The Fierceness of Ann Coulter
I just finished watching a documentary entitled, Is It True What They Say About Ann?
by Patrick Wright and Elinor Burkett. The documentary looks at the controversy over Ann Coulter and asks the questions, "Icon...or Idiot? Candid...or Crazy?" As the film points out, the answers to these questions depend on who you ask. Her detractors on camera such as Susan Estrich, the law professor, point out that liberals dislike her because she stands for everything they hate. Ann's admirers love her for standing up for all of the ideas they have but cannot or will not articulate. To me, love her or hate her, you have to admire her.
The documentary takes a look at behind the scenes footage of Ann...just being Ann. She talks about her life, her passions and her love of a good challenge. "I love hate mail," she states at one point. Rather than take hate mail personally, she understands that the sheer volume of it means that she is really hitting her points home and that people are listening. They may not agree--but she is making them listen and that is her talent. Whether it is watching her spar and, in my opinion, upstage, Katy Couric or respond to a room full of hecklers, (at John Hopkins, her response to hecklers was, "wow, this is what passes for debate? At Harvard, they have questions") she is up to the task.
In a world where women, including bloggers are wasting their time pondering questions such as "Where are the women in politics, blogging etc.?," Ann Coulter is at the forefront turning words into action. In the video, she is fearless--she speaks for those who are afraid in a climate of political correctness--especially at college campuses--to share their views on affirmative action, homophobia, and the war in Iraq. If you have ever been afraid in the past to speak in public, her courage and bravery will inspire you to speak out--even if you have to stand alone.
At the end of the documentary, police escort her from a college campus and for good reason. In addition to boos and insults (which she handles with grace and humor), she recently had a pie thrown at her at the University of Arizona. Ann Coulter, love her or hate her--you have to appreciate her. See the documentary.
by Patrick Wright and Elinor Burkett. The documentary looks at the controversy over Ann Coulter and asks the questions, "Icon...or Idiot? Candid...or Crazy?" As the film points out, the answers to these questions depend on who you ask. Her detractors on camera such as Susan Estrich, the law professor, point out that liberals dislike her because she stands for everything they hate. Ann's admirers love her for standing up for all of the ideas they have but cannot or will not articulate. To me, love her or hate her, you have to admire her. The documentary takes a look at behind the scenes footage of Ann...just being Ann. She talks about her life, her passions and her love of a good challenge. "I love hate mail," she states at one point. Rather than take hate mail personally, she understands that the sheer volume of it means that she is really hitting her points home and that people are listening. They may not agree--but she is making them listen and that is her talent. Whether it is watching her spar and, in my opinion, upstage, Katy Couric or respond to a room full of hecklers, (at John Hopkins, her response to hecklers was, "wow, this is what passes for debate? At Harvard, they have questions") she is up to the task.
In a world where women, including bloggers are wasting their time pondering questions such as "Where are the women in politics, blogging etc.?," Ann Coulter is at the forefront turning words into action. In the video, she is fearless--she speaks for those who are afraid in a climate of political correctness--especially at college campuses--to share their views on affirmative action, homophobia, and the war in Iraq. If you have ever been afraid in the past to speak in public, her courage and bravery will inspire you to speak out--even if you have to stand alone.
At the end of the documentary, police escort her from a college campus and for good reason. In addition to boos and insults (which she handles with grace and humor), she recently had a pie thrown at her at the University of Arizona. Ann Coulter, love her or hate her--you have to appreciate her. See the documentary.
posted by Helen at 5:15 PM
43 Comments:
I knew Ann pretty well during the year we overlapped at Michigan Law School. She showed up at my house early my third year (her first year) on the arm of some guy invited to a party we threw. I got into a conversation with her at some point, and it almost immediately drifted into politics. After that, we became friends mostly because we both liked studying at the Michigan Union and I would run into her there. She was stridently conservative even then - my then girlfriend, now wife, coined the affectionate descriptor "Ann the fascist" - but was whip smart and very funny even at age 22. She had already developed her trademark thick skin, and still uses today the signature phrases that stood out twenty years ago. The word "proposterous" has been a Coulter favorite at least that long. When my wife and I see Ann on TV today, she is really the same Ann we knew in law school, with a bit more cool and saavy. She remains a provacateur of the first order. The fact that she is genuine - that's really Ann - makes her all the more horrendous to her detractors and that much more beloved to her friends.
With friends like her, who needs an enemy?
Ann's humor contains the grain of truth necessary for good humor, and she cleverly couples it to the absurd in her unique manner. She is brilliant, and it would please me to see her in a contest against the Hillabeast. Of course, this will never happen...Hillary is well aware of the difference in intellect between her and Ann...and would never allow herself to be exposed as a babbling fool a la Boxer/Feinstein.
A great review, Dr. Helen. I can't wait to get a copy. Ann is fierce like no man I know. (Why is that?... That would be an interesting topic on its own.) I am partial to the woman, myself. And, the fact that she is such a pretty woman doesn't hurt her cause either.
Sorry, but I just cannot admire Ann Coulter. I'm as conservative a man as you'll find and Ann and I see eye-to-eye on most issues. But she crosses way too many lines for me to say "I admire her." People used to get on Limbaugh for poking fun at feminists and homeless advocates. But I can't ever remember him saying that a president should be assassintated or that terrorists should've targeted the NY Times building instead of the World Trade Center.
Ann's smart and she frequently makes good points. But I think she's consumed with genuine hatred and that's never good.
In the way that Michael Moore should make the left ashamed of itself, Ann Coulter should do the same for the right.
What liberals don't understand is that Ann Coulter would evaporate from the cultural scene if they simply ignored her. If a provocateur doesn't provoke, then she/he is is merely an empty voice.
But the left can't leave her alone. They have to get into her face. Because in the end, they really believe that it's possible to make here go away, or change her, or somehow dampen her. But it's wasted motion.
As a result, she sells tons of books and gets films made about her.
9:14 Anonymous:
She is really uncomfortable to listen to, isn't she? But I think she's using rhetorical devices that directly counter those on the Left - which is terribly discomfiting to the (for lack of a better term) Appollonian part of the Right because "not stooping to their level" is a kind of point of pride to us. I think TigerHawk nails her with the word "provocateur."
It took me years to get used to Limbaugh - I hated his guts when he was first on the air in Sacramento, even though I already agreed with much of what he said. But I had to learn to "hear around" his deliberately inflammatory phrasings. Same with Ann, for me.
Ann seems to be on a similar trajectory to Pat Buchanan in becoming a willing-to-say-anything voice of the militantly conservative right. Pat of course has since crossed into areas normally inhabited by the Democratic left, and while I don't see Ann's career path going there, were Hillary to win election in 2008, it wouldn't shock me at all to see Coulter again mirror Buchanan by seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2012 on a "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore" platform.
On the one hand, a strong woman is a good thing.
On the other hand, it's a problem if she's simply being inflammatory just to be inflammatory. It's hard to take her seriously.
The core of Ann Coulter's position politics involves a gut level understanding of what it means to be "American," and of necessity the understanding that any "statist" simply doesn't. I don't think she exhibits any sort of sophisticated understanding of what Americanism is, in relation to alternative ideological identities, but she is deeply aware that you can't mix whiggism with a dash of welfare statism and end up with anything but a mess. (And an un-American mess, to boot.) She's definitely not a problem solver, but that's not her function. In a society where most Americans haven't even figured out yet what it is that makes them American (because that's deliberately omitted from their education) it's probably necessary that someone is there constantly prodding them to wake up.
And no, she's not the Right's answer to Michael Moore... because Moore hasn't a clue what Americanism is. I daresay he doesn't even know that his own preference for anarchy comes from that well of identity, for even the American left is distinct from other variations, and generally incompatible with them. It's therefore ironic that the French apparently like Moore mostly for his American qualities, as distorted as they are. I'm sure that has to bother him sometimes.
To demosophist: What does it mean to be American? I happen to be more of an observer and I'm yet to understand ideologically what being American means because it seems to mean different things to different groups of people. Is it capitalism with a 'dash' of government control? Is it values derived from christian principles? What amount of a social welfare safety net constitutes a 'dash' of welfare statism? The care of the elderly? Partly subsidized medicine for the newborn? Government funded care for the clinically insane who cannot function without 24hour care?
Is affirmative action un-American? What should have been done in its place? Or was there never a need for it? If the problem it was meant to address was an illusion, what was the reality?
-an immigrant trying to understand what being american means
I find Ann very amusing indeed. She's a "bomb thrower" so to speak. In some cases I wonder how much of what she says is simply to get a reaction. Reaction means debate, debate means people look at the issues.
I've heard her say things that I agree with completely and other things that I disagree with completely. At the very least she is straightforward and up front about her beliefs. She doesn't try to spin her beliefs to make them more palatable for those who might sit on the fence on some issues. As far as I can tell, she doesn't say one thing and then do another - a rare commodity today.
This is completely unlike Michael Moore who has never said anything I agree with and spins out scenarios that are called real when they aren't real at all.
It never ceases to amaze me that self-proclaimed conservatives denigrate Coulter. I suppose one must have a sense of humor to appreciate her. I love the way Ann punctures the pompous balloons that pose as today’s intelligentsia. Over the top? Sure, but that’s why we love her. And they say that conservatives can’t stand strong women.
The reason Ann is so effective is because she peels back the sweet skin of politically correct viewpoints and exposes the rotten core inside. Affirmative action feels all nice and fuzzy on the outside but is nothing but rotten racism on the inside. Environmentalism today seems so wonderful on the outside but is nothing but rank anti-human collectivism on the inside. Being against the war sounds so good when chanted amongst your friends but is surely providing encouragement to the terrorist enemy in our midst.
Ann is a clear voice slicing through the mush that the left (and sometimes the right) throw up as "debate". Go Ann go!!!
A couple of additional thoughts. In my judgment Ann deliberately chooses inflammatory language for several reasons. First, and perhaps foremost, she is absolutely entertained by the reactions that she gets. She derives a lot of pleasure in the outrage of people who, well, get outraged over the mere phrasing of a point. This, I think, is why Bill Maher is such good friends with her and defends her publicly, even though his politics are starkly opposite. Ann is really the right's Bill Maher, much more than its Michael Moore. Second, she knows that stark language shifts the debate in her direction. Did she actually want to "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity"? Like most of us, she would probably be happy with two out of three (and, if you think about it, any two out of those three probably gets the job done). But in phrasing it the way she does, she gets people to say "What? Convert them to Christianity?!? Outrageous!" They fail to realize that she has sold them on invading their countries and killing their leaders. Third, she knows that she will sucker the left into saying even less popular things. And, indeed, they always fall for it. Fourth, she can sometimes make a conservative position look less conservative than it is by attacking it from the right (I wonder whether her opposition to John Roberts was entirely sincere...).
I admit it, I both cringe and chuckle just thinking about some of the stuff she says.
The reason Maher likes her is that she consistently delivers the most piercing and insightful sarcasm and humor since H.L. Mencken. Makes for good tv.
Al-Pieda for life!
Coulter feeds off of hate. That should be enough to denounce her right there.
Something to think about....
Ann Coulter is a parodist in the same way that Jonathan Swift was...and for much the same set of reasons. Read Swift and think about it.
Dr. Helen, you should consider trying to get an interview with AC. And you know the question I would love to hear her answer? How can she be such good friends with Bill Maher? That discussion would reveal more about her goals and style than most anything else, I suspect.
Just my opinion, of course.
Coulter is much more thoughtful than she appears in her columns. She knows she's over the top, and she embraces it.
If she weren't over the top, would she have made millions? No. Her shrillness is at least in part a business decision.
That doesn't mean I have to buy her books, but I admire her business savvy.
Her secret is that she is insightful and FUNNY. Plus, she doesn't take herself too seriously - she can laugh at herself. You put those three together:
insightful
funny
can laugh at herself
- and you've got someone with a thousand mile headstart on most liberals. I think of Ann as a modern day cousin to Mark Twain.
Anonymous 11:40 immigrant: 'americanism' first and foremost means believing in the fundamental primacy of the individual right to self-determination, both for yourself and for those around you.
That's the simple essence of it. And it's arguably one of the primary reasons why the centrist population is distancing itself more and more from the liberal left -- because the latter continues, through statements and actions, to repeatedly demonstrate that it philosophically *denies* and is *opposed to* the fundamental primacy of the right to self-determination.
Ann is awesome, just plain hot. She makes all the S.N.A.G.'s and metrosexuals wet themselves in paralytic terror, and their mommy-bitch solemn as owl feminine counterparts look like the gaggle of silly wet hens they are. Long live Ann.
Is she angry and hostile? Well, duh. And so? The nice thing about Ann is her hostility is refreshingly clean and direct, not the tight-sphincter smiling fake-sweetly through clenched teeth so crooked you have to screw your pants on every morning sort as someone like The Hill. She respects her opponents enough to display her true feelings right up front. I'd rather have a huge fight with Ann than a love-fest with The Hill and her ilk. At least, with Ann you figure she can despise you politically but respect you as a human being, rather than the reverse, which is so often and nastily true about her Left counterparts.
Do I agree with everything she says? Hardly. But the beauty of Ann is: you don't have to. You can say "right on sister!" where she's right, and "you are so full of shit" where she's wrong, and you get the feeling she's totally cool with both. Unlike the mavens of the Left, say, who are intellectual imperialists of the worst sort: you have to swallow every aspect of what they say, and then pretend like it's all your own thinking -- no, like it's just the natural order of the Universe, and dissent is unthinkable. Like trying to live on fucking Camazotz, it is, intercourse with the Left these days.
Anonymous immigrant: have you considered reading the Consititution? The Declaration of Independance? The Federalist Papers?
What is most fun to watch is the reaction of today's liberals when she rips them. Instead of offering up well-reasoned opinions based upon at least some facts, the liberals utter the same inane slurs that have so little effect anymore (since they are used so often and without basis). What marks a liberal today is his/her refusal to 1) admit what they really are (leftist, socialist, marxist, etc.) and 2) admit that another, potentially better, way of doings things exists. Liberals today are a true joke. It is sad, very sad, to watch liberals today, but still hilarious to listen to Ann tear them up. Again -- go Ann go.
Like Ted Rall on the left, I think Coulter represents the absolute bottom of the barrel in the universe of our political discourse. Hateful, over-the-top, crude, and purposly exploiting the worst parts of our sensibilities. A truly ugly human spirit.
Contrary to what someone posted above, I dont think her fame is propelled by the "left" being obsessed with her. Almost all lefties I know just roll their eyes and ignore her.
Her fame derives from a bizarre dynamic amongst many on the right that lead them to take vicarious pleasure in her rantings - to even find her "admirable". To hear otherwise sane and decent people say that is downright scary.
Cultivate what is best in yourselves. Even a minimal focus on that should cause you to see Coulter for what she is.
Why are liberals so much fun to harass? Because their positions on policy and culture are so damn funny! Reform welfare? Nooooo -- liberals insist that making people dependent on government is goooood for them. Race preferences? Nooooo -- they are not racist at all. Lower taxes? Noooooooooo -- to a liberal, it is gooooood for you to have more of your money taken to be spent on others. Fight terrorists? Noooooooo -- America deserved 911. The list goes on and on. The left is truly insane these days and Ann merely provides the verbal spotlight to show the rest of us just how nuts liberals are. Yeeeeeeeeeeeehaw.
Conservative females like Ann are worth their IQ in gold bars - as are conservative blacks. They get to have and express opinions for which european-american males are immediately fired. Her wit is unparalleled as is her ability to skewer the stupidity and self-contradictions of the left. Hacks like Couric can't touch her. College twits are reduced to throwing food because they have no rational arguments. Love her love her love her.
I liked Dick's answer at 1:56. The first casualty of partisanship is a sense of humor.
It's great that AC can be friends with toads like Bill Maher. And that disconnect between political posturing and real life was my point.
It certainly proves that many, many things that AC says are over the top, again just as Swift did when he recommended that Britons fatten up Irish children for their tables. He didn't propose cannibalism. He was attacking social policies toward Ireland with which he didn't agree.
So by going over the top, I think AC is getting people on both sides to think about what they believe, and defend it.
A true idealogue would not have the wide number of Left of center friends that AC actually has. Though it is interesting to see all the negative reactions to her statements.
I'm thinking Ann is really the right's Bill Hicks.
Justin,
Whose rhetoric do you think is worse (and why)? Coulter and Hannity or Moore and Rall?
Ann Coulter is a salve. She draws out the toxic left for all to see (and judge) whilst discarding the pusillanimous kabuki theater the left loves to hide behind.
Match wits with her and you better be equipped with considerably more than limp slogans shielded by campus consensus.
Pie posturing doesn't cut it in the real world.
Anonymous 1:31 PM said..."Coulter feeds off of hate. That should be enough to denounce her right there."
Daily Kos feeds off hate by the bloody mouthful. Yet, rather than denounce him, the Democratic leaders recently consulted with him.
Anonymous 3:40 PM said..."Like Ted Rall on the left, I think Coulter represents the absolute bottom of the barrel in the universe of our political discourse. Hateful, over-the-top, crude, and purposly exploiting the worst parts of our sensibilities. A truly ugly human spirit."
I disagree entirely. Rall is far worse than Coulter. The comparison of him to Coulter is what's truly ugly.
"Her fame derives from a bizarre dynamic amongst many on the right that lead them to take vicarious pleasure in her rantings - to even find her 'admirable'. To hear otherwise sane and decent people say that is downright scary."
Al Gore shouted that President Bush "betrayed" this country, and said that digital "brownshirts" were a danger to the country. To think that this nut might have been president is what's really scary.
"Cultivate what is best in yourselves. Even a minimal focus on that should cause you to see Coulter for what she is."
Do NOT preach so loftily to us until your side rises to the same standards.
Justin Gardner said..."Well, was she just 'being Ann' when she published somebody's address and phone number on her blog?"
Was Daily Kos just being Kos when he called contractors killed in Iraq "mercenaries" and said "Screw them"?
I am a french Canadian conservative and I LOVE Ann Coulter!
When people run out of arguments and throw pies at her, you know she is doing something right, she is brilliant!
The lies - the debunked lies - of Michael Moore can not be compared to the uncomfortable truths Ann Coulter has the guts to say openly.
The left has been saying and doing appaling, despicable, shameful things against their own country, their own troops and their own president.
The list would be way too long but,
I mean now that the New York Times has revealed the eves dropping program, untraceable-pre-paid cell phones have been selling like hot cakes...in other words the NYT has helped the terrorists with this information.
I call that treason, and I am not even American!
If this was WWII someone would be in jail for their loose lips, and rightly so.
Looking at all that from Canada, it seems like the left in the USA hates their own country and want to be punished or destroyed, yes they definitely seem SUICIDAL.
Oh and about invading Canada...That would be the easiest and quickest invasion in the history of the world, and my standard of living would go up...
PS:Canada will elect a conservative prime minister on
Nov 23 2006, why am I mentionning this?
Just to remind liberals - Americans and Canadians - that they are melting away like the witch in the Wizard of OZ and their minds are as ugly.
Ann Coulter for President!
Im 46 years old and I have lived all my life in Canada and despite what Moore says, we ALL lock our doors, dont believe the lies of Michael Moore, Canada is no paradise, its nice but not what Moore says it is.
Anonymous 9:25 writes:
"Do NOT preach so loftily to us until your side rises to the same standards."
I dont write from the other side, but from somewhere in the middle of all the madness. I despise Ted Rall and Ann Coulter, and find them quite comparable. The main difference I see is that Rall doesnt sell hundreds of thousands of books, and you would probably find few people (except in the real loony bins) that would slobber over him like so many do here over Coulter.
You attitude of refusing to get out of the gutter until people on the other side do is just the attitude that keeps the gutters well occupied. There are, fortunaly, plenty of conservatives who share my view of Coulter, and plenty of liberals who share my view of Rall. And from such groups some interesting and constructive discourse might flow.
AC and TR add nothing but ugly noise to the system.
To compare Ann Coulter to Ted Rall is to grossly overestimate the latter.
Helen, could you link the podcasts in a special category on your sidebar. Otherwise they might disappear into the great dark blogger archive. Thank you.
Even if one believes Coulter goes too far sometimes, whatever she is saying is based on truths, on facts,
but whatever the left says is almost always based on distortions, innacuracies or plain lies.
They condemn Bush eves dropping program but when Clinton had a similar program named " echelon", the left approved of it!
From the New York Times May 27 1999 ;
“Few dispute the necessity of a system like Echelon to apprehend foreign spies, drug traffickers and terrorists….”
“The US National Security Agency (NSA) has created a global spy system, codename ECHELON, which captures and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax, email and telex message sent anywhere in the world,”
And according to PC World Magazine;
“Project Echelon’s equipment can process 1 million message inputs every 30 minutes.”
...In the February, 2000 60 Minutes story, former spy Mike Frost made clear that Echelon monitored practically every conversation – no matter how seemingly innocent – during the Clinton years...
And that was BEFORE 9/11!
How could the NYT justify spying before 9/11?
Ann Coulter is honest and most on the left are cheaters, no one compares to her.
The left - both in the USA and in Canada - sounds more and more like the National Inquirer, they spit out more and more schocking accusations that people on the right - like Ann Coulter can debunk in two minutes with facts and figures...
I look at the exagerations, the fabrications, the out-of-context-quotes, the innacuracies, the history re-writing, the lies of the left and all the
punches-below-the-belt from the left and I think ; Pathetic.
Michael Moore, Al Franken, Kos, Democratic Underground, Dean, Kennedy and Durbin and Kerry all sound more and more like the National Inquirer.
" tens of thousands have died during Katrina" is not that far from " woman pregnant with alien from outer space baby"
The left is Pathetic.
Ann Coulter is great.
Bill Clinton podcast:
Thanks for the tip--I will set up a side bar.
Her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism came out on June 6, 2006. I checked it out from the library and after looking at the jacket and skimming a few pages, I decided I would not read it because of her attacks on evolution and disregard for science. I wrote a post about the topic called Conservatives for Evolution. William Dembski was most likely the ghost writer for at least the parts on evolution. I have enjoyed a few of her articles on Townhall.com, but I think people who consider her a radical have a valid point.
Anonymous @ 3:20 pm said: "Like trying to live on fucking Camazotz, it is, intercourse with the Left these days."
It sounds like you have read Madeleine L'Engle's novel A Wrinkle in Time.
Anthony said: "Whose rhetoric do you think is worse (and why)? Coulter and Hannity or Moore and Rall?" I think it is unfair to include Hannity in this group. He is a libertarian-learning Republican and a decent guy.
希望大家都會非常非常幸福~
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