TNR defends Coulter
Ann Coulter, The Lenny Bruce of Our Age
Apart from supporting Joe Lieberman and keeping blacks off the staff,
the modern New Republic is about nothing so much as opposing the
conventional wisdom. No matter the subject, TNR will find a way to
tell you that what everyone thinks is wrong. (This construction is so
embedded in the magazine’s DNA that when Franklin Foer wrote the
ultimate meta-TNR piece in 2001, “CW up arrow: Why what everyone
thinks is usually right,” he set himself upon a trajectory that would
eventually place him in the magazine’s top slot.) So it was with
great joy that we approached their current online-only CW-reverser,
“A defense of Ann Coulter.” Could it be that our distaste for the 45-
year-old alleged plagiarist was colored by the judgment of everyone
else who came into contact with her ravings? Results after the jump.
Elspeth Reeve, a reporter-researcher at the magazine (we’re not sure
what that job entails; possibly writing e-mails to Jason Zengerle)
draws the short straw on this one, but she seems happy to do it. She
considers Ann Coulter some sort of feminist icon, the rare woman who
“doesn’t turn into a pile of stuttering mush when an interview turns
to her body.” Forgetting for the moment that Ann Coulter’s appearance
was the main reason she was ever put in a position to pontificate on
television in the first place, we can think of plenty of American
females who show outsized confidence and refuse to crumble when
confronted about their appearance. Some of them even report from war
zones. You could google it.
Reeve, while conceding that Ann “has said some terrible things,”
argues that it’s not what she’s said that upsets people, it’s that
the things that she says are so true. (Which, we guess, doesn’t make
them so terrible after all.) She provides a few examples.
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.
Well, sure, the most important part of our Constitution and one of
the founding precepts of our democracy does seem kind of laughable
when you consider the fact that a girl you once interviewed might
dress provocatively. We hear Daniel Ellsberg wore a Speedo every now
and again as well. Fuck the First Amendment.
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.
Jeez, Elspeth, the laughs keep coming, don’t they? We’re fond of the
gratuitous gay joke ourselves, and, heck, that’s just Ann being Ann.
Plus, if we focus on the joke we can forget about the whole thing
where Ann seriously contended that gayness was a form of narcissism.
Moving on.
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.
Okay, we happen to agree with this one: It is completely ridiculous
to consider someone an expert on terrorism or policy because they
lost a husband or close friend in a terrorist attack. What’s that?
One more? Okay.
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.)
And there you have it: This is our favorite excuse for Ann’s
“terrible” behavior. Because Ann Coulter predicted and reflects the
misguided policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of
our troops and our worldwide loss of respect, she’s somehow absolved
from advocating those policies (the same ones, which, by the way, TNR
did.)
Finally, Reeve offers the most desperate defense: Liberals hate Ann
Coulter because they’re secretly attracted to her. “She makes nice
liberals think bad thoughts–particularly about whether they would
have sex with her.” Well, to be honest, we’d have to say that “sex
with Ann Coulter” is right up there on the list of things we consider
“bad thoughts,” but we’d just be falling into Reeve’s trap, right?
Still, when the best you can do is say that people hate Ann Coulter
because she’s pretty, you’re not really making an argument, are you?
You’re just spouting unsupportable accusations designed to shut the
other person up.
Wow. Sort of reminds us of someone.
A defense of Ann Coulter [TNR, r/r]