Having watched some of your more notorious moments on video, I decided to sample your writing to look for a hint of substance. Surely your millions of fans are attracted to more than the extravagant one-liners you deliver during personal appearances.
Picking an essay at random, I read "
Have You Hugged An Islamo-Fascist Today?", which can be found on the
Human Events website at
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23038.
Frankly, Ms. Coulter, I’m still baffled. If there's a cogent point somewhere in your piece, it eludes me. Here are some of the things I did find …
(1) Strained metaphor -
You assert that "college campuses across the nation are … surgically removing the Ten Commandments from every public space in America." How does one "surgically" remove the Ten Commandments, unless they're tattooed on people's bodies? I suspect you intended this statement metaphorically, but instead it's just strange.
As an aside, I don’t recall approving the use of my tax dollars for wasteful religious displays in public facilities. Aren’t you one of the folks advocating fiscal responsibility by government?
(2) Inaccuracy -
You report that during the Iraqi President's speech at Columbia University "Ahmadinejad was cheered by college students … at least until he expressed reservations about sodomy."
I listened to Ahmadinejad's speech and read the transcript too. He never mentioned "sodomy". He did claim that homosexuality doesn’t exist in Iran, at which point the audience laughed and jeered. Did you attend a different speech or just make this up?
(3) Poor judgment -
At one point you refer to "American intellectuals like Dennis Prager and Michael Medved."
I realize that pickings are slim on the right, now that Bill Buckley has gone to his reward, but Prager and Medved? Couldn’t you have picked someone even remotely plausible, like George Will, David Bruce, or Andrew Sullivan? (Whoops! Scratch Sullivan. He’s gay or, as you put it, a "f*g".)
Sticking with Will and Bruce, at least these gentlemen write lucidly and occasionally display a modicum of objectivity. (Well, Bruce does. Sometimes.) Prager and Medved, on the other hand, are ... like you!
(4) Stereotyping & sexual bias -
You contend that people who try to hit right wing speakers with pies "are Democrats, so they throw like girls."
I understand that you despise Democrats; but why derogate members of your own sex? Didn’t the American softball team win several gold medals in the Olympics?
Oh, that’s right: they were playing against other girls.
Getting back to the Democrats, let's assume you're correct. How does this work? Do people who throw poorly tend to become Democrats or do those who become Democrats somehow lose the ability to throw?
(5) Doggerel -
You evidently intended the fragment of verse in your essay as parody, but this is more difficult than most people realize. All too often it's just drivel or, at best, self-parody.
If you can't even compose decent comic poetry, I suggest that you not write poetry at all! That way we all win.
(6) Confabulation
You inform us that "kindergarteners can be expelled from school for mentioning God."
Really, Ms. Coulter! Something as bizarre as this would surely have made the news somewhere, but I’ve been unable to find even a single report of it.
I think - uncharitably, perhaps - that you invented this in order to stir up the religious crazies among your readers.
(7) Ignorance -
You refer more than once to "Islamofascism" or "Islamofascists."
The term "fascist" has alarming connotations, which make it useful, when you're trying to stir up fear and hatred; but let's pretend for a moment that you’re an "American intellectual" like Dennis Prager!
The primary characteristic of fascism, according to the political science literature, is the collusion of government with business and industry in order to control economic activity. This was the expressed opinion of Bennito Mussolini, who imposed the archetype of Fascism on Italy during the 1930s and ‘40s.
There's little, if any, evidence of such collusion on the part of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Does this make them less dangerous or worrisome? No. It just means that they're not fascist.
The fact that you (and others on the far right) misuse this term so consistently shows either that you don't know what you're talking about or (more likely) that you know you're wrong and don't care.
(8) Misinformation -
You write: "Liberals claim to be terrified that the Religious Right is going to take over the culture in a country where more than a million babies are exterminated every year."
The assertion about babies would be horrifying ... if it were true. But it isn't. The vast majority of abortions in the United States occur during the first trimester of pregnancy, when the so-called "baby" begins as a tiny "embryo" and turns into a froggy-looking three-inch "fetus." At no time during this period does it have a functioning brain, which means it has no consciousness, no behavior, no learning, memory, awareness, or personality.
This raises important legal and ethical questions as to whether a first term fetus can be considered a person at all. The anti-abortion crowd want to avoid this discussion, so they assiduously - and inappropriately - refer to a microscopic dot of partially differentiated cells as a "baby". You obviously subscribe to this intellectual dishonesty, which tells me that you have nothing reliable to say on the matter.
(9) Delusions of grandeur -
"Every time Democrats call for me to be silenced, I feel a delicious surge of martyrdom. For a brief moment, I understand the thrill the left gets by going around claiming to be victimized all the time."
Martyrdom?
Martyrdom!
The Democrats I know regard you as a sometimes amusing, but mostly repellant public spectacle, like the children we remember from gradeschool who picked "boogers" from their noses and ate them in order to shock their classmates. This kind of "humor" continues to be popular, even among some adults. You’ve evidently found your niche there and are doing well, at least financially; but to imagine that you're worth "silencing" is a grotesque exaggeration - unless it’s by pushing the "off" button or the channel selector.
As for claims of "victimization" you may have hit on something; but, as usual, you're looking at incorrectly. Like most Republicans, you see victimization as a kind of political parlor game. When Democrats talk about victimization, however, they mean having your right to vote cancelled by an illegal (Republican) caging operation, being crippled or killed, when a (Republican) political appointee fails to enforce safety regulations, or finding yourself unemployed and unable to support your family, when your job is sent overseas under a (Republican sponsored) trade agreement ... things like that.
Real victimization, Ms. Coulter, is no laughing matter. If you ever decide to fit this and other inconvenient truths into your reality, I'll give you another try. For the time being, I’ll just continue to ignore you.