To the Coulter haters I say, sticks and stones...
Posted on 06/20/2006 7:01:29 PM PDT by pissant
"Writing," observed the French playwright Moliere, "is like prostitution. First you do it for love, then for a few close friends, and then for money."
This aphorism is brought forcefully to mind by the cover of Ann Coulter's latest book, leering at customers from the windows of America's biggest bookstores. As always, the cover features a portrait of the artist as a young tart, blond locks flowing, her size zero little black dress catering to a combination of ideological and erotic perversion that's disturbing to contemplate.
In The New York Times, David Carr doesn't hesitate to label Coulter a literary crack whore, although naturally the editors of that august publication won't allow such an indelicate phrase to appear in its pages. Coulter, Carr suggests, "knows precisely what she is saying" when she says of certain 9/11 widows that she's "never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much."
For Carr, Coulter's habit of making outrageous statements is part of a simple and cynical swindle: say vile things, get lots of publicity for doing so, then sell hundreds of thousands of books as one's reward for performing unnatural intellectual acts on TV.
Prostitution, however, is a tricky business. I can attest that when she was an unknown law student, Coulter said outrageous things all the time, in class, in conversation, and in print. Was she merely laying the groundwork for selling her honor dear? It seems doubtful.
For what it's worth, Coulter's views have always seemed to me to be sincerely held, to the extent that narcissistic borderline personalities can be sincere. Not all writers are prostitutes, but all writers are narcissists, and Coulter appears to represent an especially acute case of someone who writes in order to be at the center of attention (hence the glossy locks and little black dress).
Nevertheless prostitution is everywhere in our society, and indeed the willingness to sell what shouldn't be sold often helps explain what's happening when one tries to interpret otherwise puzzling events.
Consider the drive to get the American Medical Association to redefine "obesity" in a way that will cause 40 percent of America's children to suddenly contract a dreaded disease. The campaign will likely succeed, which means that in September, when the new guidelines are announced, the media will uncritically parrot this ridiculously unscientific claim, leading to yet more hysterical demands that we "think of the children," and do something about this deadly epidemic, immediately if not sooner.
How does this happen? Here's how: The International Obesity Task Force, a drug company lobbying group disguised as an organization of disinterested scientists, has spent the past decade co-opting governmental policy by influencing groups such as the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.
Recently, a prominent government scientist spent several hours detailing for me how the IOTF is at the forefront of a concerted campaign by the pharmaceutical industry to, as this researcher put it, "soften up" governmental regulatory agencies, in order to get various new weight loss drugs approved.
Ray Moynihan, an Australian academic, makes a similar point in a new article in the British Medical Journal. (Moynihan is the author of the book "Selling Sickness: How Drug Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients.")
Does this mean every researcher who claims to be concerned about childhood obesity is an intellectual prostitute? Of course not. Even the members of organizations like the IOTF join these groups for complex reasons.
What should not fool us is the eminently respectable facade such groups manage to maintain. We should remember that, whether in science, literature, or life, the great social distance separating streetwalkers from trophy wives doesn't alter the fact that they're all in the same line of work.
Oh, was he in her classroom? I certainly doubt it.
I think he was.
To the Coulter haters I say, sticks and stones...
I feel that way about a Hillary! presidency.
Paul Campos left a position with a Chicago law firm to begin his teaching career at CU Law School in 1990.
Is this guy into dresses or what.
He's actually opposed to it.
Newsflash:
The writer, Paul Campos is drinking out of the same water fountain as Ward Churchill.
Noticed at the bottom of the article:
"(Paul Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado and can be reached at Paul.Campos(at)Colorado.edu.)"
I think you get my drift. And yes...you made me look.
It is still an agenda.
Ann really riles up the girly men.
Don't like girls, eh, Paul?
He's using the old lawyer's trick, reducing the arguments to their absurd conclusions to make a stark point ... Ms. Coulter does that too, but she does it with a skill this guy could only dream of.
Of course I'm not defending her statement on 9-11 widows enjoying their husband's deaths..that was a cruel thing to say...but it's weird to see how the left tries to reduce it to such cynical, totally pragmatic terms.
I think what really is getting this guy's knickers in a knot is that not only is Ann Coulter a blonde, beautiful, leggy, thin, and witty, she is actually at least ten times smarter than ANY of the pundits out there, male or female.
She knows what she believes and why and has no problem expressing it live or in print.
He needs to get over it and make a better argument if he thinks he has one.
No, what's "disturbing to contemplate" is anyone being aroused over Barbra Streisand. Or Hillary Clinton. Or Nancy Pelosi. THAT'S perversion! A willowy blonde with a rapier wit and the courage of her convictions is bound to arouse most men, except the crowd that drinks their latte with their pinky extended and that craves to be dominated by a leather-clad Helen Thomas.
Never quite got the hang of it, eh, Paul?
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