rabidly partisan press blow up a war policy that has kept 300 million Americans safe for over three years. Take a look at the actual Duelfer Report on WMDs and how Saddam was a month away from producing biological weapons for example and then compare this one fact to any account in the mainstream press and get a glimpse of how a rabid left is conspiring to mislead the public and elect a team with no position and no policy and no conviction on a war that may one day costs tens of thousands of American lives.
While reading the introduction to Ann's book, I came across her surprising comment that she is "the most unpublished writer in America." Hyperbole is Ann's métier, but there is always a heavy dose of reality in any of her claims and this was no exception. Yes, her books make her one of the best-selling authors in America today. But Ann is a columnist first and foremost and to this day, despite her prominence as a public intellectual, her biting wit and colorful prose, not a single major newspaper will carry her column. To read her you need to pick up a copy of Human Events, or go to the Internet, the media outlet the left doesn't control. This is a media which syndicates such waterflies, incompetents, gutter journalists and ideologues as Bob Herbert, Molly Ivins, Joe Conason, Julianne Malveaux, Bob Scheer, Paul Krugman, Harold Meyerson and Maureen Dowd after all. Maureen Dowd, whose base is the New York Times, is the perfect Coulter analogue -- witty, biting, and hyperbolic. The difference is that she (and all the others) is a raving leftist, hence adoptable by a leftwing press.
All this is by way of explaining an article I wrote which ran as the lead feature in my Internet magazine FrontPage on Friday. I am often asked by people why I don't write op-ed pieces for the print media -- the L.A. Times for example, which is my home town paper. Actually I have done so, but I have found that the Times for example takes so long to consider my work (dating it and making it seem stale), so often edits my columns politically and more often than not rejects them, that I have for all intents and purposes given up trying. Every few months or so I still submit a piece however. I submitted the lead FrontPage story to the Times the previous Sunday. I kept it for a week on the off chance the Times might print it if it didn't appear first in FrontPage. The piece was written in part to draw attention to my new book Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and The American Left -- a common practice of authors, like appearing on Talk Radio Shows. So it was also sent to the New York Times, the Washington Post and other major papers to no avail. The fact is, I have never had a column printed in the aforesaid papers or most of the other major papers, all edited by leftists who simply hate my views. Of course this will cut down the sales of my book, but will not cut down the number of times leftists will accuse me of becoming a conservative to make money.
These observations are just another small way of looking at the phenomenon of this election campaign where the American media has become an adjunct of the DNC's Big Lie campaign designed to spin the President out of office and replace him with a man who no one is really for -- they're just against George Bush. This is a mentality asking for disaster, and unfortunately if they succeed they will probably not be disappointed.
It is all of Coulter's work - old work - what a ripoff.
I'll give her "witty" and "hyperoblic," but intellectual? I think not.
"My wife gave How to Talk to A Liberal to me yesterday. Its a very good read, as is all of Coulter's work."
"It is all of Coulter's work - old work - what a ripoff.
I'll give her "witty" and "hyperoblic," but intellectual? I think not."
First, I know its reprints of her columns, but two things come to mind. 1. She's not published by the large daily newspapers, so I haven't read most of them. 2. She has added various pre and post scripts to each.
Finally, the last chapter is those columns USA Today wouldn't run, for one example.
Sorry, I liked the book. That you would trash her, without reading it, is telling.
I listen to books (CDs) - enjoyed Unfit and American Soldier. American Soldier CD is abridged, but has Toby Keith's 'American Soldier' on at the beginning. I also listened to Ann's new one. I love her wit, byte and all.
You know, that's the typical pro-Coulter mantra "you haven't read the book." I've read the book. I own the book, as I own all three of her other books.
Her columns and archives are all over the internet if you simply search NRO, Worldnetdaily, Frontpage mag and anncoulter.com. I didn't thrash her - she's not an intellectual. She's bright, no doubt, but she's no intellectual.
There's very little new material. The book is a ripoff, pure and simple, and Ann remains the attractive huckster she's always been. I've always thought that the picture of her and Al Sharpton together is rather amusing -- and telling.
"Inotherwords Iraq could have reconstituted its BW program in a short time - because it was technically relatively easy to do so - but it had absolutely no such intention.
Talk about a liar misleading the public. And I used to respect Horowitz." ~ liberallarry
REEEEEEEEEALLY?????? Ding! Ding!! You picked a good screen name.
Excerpt from item below: "The fact that Saddam had no W.M.D. in 2001 has been amply reported, but it's been isolated from the more important and complicated fact of Saddam's nature and intent."
The Report That Nails Saddam
NY Times ^ | October 9, 2004 | DAVID BROOKS
Posted on 10/09/2004 12:28:39 AM EDT by neverdem
Saddam Hussein saw his life as an unfolding epic narrative, with retreats and advances, but always the same ending.
He would go down in history as the glorious Arab leader, as the Saladin of his day. One thousand years from now, schoolchildren would look back and marvel at the life of The Struggler, the great leader whose life was one of incessant strife, but who restored the greatness of the Arab nation.
They would look back and see the man who lived by his saying: "We will never lower our heads as long as we live, even if we have to destroy everybody."
Charles Duelfer opened his report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction with those words. For a humiliated people, Saddam would restore pride by any means.
Saddam knew the tools he would need to reshape history and establish his glory: weapons of mass destruction.
These weapons had what Duelfer and his team called a "totemic" importance to him.
With these weapons, Saddam had defeated the evil Persians. With these weapons he had crushed his internal opponents. With these weapons he would deter what he called the "Zionist octopus" in both Israel and America.
But in the 1990's, the world was arrayed against him to deprive him of these weapons. So Saddam, the clever one, The Struggler, undertook a tactical retreat.
He would destroy the weapons while preserving his capacities to make them later.
He would foil the inspectors and divide the international community. He would induce it to end the sanctions it had imposed to pen him in. Then, when the sanctions were lifted, he would reconstitute his weapons and emerge greater and mightier than before.
The world lacked what Saddam had: the long perspective.
Saddam understood that what others see as a defeat or a setback can really be a glorious victory if it is seen in the context of the longer epic.
Saddam worked patiently to undermine the sanctions. He stored the corpses of babies in great piles, and then unveiled them all at once in great processions to illustrate the great humanitarian horrors of the sanctions.
Saddam personally made up a list of officials at the U.N., in France, in Russia and elsewhere who would be bribed.
He sent out his oil ministers to curry favor with China, France, Turkey and Russia. He established illicit trading relations with Ukraine, Syria, North Korea and other nations to rebuild his arsenal.
It was all working.
He acquired about $11 billion through illicit trading. He used the oil-for-food billions to build palaces. His oil minister was treated as a "rock star," as the report put it, at international events, so thick was the lust to trade with Iraq.
France, Russia, China and other nations lobbied to lift sanctions. Saddam was, as the Duelfer report noted, "palpably close" to ending sanctions.
With sanctions weakening and money flowing, he rebuilt his strength.
He contacted W.M.D. scientists in Russia, Belarus, Bulgaria and elsewhere to enhance his technical knowledge base. He increased the funds for his nuclear scientists. He increased his military-industrial-complex's budget 40-fold between 1996 and 2002. He increased the number of technical research projects to 3,200 from 40. As Duelfer reports, "Prohibited goods and weapons were being shipped into Iraq with virtually no problem."
And that is where Duelfer's story ends.
Duelfer makes clear on the very first page of his report that it is a story. It is a mistake and a distortion, he writes, to pick out a single frame of the movie and isolate it from the rest of the tale.
But that is exactly what has happened.
I have never in my life seen a government report so distorted by partisan passions.
The fact that Saddam had no W.M.D. in 2001 has been amply reported, but it's been isolated from the more important and complicated fact of Saddam's nature and intent.
But we know where things were headed.
Sanctions would have been lifted. Saddam, rich, triumphant and unbalanced, would have reconstituted his W.M.D. Perhaps he would have joined a nuclear arms race with Iran. Perhaps he would have left it all to his pathological heir Qusay.
We can argue about what would have been the best way to depose Saddam, but this report makes it crystal clear that this insatiable tyrant needed to be deposed. He was the menace, and, as the world dithered, he was winning his struggle. He was on the verge of greatness. We would all now be living in his nightmare.
E-mail: dabrooks@nytimes.com
Horowitz said the Duelfer report said one thing when actually it said another. Why should I or anyone else care what the Times, or anyone else, has to say about it...or how many rockets were found under the bed?
amen!
Because some people's opinions carry more weight than those of others?
Because David Brooks is not the N.Y.Times?
Don't bother to answer. You should have been able to reason that out for yourself.... or at the least have done some research on David Brooks and his credentials before you embarrassed yourself with that response.
Either Duelfer said what Horowitz claimed...or he didn't and Horowitz is a liar and distorter. The way to check is to read the Duelfer report...not the NYTimes or David Brooks.
That's assuming you're capable of reasoning - which, quite clearly, you're not. Obviously you have to see what Brooks, or your mommy, or some other politically correct person thinks before you can have an opinion.
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
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