I wouldn’t necessarily call a polite and civil review pulling punches, december, even if the reviewer didn’t sink to Ann’s level. Just because Maslin refrained from personally attacking Ann in the same style as Ann attacks her enemies doesn’t mean that the review itself isn’t a total slam-fest.
Maslin makes Ann out to be a shrill, unstable hypocrite, and she does this without calling Ann names, without implying anything about other conservatives, and without suggesting that Ann be locked away. This is what the neocons of Ann’s ilk can’t seem to grasp: That you can devastate someone’s argument and position without being tacky, crude, or even impolite.
And no, december, a total blast-fest (and make no mistake, this WAS a total blast-fest) proves nothing other than the reviewer didn’t like the book. Not everything is about partisan politics, as much as Ann Coulter would like to think so.
I basically agree with you quarx, but one quibble. Ann Coulter could have made her points without being tacky, crude or impolite, but then her book wouldn’t be a #1 best seller. I guess one could say the same about Michael Moore on the other side. In getting the public’s attention, it helps to be tacky and crude.
Interestingly enough, it seems she couldnot have made her points without innacurate footnotes*. JDM
*See- I can produce footnotes, just like AC’s 35 pages of them
George Will, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Kinsley, and others from both sides of the political fence enjoy enormous popularity without the ranting and inaccuracy. The difference is that these people have talent. If you’re untalented, then yes, it does help to be tacky and crude, but then again, if you’re untalented, you really shouldn’t be writing books in the first place.
Then again, even as a conservative, I have to admit … Michael Moore can be pretty damned funny when he wants to be.
I wouldn’t say that this age is any uglier on account of dipshits like Coulter. Untalented screwheads have been around for a long time. It’s nothing to really worry about, as long as the majority knows that they’re untalented screwheads (and from what I saw on The Daily Show, everyone had Ann figured out 40 seconds into the interview). Her fellow screwheads sit and drool all over their TV remotes, but the rest of us just kind of dust her hatred off and go about something more worthwhile. I was really bothered by her for a while, but once I realized that everyone felt the same way about her, it stopped bugging me.
The Daily Howler has yet another debunking of “Slander” and it’s a doozy. I mean the 7/23 Earnhardt story. AC is on the same level WRT truth as the Hillary Clinton Gold Star Mothers email that I received a couple of monthe ago. If the liberal bias in the media is so clear and obvious, why does AC have to manufacture evidence to in order to demonstrate it? JDM
In whose universe, december? Not in MY universe. Not in the universe of any of my friends, either. Or, come to think of it, anyone I really know, period. Maybe she has good marketing connections. Maybe a lot of people who bought the book hadn’t really heard anything about her, saw the catchy title and the blond mane, and picked it up. I’ll admit that Ann Coulter is no fool when it comes to advertising herself. That doesn’t qualify her to write about politics, and it DOESN’T put literate book-buyers into the “mile below the bottom” category.