Via http://www.stevesilver.net/ Everyone's been praising
( http://www.technorati.com/search/A%20DEFENSE%20OF%20ANN%20COULTER%20Elspeth%20Reeve
http://feministing.com/archives/005556.html
Where's the left-wing Ann Coulter? )
that counterintuitive pro-Ann Coulter piece that ran in TNR earlier
this week but, uh, I like Paul Katcher's take a lot more.
http://paulkatcher.com/archives/001024.shtml
>...Ann Coulter Is a Cunt 77,400 Times Over
By now, every Internet-savvy person is cognizant of Googling, the
practice of searching Google to determine whether a prospective
employee or dating prospect is whacked out of his/her mind. Which is
bad news for Ann Coulter.
Now, I'm not interested in either hiring or courting Coulter — Barbaro-lookalikes just ain't my style — but I had an idea to conduct a Google search for what the public thought of her and found out there are 77,400 Google search results for "ann + coulter + cunt." http://www.google.com/search?q=ann+%2B+coulter+%2B+cunt The Rude Pundit Ann Coulter's cunt is a fabulous cunt, all stretched-out and pretty on the cover of ... No, Ann Coulter's cunt is inviting; its labial lips, the minor ones, ... http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/04/ann-coulters-cunt-saves-america-ann.html
A DEFENSE OF ANN COULTER. Weenie Roast by Elspeth Reeve Only at TNR Online Post date: 08.15.06
For six months, I was the only liberal on Line Three. It was in an assembly line in a small town in a dark red state, and I worked the second shift with mandatory overtime, which meant the only humans I ever saw were my fellow button-pushers and sticker-application specialists. The choice between soul-searching monotony and political shouting matches was not a hard one to make, especially after September 11. And, to avoid being trampled by the majority, I had to play dirty, to use the kinds of lines that kill political careers: about coat hangers, say, or about how Jesus was a liberal. It always helped to have a few seconds of stunned silence to let my point sink in.
Of course, when it became too obvious that I was winning the argument, my darling male coworkers would simply change the subject to my ass. I daydreamed about discussing dead French guys with super-smart people when I got to college, where I could wear horn-rimmed glasses and never have to keep my backside pressed against the inventory. What a letdown it was to discover that college students were not all that different from my friends on Line Three. Neither, by the way, is Washington, where always-waiting-to-talk types need to be bitch slapped out of their robotic-pundit routines, and where political conversations often pivot back to appearances.
That is why I love Ann Coulter. Coulter shocks and offends, but underneath her offensiveness is a grain of truth that people cope with by critiquing her hair. Americans like comfort: comfort food, comfort shoes, comfort pundits to reinforce everything we already believe. Ann Coulter is not comfort. I love that she pisses people off. I love her outsized confidence, rare in females who've gone through puberty, which means she doesn't turn into a pile of stuttering mush when an interview turns to her body. I love the way her face flickers devilishly for just a second when an interviewer wraps his own noose--the joy tinged with a bit of sadness, as if to say, Oh what fun this is, but do you have to make it so easy?
Yes, yes, Coulter has said some terrible things. But I don't think it's the terrible things that really bother liberals. Coulter makes us cringe not when she lies, but when she says things we wish weren't true. Let's go to the tape. Asked to define the First Amendment: "An excuse for overweight women to dance in pasties and The New York Times to commit treason." Just completely terrible, I know. But I have to admit, I giggled--having recently covered a pro-choice rally where I interviewed a very nice young woman whose nipples were covered by naral stickers.
Or take Coulter's most infamous line: Writing about her friend's death on September 11, she finished her essay with, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." Wow, that's pretty indefensible. The United States could never--would never--do such a thing. Instead, we've invaded their countries, killed their leaders, and are desperately trying to convert them to secularism. (It's not like mullahs appreciate the difference.)
On the BBC show "Newsnight," Jeremy Paxman asked Coulter if she'd like to withdraw her infamous statements about the September 11 widows. (If you've been living in a spiderhole, she called the more politically inclined among them "broads".) "No, I think you can save all the would-you-like-to-withdraw questions, but you could quote me accurately. I didn't write about the 9/11 widows. I wrote about four widows cutting campaign commercials for John Kerry and using the fact that their husbands died on 9/11 to prevent anyone from responding," she said. The thing is ... it's kind of true. A little. It is a little absurd to hold up a person as an expert judge of the 9/11 Commission Report, for example, just because she lost a loved one. Liberals do tend to do that kind of thing, and it makes us look like weenies.
And then there are the insults. Chris Matthews asked: "How do you know that Bill Clinton's gay?" Coulter, who had earlier said the former president had exhibited some "latent homosexuality," gestured casually from behind her sunglasses. "Ah, no, he may not be gay. But Al Gore? Total fag." OK, that one really is indefensible. Because gratuitous gay jokes have, um, no precedent in pop culture whatsoever. I admit it, I snickered. What can I say--her timing was great. (And yes, later, she conceded, "That's what we call in the writing business a joke.").
Coulter is a pretty woman who holds up a mirror showing us the ugliest parts of ourselves. She makes nice liberals think bad thoughts--particularly about whether they would have sex with her. Which is why we often fight back dirty, talking about her looks. Andrew Sullivan called her "a drag-queen-fascist-impersonator." The New York Times said she's "a blonde who knows her way around a black cocktail dress." Last week at TNR Online, her arguments were described as "about as convincing as the blonde hair that gets her so much attention."
In June, the guests of "Hardball" discussed Coulter's latest book in which she made her comments about the September 11 widows, denounced her offensiveness, bemoaned her book sales, and pontificated on what it all means about "society." That obviously led to Matthews's next question, "Do you find her physically attractive, Tucker?" And Tucker Carlson dodged, as did the other guests, until the question was turned on Matthews, who replied, "You guys are all afraid to answer. No, I find her--I wouldn't put her--well, she doesn't pass the Chris Matthews test."
I only shudder that I, too, might not pass the Chris Matthews test. All wrapped up in liberals' snarky comments about her hair is a wellspring of latent guilt for judging her by her hair. Even after all those gender studies classes in college, even after having known/befriended/dated/been That Girl who Doesn't Shave Her Pits, after pretending to like Ani DiFranco, liberals still can't get over her hair. I love Ann Coulter because, in her, I see a loudmouth on the assembly line, fighting not to be squished and whittled and boxed into the shape Washington seems to think fits a girl just right. Elspeth Reeve is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.
-- Michael Pugliese