02 October 2001
Ann Coulter
Up to now, I've been silent on Ann Coulter's travails.
Even though I'm a fan of Coulter, I didn't blog her 14 September column because, frankly, I thought its bloodthirsty nature showed bad taste just 3 days after thousands of innocents were killed by terrorists. Let me restate why I didn't blog it just to be clear: I thought it showed BAD TASTE.
In particular, I didn't like the final two paragraphs:
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.
Many readers jumped all over that first line of the final paragraph. I've been reading Coulter for a while, and I read that as her typical bombastic excess, not to be taken literally. I did not read her as literally advocating a return of Christian Crusades, which is properly regarded as nonsense. But I'm not surprised many people were offended by text that, taken literally, is offensive! Writing for a large public has its perils. Personally, I didn't like the bloodthirst of the two lines that followed, and that's why I didn't blog the article.
I also didn't blog Coulter's followup column because, again, I thought it exhibited BAD TASTE. In her 20 September column, Coulter went on a typically hyper (for her) diatribe on the inadequacies of revamped airport security measures. Honestly, I agree with a fair amount of what she wrote, but her sarcasm and bitterness -- her rhetorical excesses -- just overwhelmed anything of value in that column.
Now, NRO has canned Coulter and she's crying "censorship" (on the Maher show no less), which is just a silly claim for the same reason I noted with regard to Maher. Atlee picked up on the Coulter's "I'm a victim" plea, criticizing it here. I agree with that, and am a little amused that Coulter has effectively grouped herself with Maher and Falwell.
Oh sure, they differ somewhat. In his "apology," Maher essentially told us all we were too dumb to understand what he really meant, and he's sorry that we took it wrong. In his "apology," Falwell essentially told us we were too smart to understand what he really meant (some of us being rationalists and not fundamentalist Christians), and he's sorry if his timing offended some people. And Coulter didn't even bother to apologize (as far as I know), but did insist that we didn't understand what she really meant.
Context is important. I would have some sympathy for Coulter (and Maher and Falwell) if, indeed, there was an actual conspiracy to take them out of context. Readers of this website could very easily pick out many of the archived Reductio ad Absurdum one-liners and make me look like a warmongering, racist, conservative a-hole; I understand I've even recently been called a "knee-jerk Republican" on a public forum. But Coulter's column, read literally, says what it says. And even read in context, there is plenty of room to interpret it as her critics have done. They have not read her unfairly. If so many of her readers and critics did not understand what she really meant, is that their fault? Or hers, as someone who makes a living writing for public prints?
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Addendum (10-03-2001)
Other than correcting errors of spelling or grammar, I don't generally edit or add to earlier posts, but Jonah Goldberg has published an explanation of NRO's handling of Coulter that should accompany my commentary, as Goldberg contends it was Coulter, not NRO, who severed their relationship.
[Posted @ 05:47 PM CST]
