# Ann Coulter...Why?? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 11, 2002, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425 "2002-07-11T14:58:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/21 "2002-07-11T19:07:31Z")
Personally, I think Coulter’s popularity is just further proof of the liberal media bias. After all, it’s the liberal media that’s helped make the right’s most embarrassing mouthpiece so ubiquitous. I’m surprised she’s not attacking the media for putting her on the air as part of their conspiracy to discredit the right wing. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/22 "2002-07-11T19:08:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Just because someone’s views are wacky doesn’t mean they’re a blithering idiot. Quite correct. However, wacky plus rabidly rightwing plus unable to comprehend opposition is at the very least _equivalent_ to “blithering”. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/23 "2002-07-11T19:12:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Are pilots then not individuals entitled to defend themselves? Of course they are, and in the context of a stroll home through a bad part of town, I hope they’re [legally] packing some heat. Being in control of and responsible for an airplane full of passengers (with their airline having full liability if they pop off a poorly aimed antiterrorist round into the forehead of the child in row 7, by the way) is a different context. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/24 "2002-07-11T19:15:07Z")
Article, Sept. 12 as quoted: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” “We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too,” [www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/](http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/) bookman/2002/021402.html C’mon \*\*Scylla, you knew this! These two quotes are on her favorite hits album! It’s like insisting I prove that Elvis sang “Blue Suede Shoes”. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/25 "2002-07-11T19:19:42Z")
Just curious if anybody’s read **Slander.**? No matter which side you’re on, it’s a good read. Her tone is somewhat different than in her columns, and it’s researched and footnoted to death. Again, it almost seems to me in those instances where she does go off on one of her tirades, that… well… she’s doing it on purpose, for effect, and, she kind of rations it out, as if it’s the bait that keeps her fans reading. I think in the book she does a superior job of supporting her premises. It’s different from her columns though, and if you’ve just seen her columns or seen her on TV, but haven’t read the book you may not see what I mean. She’s not a Rush Limbaugh, or a Pat Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/26 "2002-07-11T19:23:29Z")
Well… I’m willing to believe she’s a nice enough girl when she’s on her meds. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/27 "2002-07-11T19:27:19Z")
Awwright, I’m getting out of here! But Elucidator, seriously, do you think those two quotes are meant to be taken at face value? You don’t have to answer. I’m fleeing the scene here! ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/28 "2002-07-11T19:45:46Z")
I haven’t read her stuff, which I guess is bad (kind of ignorant of me). The exposure of her I’ve received is through Howard Kurtz’s excellent _Washington Post_ column. Now, Howard’s certainly in the media mainstream, but I’ve found him to be very evenhanded in dealing with conservatives, liberals, and independents alike. So when he says she’s kind of a kook (and supports this with quotes from her, online and in print), I tend to believe him. ---
**Author:** ![WSLer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a6a055/32.png) [@WSLer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WSLer)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/29 "2002-07-11T19:47:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\*Can you show me something that is unsound and irrational? \*\* > **[Ann Coulter: Biography and Latest Articles - Ann Coulter](https://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/)** > > Ann Coulter is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers -- Guilty: Liberal Victim and Their Assault On America (January 2009); If Democrats Has Any Brains,They'd Be Republicans (October 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How... 'Nuff said. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/30 "2002-07-11T19:55:54Z")
This is interesting: [http://www.nationalreview.com/nr\_comment/nr\_comment100301.shtml](http://www.nationalreview.com/nr_comment/nr_comment100301.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![king\_of\_spain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7cd45c/32.png) [@king\_of\_spain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/king_of_spain)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/31 "2002-07-11T20:08:32Z")
As soon as I got to the “how about…NO ARABS?” part in that first article **Scylla** linked to, I started hearing the Church Lady’s voice in my head. “Could it be…SATAN?” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@The\_Ace\_of\_Swords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ace_of_Swords)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/32 "2002-07-11T20:28:02Z")
**Scylla** , don’t run! We wants to pound ya some more… You said: > [@](#): > > She’s an exceedingly careful researcher, and documenter **BWA-ha-ha-ha!** , [wipes away tears of laughter] Silica, Coulter’s not one tenth of the careful researcher and documenter of, oh, David Brock! Who could forget the imagery of Anthrax Coulter crawling drunkenly across the club. Jake Tapper finds numerable, easily fact-checkable, glaring errors. I’ll bet she doesn’t hold truck in editors – they’re a liberal myth or something: [http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/07/tapped-s-07-08.html](http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2002/07/tapped-s-07-08.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/33 "2002-07-11T20:42:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Scylla \* > \*\* > [http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20020530.shtml](http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20020530.shtml) > > she says: > > Does that seem sound and rational to you? > > Can you show me something that is unsound and irrational? \*\* Read a little further: > [@](#): > > Magaw’s other airline safety improvement was to reject the idea of a “trusted traveler” program, which would allow passengers to avoid three-hour airport security lines after submitting to an intrusive background check by the government. As reported by The New York Times, Magaw spurned the trusted traveler idea on the ground that “he is not sure who could safely be given the card.” > > I don’t know, how about … NO ARABS? (Religion-of-Peace Update: As they prepare to stone a rape victim to death in Pakistan, the latest suicide bombing in Israel claimed the lives of a 70-year-old woman and her 18-month old granddaughter.) A) Pakistanis are not Arabs, so the first part of her little aside is not only irrelevant to the point she’s trying to make, but also extraordinarily prejudicial. B) Excluding a whole group of people, with no other commonality than they happen to be of Arabic descent is, to my mind, not only irrational and unsound but utterly disgusting. She wants everyone who isn’t an Arab to get their little card so they can breeze through the airport security measures but Arabic people have to stand in line and get searched. What’s wrong with this picture… Oh… as for this little gem: > [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Scylla_ > **She’s an exceedingly careful researcher, and documenter** See point A above. Upon preview: [monty python] LEFT HEAD: All right. All right, not biscuits, but let’s kill him anyway. ALL HEADS: Right! MIDDLE HEAD: He buggered off. RIGHT HEAD: So he has. He’s scarpered. [/monty python] ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/34 "2002-07-11T20:43:41Z")
side point - who in the world considers **Spence Abraham** a _moderate_??? big pal of John- I’m -so -conservative -it- hurts- Engler? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/35 "2002-07-11T21:33:26Z")
**Scylla:** \*Just curious if anybody’s read Slander.? […] Her tone is somewhat different than in her columns, and it’s researched and footnoted to death. […] I think in the book she does a superior job of supporting her premises. \* 🙂 Hee hee ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!! **Scylla** , dear, just because somebody puts footnotes into their book doesn’t mean that the material cited in the footnotes necessarily supports what they’re claiming. A dishonest and polemical writer can lie just as easily with a documentary apparatus as without one. Check out a few of the corrections from [this site:](http://www.anncoulter.blogspot.com/) > [@](#): > > Regarding the War On Terror, on page 5 and 6, Coulter makes the accusations that “\*n lieu of a military response against terrorists abroad and security precautions at home, liberals wanted to get the whole thing over with and just throw conservatives in jail” and “[l]iberals hate America, they hate ‘flag-wavers,’ they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam (post 9/11). Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do.” > > Two of the sources Coulter uses to arrive at these scurrilous conclusions are New York Times columns by Frank Rich and Bruce Ackerman. On page 5, Coulter writes, “New York Times columnist Frank Rich demanded that [Attorney General] Ashcroft stop monkeying around with Muslim terrorists and concentrate on anti-abortion extremists.” > > […] I checked the column Coulter cited and found that nowhere in the column does Rich even remotely suggest that Ashcroft curtail efforts against Islamic terrorists. In fact, I checked every post-9/11 Times column by Rich and found that Rich has not made any such demands of Ashcroft. > > […] Also on page 5, Coulter writes: “Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman recommended dropping the war against global terrorism (‘declare war at the first at the first decent opportunity’! [?]) and instead concentrate on ‘home-grown extremists.’” > > […] In the column Coulter cited, Ackerman does not advocate concentrating on domestic terrorists (as opposed to foreign-born terrorists, who are the focus of the column). In other words, her book purporting to document “liberal lies about the American right” is itself a perfect example of the dishonesty, distortion, malevolence, incompetent reportage, and outright lying that she claims liberals are guilty of. Pot, meet kettle. (My favorite [example](http://www.dailyhowler.com/h051502_2.shtml): Coulter’s “documentation” of “liberal media bias” includes the data that the New York Times archive contains 109 examples of the phrase “far right wing” but only 18 uses of “far left wing”. But the first figure includes such items as the following: “…the Magic trailed deep into the fourth quarter. Then Nick Anderson hit a 3-pointer from the far right wing.” Sorry, **Scylla** , but those of us who make a living doing documentary research that has to get past a more critical audience than a troop of enraged dittoheads are not likely to be impressed by Ann Coulter’s performance in “supporting her premises”.) ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/36 "2002-07-11T21:52:45Z")
And yet she’s still around, while people like Stephen Ambrose have had to apologize for their journalistic misdeeds. Why is this? Why is it that when the _National Review_ fired her (or had her quit), she was able to run to another venue, just like that? In other words - who are her fans??? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/37 "2002-07-11T21:57:02Z")
Too late, **Scylla** , they got you! _Annie and **Scylla** , sitting in a tree…K-I-S-S-I-N-G!_ **Kimstu** , plaudits and raves on a job well done! However, once the stake is pounded firmly in place, do not forget to remove the head and stuff the mouth with garlic. ---
**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/38 "2002-07-11T22:52:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > \*\*In other words - who are her fans??? \*\* **dan** , meet **Scylla**. \*\*Scylla, this is **dan**. That should take care of the introductions. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/39 "2002-07-11T22:59:31Z")
don’t forget **december** ---
**Author:** ![Ankh\_Too](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ab097/32.png) [@Ankh\_Too](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ankh_Too)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2002, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425/40 "2002-07-11T23:11:38Z")
~sigh~ And I was doing so well with that particular memory repression, thanks a lot, **wring**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ann-coulter-why/118425.md?page=3)