<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>What's happening to Ms. Pollitt? Her columns are getting mushier by the month, at a time when her old sharpness is sorely needed. This week she's on about The Lysistrata Project, and her tone is "Gee! Isn't it just grand?!" I wouldn't mind it if this were a down week or an occasional lapse, but it seems, at least to my eyes, more and more the Katha Norm. And what's with this "observation"?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"Women don't live in a separate domestic sphere anymore. We don't need to use our children to claim the right to speak up. Women are educated, we work, we vote, we buy our own cars and fix our own computers."</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Umm, really?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then Ms. P, in a mass generalization, misreads the likes of young rightists like Coulter:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>"What a pleasure it was to have fun, vitality, humor and sex on our side, not to mention the literary canon, the glory that was Greece and the majority of the world's population, and leave the other side stuck with Confederate flags, Bible study and bigoted prom queens like Ann Coulter." </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I've never had the sense that Coulter was a prom queen (bigoted, yes). I've never met her, but she seems a lot like the Dartmouth Reviewers I hung with for a time. They were all as nasty as Coulter, but they were nerds and geeks, not prom kings and queens. Their anger and resentment seemed to come from some form of teen alienation and embarrassment, and, as adults, they decided to strike back at the liberal hegemony they viewed as oppressive -- not from any witty or intellectual angle, but with the bluntest objects they could grab. You certainly get that sense from Coulter, who lashes out regardless of facts. That she makes money doing this suggests there are many like her, and I doubt that most of her fan base (primarily young white male righties) ever waved a scepter over a hushed prom crowd.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><<A href="http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030324&s=pollittt">http://thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030324&s=pollittt</A>></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DP</DIV></BODY></HTML>