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To Ann Coulter's Critics: "Shut Up And Read"
Charleston City Paper ^ | June 14, 2006 | Michael Graham

Posted on 06/14/2006 9:48:34 AM PDT by suspects

I know, I know. Ann Coulter is Satan.

She's vicious. She's outrageous. She is not to be tolerated. I understand.

But I have a quick question for you: Have you actually read her book?

I mean, as you're gathering your ropes and lighting your torches and looking for a well-placed tree limb, don't you think you should take an hour or two and, you know, read what Coulter actually said?

"But Michael, who would ever read such filth? Such hateful extremism! She's a witch! Burn! Burn!"

And so goes the debate with the American Left...

Call me crazy, but before I joined prominent Democratic lawmakers around the country demanding that Godless be banned from book stores (the dunking stool and public stocks will be waiting for Coulter at the Paramus, N.J., Barnes & Noble next week), I'd want to know what is in the darn thing. Based on their writings and public statements, it appears that not one of the would-be book banners has done so.

"Why waste our time, Michael? She's just a bomb-thrower. A name-caller!"

True, it's hard to take seriously people who describe their political opponents as "stupid," "ugly" "vile," "viperous," "rabidly hateful," "foaming-at-the-mouth," "sub-human," or who suggest they go kill themselves. But Ann Coulter didn't say any of these things. No, these are comments from media outlets like the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Ad Age magazine about Ann Coulter.

The London Times ­even labeled her the "Bitch Goddess of American conservatives." I guess they were offended by all that name-calling.

The editorial invective rolls across Coulter like a muddy river from the maw of the mainstream media. However, what the London Times and New York Times and, alas, the Charleston City Paper are unlikely to do is actually review Coulter's book. And the one thing the hair-pulling liberals shaking with rage on talk TV refuse to do is confront the actual arguments Ann Coulter presents.

The Coulter cranks scream over two sentences in Godless about the "Jersey Girls," those four hyper-political, media-hungry 9/11 widows Coulter shames by quoting them accurately. Meanwhile, there are 281 pages of arguments, insults, and outrageous-but-on-point invective that raise issues worth debating. Plus footnotes.

Did angry Democrats join forces with the "Witches of East Brunswick" to politicize the 9/11 Commission for personal satisfaction and political gain? Shouldn't people spreading the idiotic fallacy that George W. Bush was responsible for the World Trade Center attack be criticized, even if they lost loved ones on that horrific day? Did these women cheapen the legacy of 9/11 as they appeared in Democratic campaign ads and pushed Democratic talking points on Larry King?

Ann Coulter says "yes." She's got pages of arguments and cheap shots to back it up. Whatta you got?

Oh, sorry, I forgot. You're a liberal. You don't read books you disagree with. You ban them. That's why you're so much better than those mouth-breathing evangelical morons who elected Bush.

Reading Godless means no longer being able to declare sainthood for pseudo-spy Valerie Plame or her hapless, fourth-rate hack of a husband, "Ambassador" Joe Wilson. (Coulter's recounting of Wilson's failed foreign service career, culminating in his post as Ambassador to Gabon, is hilarious.)

Reading Godless means facing the fact that the American Left has abandoned the principle of self-government and now opposes the very idea of democracy when it comes to abortion, the definition of marriage, and the operation of "public" (insert ironic laugh here) schools. She also reminds us that, before 1860, Democrats were also proudly "pro-choice" on the issue of slavery, too.

Coulter's opponents avoid all this by simply refusing to fight. She comes out swinging, they come out whining. Unfortunately for them, the facts aren't going to change, the arguments won't go away, and 500,000 people are going to read her book. When they're done, they'll be smarter, she'll be richer, and you — my book-banning, name-calling, debate-avoiding liberal friends — will have done more than Coulter ever could to prove her point.

Is Ann Coulter mean? Is she nasty? Maybe, maybe not. But the question normal people will be asking is "Is she right?" My advice to you would-be "Ann"-nihilators would be to stop whining and start reading.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 911; anncoulter; bookreview; godless; media; michaelgraham
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To: goldstategop
I suspect in their hearts, even liberals admit Ann Coulter's right. But they don't know how to counter her intellectually. She's firing with all barrels and they're shooting back spitballs. If I were a Democrat, I'd say the party has been intellectually disarmed. But you're never going to hear these the people admit openly they have to change. The ego of liberals prevents them from doing it. If they weren't so shrill and angry, they might stand have a chance. But the way they have reacted to Ann is an indication they're setting themselves up to lose another election this year. Look at it: is that kind of whining the sign of a confident party on the offensive? The party to the contrary, keeps signaling how weak and divided it is. Whatever the Democrats might say publicly, their fear of Ann Coulter is an a revelation that victory is not at hand in 2004 - cause otherwise they would just ignore her. All that conventional wisdom being promoted in the Drive By Media about how this will be the Year Of The Democrats is just that... bunk.

Right on! :)
101 posted on 06/14/2006 11:42:23 AM PDT by LuxMaker
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To: newconhere
Last night we had Gore on

That's like saying "last night we had diarrhea"
Either way it couldn't have been comfortable
102 posted on 06/14/2006 11:44:18 AM PDT by RetiredSWO
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To: Mr. Lucky
Where, in her book or elsewhere, do you think Ms. Coulter has suggested your political ideology has been ordained by God?
You make a good point. My political ideology diverged from hers when she emanated that her political ideology is ordained by God. Such hubris usually comes before a fall.
103 posted on 06/14/2006 11:46:06 AM PDT by firequarrel (The Republican Party had been taken over by a "bunch of kooks" - Barry Goldwater.)
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To: bornacatholic
LOL Please, don't stop. Don't even slow down ...

With a straight-man like you, it's tempting to continue. But I think I'm done here.

104 posted on 06/14/2006 11:48:52 AM PDT by blowfish
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To: suspects
To Ann Coulter's Critics: "Shut Up And Read"

It doesn't work that way, does it? Otherwise Barbra Streisand's response to Laura Ingraham is "Shut up and listen," and George Clooney's answer is "Shut up and watch." If we can criticize liberal celebrities for their political opinions, how can we expect others to simply shut upt and keep their noses in Coulter's book.

The whole controversy is overdone, but surely one has to maintain the same standards. Eleanor Clift and Julianne Malveaux, Alec Baldwin and Julia Roberts get on my nerves for their uninformed opinions and obnoxiousness, and Ann Coulter does too.

105 posted on 06/14/2006 11:55:15 AM PDT by x
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To: Ichneumon
Would you like to be pinged to my upcoming thread documenting her grossly misleading sophistry?

Yup.

106 posted on 06/14/2006 12:01:18 PM PDT by papertyger (Evil preys on civility.)
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To: x

I have read. Coulter seems not only worse than her critics claim, she's even worse than her supporters claim.


107 posted on 06/14/2006 12:03:06 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch ist der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: firequarrel
My political ideology diverged from hers when she emanated that her political ideology is ordained by God.

Wow. You used the word "emanated."

You must be really smart....

108 posted on 06/14/2006 12:08:34 PM PDT by papertyger (Evil preys on civility.)
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To: bornacatholic

You are correct and I can be a bit impassioned when ignorance is attacking.


109 posted on 06/14/2006 12:12:03 PM PDT by righteousindignation
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To: suspects

Good article. Go Ann go!


110 posted on 06/14/2006 12:12:09 PM PDT by Antoninus (I don't vote for liberals -- regardless of party.)
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To: Restorer
"In all the hoopla over her language, a point she should have made about the "widows" gets lost, again."

That's the problem with what Ann said about those four widows -enjoying their husbands deaths- and the very reason she should have avoided saying it.

111 posted on 06/14/2006 12:16:03 PM PDT by TAdams8591 (Ann Coulter = THE CONSERVATIVE DIVA)
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To: bornacatholic
":Ann Coulter: I would say teach them the one that has the strongest scientific basis to it, and if there's any time left over at the end of the day you could also teach them about the theory of evolution"

LOL! Very witty.

112 posted on 06/14/2006 12:18:08 PM PDT by TAdams8591 (Ann Coulter = THE CONSERVATIVE DIVA)
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To: Doctor Stochastic

Oh, I don't know. She seems to capture the warp and woof of the debate pretty effectively.


113 posted on 06/14/2006 12:34:30 PM PDT by papertyger (Evil preys on civility.)
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To: Blueflag; blowfish
What did Ann write or say that causes you to reach the conclusion she is a demagogue?

Forgive me for answering for you, blowfish, but I resent the conformity of thought the "Church of Coulter" around here demands.

Blueflag, in the definition you provided, #3 fits Coulter to a T. So does #1, in that Ms. Coulter puts herself out there as a leader.

Ann Counter is the right-wing equivalent of James Carville. They are equally strident, bombastic and ugly.

114 posted on 06/14/2006 12:44:26 PM PDT by Wolfstar (So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn, There's vultures and thieves at your back...)
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To: suspects

I think she does a great job at making the conservative movement look mean-spirited. Are the NJ Widows happy that their husbands died on 9/11? I would say NO but why don't we let God be the judge of that and not Ann?


115 posted on 06/14/2006 12:44:47 PM PDT by drama queen
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To: bornacatholic
I guess I'll do a few Annie-isms right here and see if it makes THIS thread go away.

Ann Coulter: 1. It's illogical.

Here's the theory. "Life on Earth is the result of common descent diversifying because of random heritable variation and natural selection."

How would this not happen? Where does it break down?

Does variation exist? Check. Even within small subpopulations, we're not all the same.

Is much of it heritable? Check. There is a tendency, but only a tendency, to breed true.

Does nature select? Check. Nature is very cruel to the lame, the poorly camouflaged, the disadvantaged.

Do conditions vary from place to place and time to time? Check to both. You can get varying conditions staying in one place or moving around.

A population expanding through space and time, meeting ever-varying conditions, is bound to be pushed and pulled by its environment to new adaptations.

2. There's no physical evidence for it.

"Ann, you ignorant slut!"

3. There's physical evidence that directly contradicts it.

Yeah, sort of, if you hang around on the Bible.CA and some other sites. Malachite Man, Carl Baugh's Cretacious miner's hammer, some faked footprints, some horrendously hopeful misinterpretations (like the Paluxy dino-and-man tracks) ...

Not a good penny in the bunch. Mostly frauds.

She could have meant something else, of course; she didn't say. But she's starting to look like she's bought the YEC nonsense, which would make her a real crackpot's crackpot. She'd better keep it a secret if so as that's more than most non-science-literate people are ready to swallow.

Apart from those three concerns I'd say it's a pretty solid theory.

Good! Then that's all dealt with.

116 posted on 06/14/2006 12:52:57 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Faster than a speeding building; able to leap tall bullets at a single bound!)
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To: VadeRetro
"Ann, you ignorant slut!"

Apologies to whomever I stole that from.

117 posted on 06/14/2006 12:56:00 PM PDT by VadeRetro (Faster than a speeding building; able to leap tall bullets at a single bound!)
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To: VadeRetro; All

I love how Ann in her book: 'THROWS A ROCK IN A PACK OF DOGS AND THE ONE WHO YELPS IS THE ONE HIT.'
It shows she is on target.


118 posted on 06/14/2006 1:12:59 PM PDT by cowboy_code ("There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.")
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To: cowboy_code

lol, that's a good old Baptist pastor saying.


119 posted on 06/14/2006 1:14:27 PM PDT by 1000 silverlings (2341 - 2 is divisible by 341 even though 341 = 31 11 is composite)
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To: x
It doesn't work that way, does it

*Yes, it does. This particular thread is about those who criticise Ann without first reading her book.

I don't know what is so hard to understand about that concept but several on this thread, apparently, can't understand it.

120 posted on 06/14/2006 1:15:50 PM PDT by bornacatholic (Pope Paul VI. "Use of the old Ordo Missae is in no way left to the choice of priests or people.")
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