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Andrew Sullivan: It’s all getting a little hysterical (Ann Coulter = Michael Moore)
The Sunday Times (U.K.) ^ | 07/06/03 | Andrew Sullivan

Posted on 07/05/2003 4:28:35 PM PDT by Pokey78

Few would dispute that she’s a babe. Lanky, skinny, with long blonde hair tumbling down to her breasts, Ann Coulter has been photographed in a shiny black latex dress. She’s whip-sharp in public debates, has done a fair amount of homework and has made a lot of the right enemies.

If much of modern American conservatism has made headway because of its media savvy, compelling personalities and shameless provocation, then Coulter deserves some pride of place in its vanguard.

But that, of course, is also the problem. In the ever-competitive marketplace of political ideas — in a world of blogs and talk radio and cable news — it is increasingly hard to stand out. Coulter’s answer to that dilemma is twofold: look amazing and ratchet up the rhetoric against the left until it has the subtlety and nuance of a car alarm. The left, in turn, has learnt the lesson, which is why the attack dog Michael Moore has done so well.

In fact, it’s worth thinking of Coulter as a kind of inverse Moore: whereas he’s ugly and ill-kempt, she’s glamorous and impeccably turned out. (Her web page, anncoulter.org, has a gallery of sexy images.) But what they have in common is more significant: a hysterical hatred of their political opponents and an ability to say anything to advance their causes (and extremely lucrative careers).

Coulter’s modus operandi is rhetorical extremity. She was fired from the conservative National Review magazine when, in the wake of 9/11, she urged the invasion of all Muslim nations and the forcible conversion of their citizens to Christianity.

As Brendan Nyhan, the media critic, has documented, her flights of fancy go back a long way. No punches are pulled. Ted Kennedy is an “adulterous drunk”. President Clinton had “crack pipes on the White House Christmas tree”. You get the idea.

In Coulter’s world there are two types of people: conservatives and liberals. These are not groups of people with competing ideas. They are the repositories of good and evil. There are no distinctions among conservatives or among liberals. To admit the complexity of political discourse would immediately require Coulter to think, explain, argue. But why bother when you can earn millions by being insulting? Here are a few comments about “liberals” that Coulter has deployed over the years: “Liberals are fanatical liars.” Liberals are “devoted to class warfare, ethnic hatred and intolerance”. Liberals “hate democracy because democracy requires persuasion and compromise rather than brute political force”.

Some of this is obvious hyperbole designed for a partisan audience. Some of it could be explained as good, dirty fun. It was this formula that gained her enormous sales for her last book, Slander, which detailed, in sometimes hilarious prose, the liberal bias in much of the American media.

Her latest tome ups the ante even further. If biased liberal editors are busy slandering conservatives, liberals more generally are dedicated to the subversion of their own country. They are guilty of — yes — treason.

A few nuggets: “As a rule of thumb, Democrats opposed anything opposed by their cherished Soviet Union. The Soviet Union did not like the idea of a militarily strong America. Neither did the Democrats!” Earlier in the same vein: “Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.”

And then: “The myth of ‘McCarthyism’ is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren’t hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation’s ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy’s name.”

Coulter does not seek to complicate her view of liberals with any serious treatment of the many Democrats and liberals who were ferociously anti-communist. Scoop Jackson? Harry Truman? John F Kennedy? Lyndon Vietnam Johnson? She doesn’t substantively deal with those Democrats today — from Senator Joe Lieberman to The New Republic magazine — who were anti-Saddam before many Republicans were.

She is absolutely right to insist that many on the left are in denial about the complicity of some Americans in Soviet evil, the guilt of true traitors such as Alger Hiss or the Rosenbergs, who helped Stalin and his heirs in their murderous pursuits.

Part of the frustration of reading Coulter is that her basic causes are the right ones: the American media truly is biased to the left; some liberals and Democrats were bona fide traitors during the cold war; many on the far left today are essentially anti-American and hope for the defeat of their country in foreign wars.

But by making huge and sweeping generalisations about all liberals, Coulter undermines her own arguments and comes close to making them meaningless. If you condemn good and bad liberals alike, how can you be trusted to make any moral distinctions of any kind? And by defending the tactics of McCarthy, she actually plays directly into the hands of the left.

What she won’t concede is that it is possible to be clear-headed about the role that some liberals and Democrats played in supporting the Soviet Union, while reviling the kind of tactics that McCarthy used.

In fact, when liberals taunt conservatives with being McCarthyites, conservatives now have to concede that some of their allies, namely Coulter, obviously are McCarthyites — and proud of it.

Ron Radosh, one of the most reputable scholars who has studied the McCarthy era in great detail, is appalled at the damage Coulter has done to the work he and many others have painstakingly done over the years.

“I am furious and upset about her book,” he told me last week. “I am reading it — she uses my stuff, Harvey Klehr and John Haynes, Allen Weinstein etc, to distort what we actually say and to make ludicrous and historically incorrect arguments.

“You might recall my lengthy and negative review in The New Republic a few years ago of (Arthur) Herman’s book on McCarthy; well, she is 10 times worse than Herman. At least he tried to use bona fide historical methods of research and argument.”

Radosh has endured ostracism and abuse for insisting that many of McCarthy’s victims were indeed communist spies or agents. But he draws the line at Coulter’s crude and inflammatory defence of McCarthy: “I think it is important that those who are considered critics of left/liberalism don’t stop using our critical faculties when self-proclaimed conservatives start producing crap.”

Amen. American politics has been badly damaged by the scruple-free tactics of those like Moore and Coulter. In some ways, of course, these shameless hucksters of ideological hate deserve each other. But America surely deserves better.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: andrewsullivanlist; anncoulterlist
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To: Pokey78; Nick Danger; TLBSHOW
American politics has been badly damaged by the scruple-free tactics of those like Moore and Coulter.

Andrew got AIDS from scruple-free tactics.

Andrew, your moral equivalence is an effective emetic.

Now, which of these two will be able to define and spell emetic?

Which one gets Andrew hot?

Cue Seinfeld: Not that there's anything wrong with that.

101 posted on 07/05/2003 6:08:50 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: Pokey78
No punches are pulled. Ted Kennedy is an “adulterous drunk”. President Clinton had “crack pipes on the White House Christmas tree”. You get the idea.

Uhhh, are either of those statements false, Andrew? No? Then what's your problem?

102 posted on 07/05/2003 6:14:18 PM PDT by shhrubbery!
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To: Mr. Mojo
Hmmmm? Brenden left out the condoms which were there with the crack pipe ornaments; and don't forget the gingerbread men who were naked and had a dangling participle - if you know what I mean.

Only the Clintons would portray a Christian holiday as something sorted and filthy.
103 posted on 07/05/2003 6:15:18 PM PDT by CyberAnt ( America - You Are The Greatest!!)
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To: PhilDragoo
ROFL!!!
104 posted on 07/05/2003 6:15:21 PM PDT by Mr. Mulliner (Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." --James Madison)
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To: RonDog
I though Ann defended this position rather nicely in her interview with Katie Couric last year:

COURIC: You were also fired, I guess, because you wrote in the National Review that we should--when it came to fighting terrorism, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." Do you still believe that that's the best way to combat terrorism worldwide?

Ms. COULTER: Well, that's a somewhat dishonest quote. I was referring to the people in the previous sentence of that column, cheering and dancing in the streets right now. And, in fact, this--the way that was so widely misquoted is an example of what I describe in my book, which is the constant mischaracterization, switching a small word, taking out the word, apparent. It makes a big difference and these subtle differences that are then glossed over as if there's absolutely no difference, to try to portray conservatives as crazy people, as--as Nazis, slave owners...

Sullivan used a similar trick in this article, adding the word "forcible" to the quote about converting them to Christianity.

105 posted on 07/05/2003 6:15:46 PM PDT by alnick (Kakkate Koi!)
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To: ml/nj
Don't expect any serious refutation.
106 posted on 07/05/2003 6:16:03 PM PDT by Dec31,1999
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To: Endeavor
Well ... maybe if you read it instead of just "trying" - you might have better results.

And ... just what qualifies you to judge "poorly edited, poorly written, and extremely tedious.

How many books have you WRITTEN ...??
107 posted on 07/05/2003 6:21:35 PM PDT by CyberAnt ( America - You Are The Greatest!!)
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To: Pokey78
Um...why is it that leftists can't get their facts straight?

See this article from National Review Online that explains that Ann Coulter was not fired, but that she severed ties with NRO.

108 posted on 07/05/2003 6:22:44 PM PDT by Spiff (Liberalism is a mental illness - a precursor disease to terminal Socialism.)
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To: Zeroisanumber
Zero is a number ...?? That definitely describes you!!
109 posted on 07/05/2003 6:23:23 PM PDT by CyberAnt ( America - You Are The Greatest!!)
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To: CyberAnt
Lighten up, shortcake. I'm allowed my point of view whether it's to your liking or not.
110 posted on 07/05/2003 6:26:05 PM PDT by Endeavor
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To: ATOMIC_PUNK
She IS the opposite of Moore physically and the SAME in tactics, impact on her opponents and MOST IMPORTANT: those in the middle who are making up their minds. Moore is so extreme he turns off many people in the middle and undermines the left; Coulter is the best friend the left ever had...especially because her first book Slander was supposedly about how the left indulged in extreme rhetoric and demonization. Her new book is what she decried in the last. She has impact only with those who already agree with her and don't want any kind of real dialogue in politics in America, only labelling and demonization. Were Moore and Coulter separated at birth?
111 posted on 07/05/2003 6:29:27 PM PDT by jraven
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Comment #112 Removed by Moderator

To: Mr. Mojo
Me too. She's far too skinny to be beautiful, IMO
113 posted on 07/05/2003 6:29:51 PM PDT by GulliverSwift
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To: ml/nj
You quote some fool who does the same thing (fail to point out any inaccuracies) as if that were evidence that Coulter hasn't done her homework.

The "fool" Sullivan cites is a noted McCarthy scholar who was himself attacked for pointing out that most of McCarthy's targets were in fact Communists.

Said "fool" says that Coulter misused and distorted the footnoted cites of his own book.

This may come as a surprise to some of you out there that have never seriously studied history or politics in an academic setting but simply having footnotes doesn't mean a given work is magically accurate.

114 posted on 07/05/2003 6:30:43 PM PDT by John H K
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To: Pokey78
"She was fired from the conservative National Review magazine

Not so, according to a column by Jonah Goldberg. He said they objected to the one column, and Coulter threw a fit and quit.

"....her flights of fancy go back a long way. No punches are pulled. Ted Kennedy is an “adulterous drunk”.

Get real, Sullivan! That description of Kennedy is NO flight of fantasy. The girl Ted killed, while he was DRUNK?

"In Coulter’s world there are two types of people: conservatives and liberals. These are not groups of people with competing ideas. They are the repositories of good and evil. There are no distinctions among conservatives or among liberals."

Sullivan can't have read "Treason", where Coulter talks about Democrats who have swerved to the extreme Left, and those who didn't.

"Liberals are “devoted to class warfare, ethnic hatred and intolerance”. Liberals “hate democracy because democracy requires persuasion and compromise rather than brute political force”.

Those are true statements, hardly indictments of Coulter!

"....by defending the tactics of McCarthy, she actually plays directly into the hands of the left."

It is Sullivan here who rejects "nuances"....McCarthy was an imperfect human being but his charges of Soviet spies in our government were ALL based in fact.

".....shameless hucksters of ideological hate."

Sullivan would have conservatives continue to condemn ourselves to oblivion by "niceness"....which David Horowitz constantly warns us against.

I don't know what Sullivan's problem is, but he's all wet comparing Coulter to the abominable Michael Moore.

115 posted on 07/05/2003 6:31:02 PM PDT by WaterDragon (America the beautiful, I love this nation of immigrants.)
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To: PhilDragoo
slam bam and thank you Phil....

LOLROF
116 posted on 07/05/2003 6:31:53 PM PDT by TLBSHOW (The Gift is to See the Truth)
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To: CyberAnt
Look at his other replies since he joined..........his name is overstated.
117 posted on 07/05/2003 6:34:35 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle
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To: Pokey78
The left, in turn, has learnt the lesson, which is why the attack dog Michael Moore has done so well.

Does Sullivan believe that if Ann disappeared, Moore would go away? This is hardly the case. Until recently, the left had a monopoly. There was no Sullivan, no Coulter, no Limbaugh, no Fox. No intenet. No Free Republic. Until recently Walter Cronkite could say things no more extreme than Moore and get paid to say it. And no one would refute him.

But those days are gone.

, in the wake of 9/11, she urged the invasion of all Muslim nations and the forcible conversion of their citizens to Christianity.

Not all. Just our enemies. She's right, however impolite it was to say it.

In Coulter’s world there are two types of people: conservatives and liberals. These are not groups of people with competing ideas.

In Coulter's world, Conservatives compete. They are not required to sit still with hands folded while "liberals" re-write history. In Coulter's world, paid liars like Chomsky and the New York Times are confronted and forced to eat their words.

Coulter does not seek to complicate her view of liberals with any serious treatment of the many Democrats and liberals who were ferociously anti-communist. Scoop Jackson? Harry Truman? John F Kennedy? Lyndon Vietnam Johnson?

Sullivan needs to study history. Truman's anti-communism is open to debate... precisely the debate Ann has begun. JFK's anti-communism is completely false. The only room for debate, after considering his betrayal of the Tibetans, the Cubans, his assassination of Diem, his withdrawal of US assets from Turkey in the face of Soviet aggression, is whether he was a traitor, or merely drug-addled and incompetent. As Ann would say, where our national security was concerned, the difference between the two was immaterial. Or, as she might say, if he had been a traitor, what would he have done differently?

As for Johnson, he mismanaged the Viet Nam War. That is his claim to anti-communist fame.

American politics has been badly damaged by the scruple-free tactics of those like Moore and Coulter. In some ways, of course, these shameless hucksters of ideological hate deserve each other.

It comes down to this. Moore is a liar, and it is pretty easy to deconstruct his work. Coulter is telling the truth. So far, every attack on her I have read has focused on her supposed hatred of "liberals" but have not bothered to refute her on any substantive point. They don't refute her because they can't. I know my history as well as anyone, and she is telling the truth. The best her critics can do is complain about her tone, or complain that she says "the Times said..." when she should have said "an editorial in the Times said...".

I am disappointed in Sullivan for this rather unworthy attack on her.

118 posted on 07/05/2003 6:35:23 PM PDT by marron
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To: Pokey78
IMHO, the thing that's got Andy all riled up is that Ann is socially conservative as well and probably doesn't subscribe to the notion that the Lawrence case was a big Constitutional win. Ann's opinion would count more.
119 posted on 07/05/2003 6:35:36 PM PDT by kuma
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To: GulliverSwift
Me too. She's far too skinny to be beautiful, IMO

Yeah, I also am not big on long straight hair for some reason, too. Never quite got how people think she's drop-dead gorgeous.

If she were a slightly dumpy-looking and a bit overweight brunette of average height (not ugly, necessarily, just not striking or memorable) she wouldn't have a career; she wouldn't get near being on TV without buying a commercial, and the only thing she'd be publishing is a website hosted by Geocities and self-printed pamphlets.

120 posted on 07/05/2003 6:37:06 PM PDT by John H K
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