The Mouths That Roared (Scathing WP Coulter Book Review)

[kskiska]

'Treason' by Ann Coulter and 'The Death of Right and Wrong' by Tammy Bruce

To anyone who ever tried to understand why the political left has played such a large role in American intellectual life, or why the term "anti-communist" ever became an insult, or why so many allegedly clear-thinking people feared Joe McCarthy more than Josef Stalin, Ann Coulter's new book will certainly prove thought-provoking. I should reveal here that I have spent a great deal of time -- perhaps the better part of the last 10 years -- writing about communism, Stalinism and the West's relationship to both. Yet about halfway through Treason, an extended rant on these subjects, I felt a strong urge to get up, throw the book across the room, and join up with whatever Leninist-Trotskyite-Marxist political parties still exist in America. Even the company of Maoist insurgents would be more intellectually invigorating than that of Ann Coulter. More to the point, whatever side this woman is on, I don't want to be on it.

It isn't very difficult to explain why this book is so bad. A few quotes from the opening chapter will do it:

"Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason."

"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy."

"Liberals attack their country and then go into diarrhea panic if anyone criticizes them."

"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America's self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant. Fifty years of treason hasn't slowed them down."

The rest of the book continues in that vein. Aside from becoming rather tedious after about page 10, Treason fails to explain a number of pertinent points. For example: Who's a liberal? And what is "the left"? Coulter appears to believe that these terms are synonyms, and further confuses both of them with the Democratic Party -- which has, she claims, been suffering from "pusillanimous psychosis" since World War II. But Scoop Jackson was a Democrat, Jeanne Kirkpatrick was a Democrat, even Ronald Reagan started out as a Democrat (and this was after World War II). Robert F. Kennedy actually worked for Sen. McCarthy, as Coulter herself mentions, but fails to elaborate upon. Half the members of the House Committee on Un-American Activities were Democrats. The Truman administration prosecuted Alger Hiss. Kennedy stood up to the Soviet Union in Berlin and Cuba.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40170-2003Jul24.html

[liberalhistorian]

1. "Whatever side this woman is on, I don't want to be on it."

That about sums it up, doesn't it? The reviewer has to be given credit for having a strong enough stomach to endure the whole diatribe, uh, I mean, book. I sure as hell could never even read half of a page of anything that woman writes!

[JackSwift]

2. For Coulter, everyone who isn't in locking goose step

is a "liberal". You don't agree with them or their wars, military and culture, then you are a traitor. You can't be a traitor to a cause you never were loyal to Ann. She is the true voice of the neo-con masses, along with the Savage Weener. She says what they truly think.

[BuddhaGirl]

3. There was an absolutely scathing review

of Treason in last week's San Francisco Chronicle. It prompted a couple of angry letters to the editor from obvious repukes in today's paper. Hilarious! LOLOL

[Skittles]

4. Michael Moore is Coulter's opposite?

I don't f***ing think so.

[roxdog]

9. Sure she is....

But our side is "right" (as in correct) so it doesn't necessarily mean that Moore is a Facist Nazi...but look at how she tries to defend herself....by acting like her book is a light-hearted satire...did you see her on OReilly....pathetic.....let's call him her doppleganger...does that work better????

[BoatsTwice]

10. Sure he is.

It isn't hard to see the parallels: Twisting of facts, convenient omissions to make a point, denial of inaccuracy, foaming mouth knee-jerk indignation when challenged.

Two sides of the same bad penny.

[roughsatori]

5. Good book review

and not just because I agree with the reviewer. She points out the utter lack of real research and critical thinking in "Treason." As much as I despise Coulter, I think she is very intelligent--that does not come across in much of her writing. Her prose seems to have been hijacked by a KKK member on meth-amphetimine.

[DrBB]

6. Intelligent? She earned her pseudo intellectual status

...in her repeated claim about her last screed: "But I have footnotes!"

Geez, Ann, really? How could anybody not believe you then? Gosh, actual footnotes! In a book! You must be so proud.

[roughsatori]

7. Being a dishonest cheat does not mean stupidity is in play

I agree, the word "footnotes" must be used in quotes when descrbing her work. Shoddy scholarship is not just the provence of the dumb. Intelligent liars know how to produce best selling books, be invited to all the cable news shows, and cause people to endlessly discuss them on the internet.

I knew when I typed the word "intelligent" that someone would have to respond. But I decided not to edit it out.

[DrBB]

8. Anyone that self-impressed

...by the fact that her book contains--gasp!--footnotes is an idiot, in my book, whatever her IQ is on paper. This is a former human being who has embraced enthusiastically the conservative imperative to shut down all neural pathways connecting with the cerebral cortex. She is a ditz. The fact that she has had to work hard at making herself over INTO a ditz only means that she is not merely a ditz, but a morally bankrupt ditz.

[tom_paine]

11. She reminds me of the Old Republic

You know, her thoughtful essay, not particularly against the Right-Wing, but against Bushevik monstrosity, really (thoguh she doesn't label it), is reminiscent and reminds me of when we were still truly free (we are still mostly free, in our daily lives, but the chains are slithering into place).

Poor Anne. I think, as in 1860, her voice of measured reason, and all voices of measured reason, will be drowned out by those who cannot see beyond their anger.

And I am now one of them. Why? Because you can only listen to yourself be hated for so long

(and I am a straight white guy, a veteran, a firm believer in regulated capitalism and a moderate who now, thanks to the tectonic shifts largely psychoengineered by the Busheviks who have been working at this Orwellian Transformation for quite some time belwo the radar)

before you respond in kind.

Which begs the question: "Were the Jews wrong to return the hatred of the Nazis in kind once they realized what the Nazis were and what the Nazis had planned for them?"

You know my answer to that.

[shirlden]

12. Coulter costs the Repugs plenty

Just let her rant, rave, and write. She sells lots of books because the Repug organizations and PNAC groups buy 1000's of them to give away or just throw away. I shop a lot in half price bookstores and those that buy up remainders. About a year after Limpballs last "best seller" came out, the whole rear of the stores was stacked with his book. The same thing happens with Coulter's books. Let us try a test here, Duers. Ask everyone you know and especially your RW cohorts if they have ever read Coulter. No one is reading them.
A bit pathetic when you think about it. Coulter is being used by her repug masters and does not ever realize it or the money is so good, she just doesn't care, which would make her just another whore for the cause.