Andrew Sullivan: It’s all getting a little hysterical (Ann Coulter = Michael Moore)

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.

You don't have to be a published author - or even a writer - to recognize that a book is poorly written or edited, much less that it's tedious. You just have to have a sense of what a well written, well-edited book is.

Maybe you should stop asking her how many books she's written, and ask her to provide examples of what she means.

J

Keep in mind, though, that being on the New York Times list doesn't necessarily mean a darn thing.

The book list doesn't rank SALES - instead it ranks how many books were ordered from the publishers. This is why books you've never heard of show up on the list for one week, and then promptly disappear the next: it was all hype and smoke, and then it just evaporated.

Now, if the book STAYS there for quite some time, then you've got something to go on. But remember that Michael Moore's screed was up there for a long time, too. As is the Hildebeast's 'history.' So being up there doesn't make the book right or the author on the right track, does it? : )

J

Ann Coulter's book is dynamite. I can imagine that the left will do everything in their power to destroy the messenger. The info she reveals, well documented at that, is not stuff they want their base to read. Not to worry, the types who vote for them are too busy watching reality TV while not caring about what they should pay attention to.

To Andrew Sullivan:

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”...

I guess I missed something here, Andrew. Teddy f**ks around on his wife, and he's a drunk. Coulter must need some English larnin', and I must too.

Maybe we both missed that course in post-modern deconstruction, where we learn that a married booze-hound who perennially chases strange isn't an "adulterous drunk".

To Andrew Sullivan:

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”.

Geezus, Sullivan - we're being forgiving by not shooting the lying c**ks**kers out of hand, all the while that they're trying to steal our money and our guns so they can clap our a**es in a gulag with impunity.

Did you just fall off the turnip truck, boy?

>> "How much backup does Moore provide in "Stupid White Men"?"

Good question. I don't know since I have never read it, but I would bet that there is not much.

I wish it had better lighting. It's a great pic.

Yes; I've tried to zoom in and crop it, but it gets very "pixelated".

Like an effing liberal, or anybody else, ever gave a c**p about anything a McCarthy scholar has, or had to say in this age of minimum literacy.

This is the world's smallest violin, and it's playing just for you, Radosh.

If they know first that Kennedy is screwing up our educational system and trying to fiddle with health care, you win in the long run.

They'll find out about that from the liberal media just after they find out that Bill and Hillary's pal Margaret Milner-Richardson was auditing their political enemies during the Clinton administration.

Which is to say - never.

Boy, you sure talk a lot of Clinton on this forum.

Let's review. I think Clinton was a crappy president whose softening up of our military led to 9-11. I believe that Ted Kennedy is trying to pull Hillary care II. I believe that Dean is a socialist.

What, do you want me to grunt like a caveman to be acceptable to you? Call me a Kemp/Goldwater republican if ya like, but oh well. I am not going to pretend to be anything I ain't. I like Jonah better than Ann. I prefer Michael Medved over Michael Savage. I am pro-life, but against the war on drugs. I am pro War in Iraq, but was against Somalia. Sue me.

What the hell is wrong with Ann, that SHOULD read: BLOATED MURDERING ADULTEROUS DRUNK.

Contrary to what Sullivan would like people to believe, Ann was being kind...

Q. If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?

A. Why do men go to zoos?

- H. L. Mencken, from Miscellaneous Notes, Prejudices, Fifth Series , 1926, p. 304. First printed in the American Mercury, Sept., 1924, p. 63
_________________________________________________________

Since the above is your FReeper page - you and I have nothing to discuss. If your "friend" wants to reply to my questions, she needs to stop hiding behind someone else and answer the question instead of being rude and insulting and calling me names. Besides, you are actually sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong!!

I believe that Ted Kennedy is trying to pull Hillary care II.

And as I pointed out before, and you ignored: "They'll find out about that [Kennedy's shennanigans] from the liberal media just after they find out that Bill and Hillary's pal Margaret Milner-Richardson was auditing their political enemies during the Clinton administration. Which is to say - never."

What, do you want me to grunt like a caveman to be acceptable to you

Your posts have never been real subtle, db. They're a step up from grunting.

I guess brilliant hundred pound conservative blondes scare unibrows like you. ;-)

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.

Bingo. It's a very lucrative schtick. The question though is whether she helps or hinders the conservative cause. Overall, I'd say she's a negative.

Then again, she's the perfect person to put up against the Carville types in a one-on-one debate.

Uh.. comparing the scruples of Coulter and Moore is like comparing apples to a**holes.

That's not a fair comparison - after all, a sphincter has a useful purpose in life.

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.

Yep, them ignerent rednecks on the Right is tryin' to quash "any kind of real dialogue in politics in America".

Meanwhile, the enlightened folk on the Left are trying desperately to start a real dialogue, reaching out to us Righty haters with supplication in their minds and love in their hearts.

Get real. We're in a war with the Left, and they've been giving "Tarleton's Quarter" for a few decades now.

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