Slate: Why the press can't ignore Ann Coulter

[DeepModem Mom]

press box: Media criticism.
Our Ann Coulter Problem
Why the press can't ignore her.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, March 5, 2007

Ann Coulter shocked nobody last week by calling presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" during her appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference....

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....Coulter has been drawing on her outré political vocabulary for so long that the CPAC utterance couldn't have come as a surprise to her foes, her allies, or even the apolitical who avoid the news. The Washington Monthly cataloged her gift for extreme speech five years ago, just as she was perfecting her political phonemes. Here are a few choice Coulter cuts:

..."God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.' "—Hannity & Colmes, June 20, 2001

The "backbone of the Democratic Party" is a "typical fat, implacable welfare recipient"—syndicated column, Oct. 29, 1999

To a disabled Vietnam vet: "People like you caused us to lose that war."—MSNBC, Oct. 11, 1997

"Women like Pamela Harriman and Patricia Duff are basically Anna Nicole Smith from the waist down. Let's just call it for what it is. They're whores."—Salon.com, Nov. 16, 2000

"I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote."—Hannity & Colmes, Aug. 17, 1999

"My libertarian friends are probably getting a little upset now but I think that's because they never appreciate the benefits of local fascism."—MSNBC, Feb. 8, 1997...

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The press marginalized (Ramsey) Clark for his nuttism long ago, but every odious phrase turned by Coulter only makes her a bigger star. Perhaps the newspapers, TV news, the blogs, and the politicians feel obliged to censure her publicly for her transgressions because, unlike Ramsey, she makes them in acceptable or semiacceptable settings such as at a CPAC conference or on a TV show and not at Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad. The press and the pols are also afraid that silence in the face of new Coulterisms will be interpreted as sanction, so they huff and puff at her scuzzy comments, as they did this week, to prove their own enlightenment. All that does is advertise Coulter's ideas to still-greater audiences, which translates into additional book sales and TV appearances, which drive still more book sales. She couldn't be happier....

Effrontery is what she does for a living, and she's comfortable with it. So, I suppose it's only a matter of time before she calls Barack Obama a Black Panther masquerading as Uncle Tom, describes Hillary Clinton as a dyke Hitler, or reaches for something even more irreverent. As long as respectable forums like TV talk shows, New York publishers, and CPAC continue to give her a platform, the press won't be able to leave her alone. And this chapter of the Coulter show hasn't even concluded. According to Media Matters for America, Coulter will appear on CNN's Paula Zahn Now tonight.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161258/nav/tap1/

[HockeyMom]

1. She is the poster child of the radical right

She says what majority of them want to be able to say.

[AndyA]

2. I wish someone she's defamed would sue the ever lovin' shit out of the bitch.

She should not get away with it, it just gives her motivation to continue to say bad things about people that aren't true.

Trust me, if Edwards were gay, well... :blush:

[gulliver]

3. Cough. Mean, leggy blonde. Cough. Cough.

Any analysis of Coulter that fails to take into account that she would be nothing but for her looks is not an analysis.