Ann Coulter's cynical swindle (bunched panties alert)

"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.

[On page 206, she wrote, in regards to an article by biologist Jerry Coyne, "But, curiously, Coyne never got around to addressing Behe's argument for intelligent design —the centerpiece of the subject Coyne claimed to be discussing." This is a blatant and transparent lie. Coulter claims that "Coyne never got around to addressing Behe's argument for intelligent design", but Coyne actually spent FIFTEEN PARAGRAPHS of that article doing exactly that, starting at the sentence which begins, "IDers make one claim that they tout as truly novel..." Ann even quoted from Coyne's discussion of Behe's argument later in her book, so she can't claim not to have seen it. So why does she tell a blatant falsehood to her readers?]
I hope you mercifully won't consider this as a ping to join your "eventual" list...

It was impossible for Mr. Coyne to spend 15 paragraphs on countering Behe's intelligent design arguments. The entire article contains only 11 of them.

A wise man once said, "never argue with a fool, bet him money". I hereby challenge you to accept my wager of $1000 that the article by Jerry Coyne which Ann Coulter was talking about consists of many more than eleven paragraphs.

Please, oh please, take me up on this.

Until then, run along and learn to count, son. Hell, Coyne's article used up most of FOURTEEN PAGES in the New Republic (pages 21-33). Even Coulter's own mention of it described it as a "13,000-word" article. So where did you come up with this nonsense about it being only 11 paragraphs long in total?

I don't appreciate the implication that I was telling falsehoods, especially coming from someone who can't even get the most basic facts right himself. Perhaps you'd care to explain your behavior? Or just take me up on the wager -- I could always use $1000. Or maybe you'll choose to do the honorable thing and retract your false claim -- but I'm not holding my breath.

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