1. I don't think Jonah's story about the original column is as fishy as some are making it out to be. It was not a piece commissioned by NRO; they were automatically posting her syndicated column. A syndicated column would not ordinarily be edited.
2. I wish Jonah had not dug the knife in so often - IMO he had one or two jabs coming to him but he's overdone it - but he doesn't sound so much malicious as fed up. Ms C has acted a bit off the wall about this, and it is entirely possible that the public behavior is the tip of an iceberg.
3. Ann Coulter is a sharp lawyer and her writing is a good blunt instrument. Her best columns are legal briefs with an attitude. She was at her best on Clinton, and on Elian. I have posted her column on Elian and "parents' rights" to several different threads.
But frankly, off the legal beat she doesn't show much sign of having a lot more than a set of attitudes to work with. I think she has been showing signs of running out of material she's good with ever since Clinton left office. She has seemed to try to make up for this lack of ideas by ratcheting up the in-your-face political incorrectness. And there have also been times even before 9-11 when I have thought, "I hope Ann is, you know, all right."
4. The idea that "invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" meant "send lots of missionaries" is about the lamest weaseling I have ever heard. Three actions strung together in a row, two obviously to be accomplished by armed force, and somehow the reader is supposed to know to insert a band of missionaries with shining faces singing "The Old Rugged Cross" between the second clause and the third? Get real.
I can't take seriously people who say "At least Ann isn't bowing before PC." Sure she is - she has invented a totally bogus and Clintonian exegesis of her column to get off the hook of having advocated forced religious coercion on a mass scale.
5. A lot of the people abusing Jonah on these threads already hated him for not being a pro-drug libertarian, or a Paleo, or a Neo-Confed. If it wasn't this, it would be something else. I hope Ann doesn't go looking to that crowd for friends now. She's better than that, and deserves better.
I think Horowitz, who is old enough to know better, has disgraced himself by his own violations of Reagan's law - he could have welcomed Ann without taking shots at NRO - but I'd rather Ann hang out with his lot than with some of the alternatives.
6. Jonah can write thoughtful, even philosophical columns, but a lot of his NRO stuff, especially, is lazy. He needs to grow up and lose the Gen-X shtick - it may have served a purpose, for him and for NRO, at one time, but it won't do now. The Clinton Era is over - he's a grown-up now, married to the AG-US's chief speechwriter - there's a war on - time for something new.
7. I do think that this is some of the heritage of the Clinton Era. Hating Clinton doesn't mean the decade he defined didn't rub off. We have this whole group of younger conservative writers who have spent most of their professional life in Clinton-Era journalistic slash and burn. They are too young to remember the struggle with Communism, that is, the last time our national life had such high stakes. Time to take stock, kids, and think about where we are and what's happening out there.
That said, Jonah has done a bang-up job getting online some of the best commentary around. I give him only a B for his writing but an A as an editor. Sorry, but I've just learned more about what's going on from David Pryce-Jones and Daniel Pipes and the like than I have from Ann.
Lack of ideas indeed. Coulter has been overrated as a conservative pundit. In fact, IMHO, Goldberg is twice the writer she is. Her flaxen hair has flummoxed too many easily flattered conservatives who can't believe a half-way attractive blonde (the claims that she is a great beauty are hilarious) might share their world view.