Ann Coulter – Wikipedia
Ann Hart Coulter (; born December 8, 1961) is an American conservative social and political commentator, writer, syndicated columnist, and lawyer. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public and private events.
Born in New York City to a conservative family, Coulter was raised in New Canaan, Connecticut. She deepened her conservative interests while studying history at Cornell University, where she helped found The Cornell Review. She subsequently embarked on a career as a law clerk before rising to prominence in the 1990s as an outspoken critic of the Clinton administration. Her first book concerned the Bill Clinton impeachment, and sprang from her experience writing legal briefs for Paula Jones's attorneys, as well as columns she wrote about the cases.[3][4] Coulter has described herself as a polemicist who likes to "stir up the pot," and does not "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do,"[5] drawing criticism from the left, and sometimes from the right.[6]
Coulter's syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate appears in newspapers, and is featured on major conservative websites.
Ann Hart Coulter was born on December 8, 1961 in New York City, to John Vincent Coulter (19262008), an FBI agent of IrishGerman heritage,[7] who was a native of Albany, New York, and Nell Husbands Coulter (ne Martin; 1928 2009), a native of Paducah, Kentucky.[8][9] All eight of her paternal great-great-grandparents were immigrants.[7] Her family later moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Coulter and her two older brothers, James and John, were raised.[10] She was raised in a conservative household in Connecticut by Republican parents, with a father who loved Joseph McCarthy. Coulter says she has identified as a conservative since kindergarten. To prep for arguments, she read books like Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative.[11]
At age 14, Coulter visited her older brother in New York City where he attended law school. While he was in class, he had his little sister read books by Milton Friedman and William E. Simon. When he got home from class, he quizzed Coulter. As a reward, he and his friends took her out to bars on the Upper East Side. Reading Republican books made Coulter dream about working as a writer.[11] She graduated from New Canaan High School in 1980. Coulter's age was disputed in 2002 while she was arguing that she was not yet 40, yet Washington Post columnist Lloyd Grove cited that she provided a birthdate of December 8, 1961, when registering to vote in New Canaan, Connecticut prior to the 1980 Presidential election. Meanwhile, a driver's license issued several years later allegedly listed her birthdate as December 8, 1963. Coulter will not confirm either date, citing privacy concerns.[12]
While attending Cornell University, Coulter helped found The Cornell Review,[13][14] and was a member of the Delta Gamma national sorority.[15] She graduated cum laude from Cornell in 1984 with a B.A. in history, and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988, where she was an editor of the Michigan Law Review.[16] At Michigan, Coulter was president of the local chapter of the Federalist Society and was trained at the National Journalism Center.[17]
After law school, Coulter served as a law clerk, in Kansas City, for Pasco BowmanII of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[18] After a short time working in New York City in private practice, where she specialized in corporate law, Coulter left to work for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994. She handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan and helped craft legislation designed to expedite the deportation of aliens convicted of felonies.[19] She later became a litigator with the Center for Individual Rights.[20]
In 2000, Coulter considered running for Congress in Connecticut on the Libertarian Party ticket[21] to serve as a spoiler in order to throw the seat to the Democratic candidate and see that Republican Congressman Christopher Shays failed to gain re-election, as a punishment for Shays' vote against Clinton's impeachment. The leadership of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, after meeting with Coulter, declined to endorse her. As a result, her self-described "total sham, media-intensive, third-party Jesse Ventura campaign" did not take place.[22][23] Shays subsequently won the election, and held the seat until 2008.[24]
Coulter's career is highlighted by the publication of eleven books, as well as the weekly syndicated newspaper column that she publishes. She is particularly known for her polemical style,[25] and describes herself as someone who likes to "stir up the pot. I dont pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do".[26] She has been compared to Clare Boothe Luce, one of her idols, for her satirical style.[27] She also makes numerous public appearances, speaking on television and radio talk shows, as well as on college campuses, receiving both praise and protest. Coulter typically spends 612 weeks of the year on speaking engagement tours, and more when she has a book coming out.[28] In 2010, she made an estimated $500,000 on the speaking circuit, giving speeches on topics of modern conservatism, gay marriage, and what she describes as the hypocrisy of modern American liberalism.[29] During one appearance at the University of Arizona, a pie was thrown at her.[30][31][32] Coulter has, on occasion, in defense of her ideas, responded with inflammatory remarks toward hecklers and protestors who attend her speeches.[33][34]
Coulter is the author of eleven books, many of which have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, with a combined 3 million copies sold as of May 2009.[35]
Coulter's first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, was published by Regnery Publishing in 1998 and made the New York Times Bestseller list.[3] It details Coulter's case for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
Her second book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, published by Crown Forum in 2002, reached the number one spot on The New York Times non-fiction best seller list.[36] In Slander, Coulter argues that President George W. Bush was given unfair negative media coverage. The factual accuracy of Slander was called into question by then-comedian and author, and now Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken; he also accused her of citing passages out of context.[37] Others investigated these charges, and also raised questions about the book's accuracy and presentation of facts.[38][39][40] Coulter responded to criticisms in a column called "Answering My Critics".[41]
In her third book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, also published by Crown Forum, she reexamines the 60-year history of the Cold War including the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Whittaker Chambers-Alger Hiss affair, and Ronald Reagans challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"and argues that liberals were wrong in their Cold War political analyses and policy decisions, and that McCarthy was correct about Soviet agents working for the U.S. government.[42] She also argues that the correct identification of Annie Lee Moss, among others, as communists was misreported by the liberal media.[43]Treason was published in 2003, and spent 13 weeks on the Best Seller list.[44]
Crown Forum published a collection of Coulter's columns in 2004 as her fourth book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter.[45]
Coulter's fifth book, published by Crown Forum in 2006, is Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[46] In it, she argues, first, that American liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, and second, that it bears all the attributes of a religion itself.[47]Godless debuted at number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.[48] Some passages in the book match portions of others' writings published at an earlier time (including newspaper articles and a Planned Parenthood document), leading John Barrie of iThenticate to assert that Coulter had engaged in "textbook plagiarism".[49]
Coulter's If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans (Crown Forum), published in October 2007, and Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America (Crown Forum), published on January 6, 2009, both also achieved best-seller status.[50][51][52]
On June 7, 2011, Crown Forum published her eighth book Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. Coulter said she based this book heavily on the work of French social psychologist Gustave Le Bon, who wrote on mass psychology, and in it she argues that liberals have mob-like characteristics.[53]
Her ninth book, published September 25, 2012, is Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama. It argues that liberals, and Democrats in particular, have taken undue credit for racial civil rights in America.[54]
Coulter's tenth book, Never Trust a Liberal Over 3 Especially a Republican, was released October 14, 2013. It is her second collection of columns and her first published by Regnery since her first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors.[55]
Coulter published her eleventh book, Adios, America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole on June 1, 2015. The book addresses illegal immigration, amnesty programs, and border security in the United States. [56]
In the late 1990s, Coulter's weekly (biweekly from 19992000) syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate began appearing. Her column is featured on six conservative websites: Human Events Online, WorldNetDaily, Townhall.com, VDARE, FrontPageMag, Jewish World Review and her own web site. Her syndicator says, "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers".[57]
In 1999 Coulter worked as a regular columnist for George magazine.[22][58] Coulter also wrote exclusive weekly columns between 1998 and 2003 and with occasional columns thereafter for the conservative magazine Human Events. In her columns for the magazine, she discusses judicial rulings, Constitutional issues, and legal matters affecting Congress and the executive branch.[59]
In 2001 as a contributing editor and syndicated columnist for National Review Online (NRO), Coulter was asked by editors to make changes to a piece written after the September 11 attacks. On the national television show Politically Incorrect, Coulter accused NRO of censorship and said that she was paid $5 per article. NRO dropped her column and terminated her editorship. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of NRO, said, "We did not 'fire' Ann for what she wrote... we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty [concerning the editing disagreement]."[60]
Coulter contracted with USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She wrote one article that began, "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston..." and referred to some unspecified female attendees as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons". The newspaper declined to print the article citing an editing dispute over "basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable". An explanatory article by the paper went on to say "Coulter told the online edition of Editor & Publisher magazine that 'USA Today doesn't like my "tone", humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.'" USA Today replaced Coulter with Jonah Goldberg, and Coulter published it instead on her website.[61][62][63]
In August 2005, the Arizona Daily Star dropped Coulter's syndicated column citing reader complaints that "Many readers find her shrill, bombastic, and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives".[64]
In July 2006, some newspapers replaced Coulter's column with those of other conservative columnists following the publication of her fourth book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[65] After The Augusta Chronicle dropped her column, newspaper editor Michael Ryan explained that "it came to the point where she was the issue rather than what she was writing about".[66] Ryan also stated that "pulling Ann Coulter's column hurts; she's one of the clearest thinkers around".
She has criticized former president George W. Bush's immigration proposals, saying they led to "amnesty". In a 2007 column, she claimed that the current immigration system was set up to deliberately reduce the percentage of whites in the population. In it, she said:[67]
In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner.
One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.
Overall, Coulter's columns are highly critical of liberals and Democrats. In 2006, she wrote:[68]
This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.
To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they are all for the war against terrorabsolutely in favor of that warthey are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians", even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.
Coulter made her first national media appearance in 1996 after she was hired by the then-fledgling network MSNBC as a legal correspondent. She later appeared on CNN and Fox News.[69] Coulter went on to make frequent guest appearances on many television and radio talk shows, including American Morning, The Fifth Estate, Glenn Beck Program, The Mike Gallagher Show, The O'Reilly Factor, Real Time with Bill Maher, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, The Today Show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox and Friends, The Laura Ingraham Show, The View, The Michael Medved Show, and HARDtalk.
In an interview with Bob McKeown on the edition of January 26, 2005 of The Fifth Estate, Coulter came under criticism for her statement, "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown contradicted her with, "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."[70] On the edition of February 18, 2005 of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the United States during the war years and got drafted. She said, "The Canadian Government didn't send troops... but... they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada." (There were actually between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians who fought in Vietnam itself, including approximately 80 who were killed.)[71] John Cloud of Time, writing about the incident a few months later, said, "Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972".[69]
Coulter appeared in three films released during 2004. The first was Feeding the Beast, a made-for-television documentary on the "24-Hour News Revolution".[72] The other two films were FahrenHYPE 9/11, a direct-to-video documentary rebuttal of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, and Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a documentary on Coulter containing clips of interviews and speeches.[73] In 2015, Coulter had a cameo as the Vice President in the made for TV movie Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!.
Coulter has been engaged several times, but she has never married and has no children.[33] She has dated Spin founder and publisher Bob Guccione, Jr.,[22] and conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza.[74] In October 2007, she began dating Andrew Stein, the former president of the New York City Council, a liberal Democrat. When asked about the relationship, Stein told the paper, "She's attacked a lot of my friends, but what can I say, opposites attract!"[75] On January 7, 2008, however, Stein told the New York Post that the relationship was over, citing irreconcilable differences.[76]
Coulter owns a house, bought in 2005, in Palm Beach, Florida, a condominium in Manhattan, and an apartment in Los Angeles. She votes in Palm Beach and is not registered to do so in New York or California.[77][78] She is a fan of several jam bands, such as the Grateful Dead, the Dave Matthews Band, and Phish.[79][80] Some of her favorite books include the Bible, Mere Christianity, Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, true crime stories about serial killers, and anything by Dave Barry.[81]
Coulter is a Christian and belongs to the Presbyterian denomination.[1][2] Her father was Catholic and her mother was a Protestant.[82] At one public lecture she said, "I don't care about anything else; Christ died for my sins, and nothing else matters."[83] She summarized her view of Christianity in a 2004 column, saying, "Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day, because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it." She then mocked "the message of Jesus...according to liberals", summarizing it as "something along the lines of 'be nice to people,'" which, in turn, she said "is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity."[84]
Confronting some critics' views that her content and style of writing is un-Christian-like,[85] Coulter stated that "I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it."[86] She also said, "Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisyyou know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism".[87] In Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Coulter characterized the theory of evolution as bogus science, and contrasted her beliefs to what she called the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death".[88]
Coulter was accused of anti-semitism in an October 8, 2007 interview with Donny Deutsch on The Big Idea. During the interview, Coulter stated that the United States is a Christian nation, and said that she wants "Jews to be perfected, as they say" (referring to them being converted to Christianity).[89] Deutsch, a practicing Jew, implied that this was an anti-semitic remark, but Coulter said she didn't consider it to be a hateful comment.[90][91] In response to Coulter's comments on the show, the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and Bradley Burston condemned those comments,[92] and the National Jewish Democratic Council asked media outlets to stop inviting Coulter as a guest commentator.[93] Talk show host Dennis Prager, while disagreeing with her comments, said that they were not "anti-semitic", noting, "There is nothing in what Ann Coulter said to a Jewish interviewer on CNBC that indicates she hates Jews or wishes them ill, or does damage to the Jewish people or the Jewish state. And if none of those criteria is present, how can someone be labeled anti-Semitic?"[94] Conservative activist David Horowitz also defended Coulter against the allegation.[95]
Coulter again sparked outrage in September 2015, when she tweeted in response to multiple Republican candidates' references to Israel during a Presidential debate, "How many fing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?"[96] The Anti-Defamation League referred to the tweets as "ugly, spiteful and anti-Semitic."[97] In response to accusations of anti-Semitism, she tweeted "I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn't need to hear applause lines about them all night."[96]
Coulter is a conservative columnist. She is a registered Republican and member of the advisory council of GOProud since August 9, 2011.[98]
Coulter supported George W. Bush's presidency. She endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican presidential primary[99] and the 2012 Republican presidential primary and presidential run.[100] In the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, she endorsed Donald Trump.[101]
Coulter believes Roe v. Wade should be overturned and left to the states. She is pro-life, but believes there should be an exception if a woman is raped.[102]
She strongly opposed amnesty for illegal immigrants, and at the 2013 CPAC said she has now become a single-issue voter against amnesty.[103]
Although she originally supported the war in Afghanistan during the Bush administration, beginning in 2009 she expressed concern that the war might have turned into another Vietnam, and opposed sending more troops to Afghanistan.[104]
Coulter opposes same-sex marriage and once supported a federal U.S. constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union of one man and one woman.[105] She insists that her opposition to same-sex marriage "wasn't an anti-gay thing" and that "It's genuinely a pro-marriage position to oppose gay marriage".[106] In an April 1, 2015, column, Coulter declared that liberals had "won the war on gay marriage (by judicial fiat)".[107]
During a night out with John Phillips, Coulter told John's gay friends that she knew they really did not want to get married and were more interested in promiscuous sex than in traditional family structures. In a view very similar to radical queers' opposition to same-sex marriage, Coulter argued that same-sex marriage would ruin gay culture, because gays value promiscuity over monogamy. She said, "That's the whole point of being gay, so stop the bullshit," and "I know at least half of you are totally against gay marriage." By the end of the dinner, they agreed with her.[11]
She also opposes civil unions[108] and privatizing marriage.[109] When addressed with the issue of rights granted by marriage she said, "Gays already can visit loved ones in hospitals. They can also visit neighbors, random acquaintances, and total strangers in hospitalsjust like everyone else. Gays can also pass on property to whomever they would like".[110] She disagreed with the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas because she claims there is no right to sodomy in the Constitution,[111] however she doesnt actually want to ban same-sex sexual activity.[112]
In regard to Romer v. Evans described anti-discrimination laws covering LGBT as "affirmative action benefits."[113] She also disagreed with repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell stating that it is not an "anti-gay position; it is a pro-military position" because "sexual bonds are disruptive to the military bond".[114] On April 1, 2015, in a column, Ann Coulter expressed support for Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act and said it was an "apocryphal" assertion to claim the Religious Freedom Restoration Act would be used to discriminate against LGBTs.[107] She has also endorsed the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act and opposes transgender individuals to use bathroom usage corresponding to their gender identity.[115]
Since the 1990s, Coulter has had many acquaintances in the LGBT community. She considers herself "the Judy Garland of the Right." In the last few years, Coulter has attracted many LGBT fans, namely gay men and drag queens.[11][116][117]
At the 2007 CPAC, Coulter said, "I do want to point out one thing that has been driving me crazy with the mediahow they keep describing Mitt Romney's position as being pro-gays, and that's going to upset the right wingers," and "Well, you know, screw you! I'm not anti-gay. We're against gay marriage. I don't want gays to be discriminated against." She added, "I don't know why all gays aren't Republican. I think we have the pro-gay positions, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money and they're victims of crime. No, they are! They should be with us."[118]
In Coulter's 2007 book If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, in the chapter "Gays: No Gay Left Behind!", she argued that Republican policies were more pro-gay than Democratic policies. Coulter attended the 2010 HomoCon of GOProud, where she commented that same-sex marriage "is not a civil right."[119] On February 9, 2011, in a column, Coulter described the national Log Cabin Republicans as "ridiculous" and "not conservative at all." She did however describe the Texas branch of Log Cabin Republicans, for whom she's been signing books for years, as "comprised of real conservatives."[120]
At the 2011 CPAC, during her question and answer segment, Coulter was asked about GOProud and the controversy over their exclusion from the 2011 CPAC. She boasted how she talked GOProud into dropping its support for same-sex marriage in the party's platform, saying, "The left is trying to co-opt gays, and I don't think we should let them. I think they should be on our side," and "Gays are natural conservatives."[121] Later that year, Coulter joined advisory board for GOProud. On Logos The A-List: Dallas she told gay Republican, Taylor Garrett, that "The gays have got to be pro-life," and "As soon as they find the gay gene, guess who the liberal yuppies are gonna start aborting?"[122]
Coulter strongly supports continuing the War on Drugs.[123] However, she has said that, if there were not a welfare state, she "wouldn't care" if drugs were legal.[124]
Coulter spoke about drugs as a guest on Piers Morgan Live, when she said that marijuana users "can't perform daily functions."[125]
Ann Coulter has described herself as a "polemicist" who likes to "stir up the pot" and doesn't "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do."[5] While her political activities in the past have included advising a plaintiff suing President Bill Clinton as well as considering a run for Congress, she mostly serves as a political pundit, sometimes creating controversy ranging from rowdy uprisings at some of the colleges where she speaks to protracted discussions in the media. Time magazine's John Cloud once observed that Coulter "likes to shock reporters by wondering aloud whether America might be better off if women lost the right to vote."[69] This was in reference to her statement that "it would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950except Goldwater in '64the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted."[126] Similarly, in an October 2007 interview with the New York Observer, Coulter said:[127]
If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it's the party of women and 'We'll pay for health care and tuition and day careand here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'
Coulter first became a public figure shortly before becoming an unpaid legal adviser for the attorneys representing Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. Coulter's friend George Conway had been asked to assist Jones' attorneys, and shortly afterward Coulter, who wrote a column about the Paula Jones case for Human Events, was also asked to help, and she began writing legal briefs for the case.
Coulter later stated that she would come to mistrust the motives of Jones' head lawyer, Joseph Cammaratta, who by August or September 1997 was advising Jones that her case was weak and to settle, if a favorable settlement could be negotiated.[19][128] From the outset, Jones had sought an apology from Clinton at least as eagerly as she sought a settlement.[129] However, in a later interview Coulter recounted that she herself had believed that the case was strong, that Jones was telling the truth, that Clinton should be held publicly accountable for his misconduct, and that a settlement would give the impression that Jones was merely interested in extorting money from the President.[19]
David Daley, who wrote the interview piece for The Hartford Courant recounted what followed:
Coulter played one particularly key role in keeping the Jones case alive. In Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff's new book Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story, Coulter is unmasked as the one who leaked word of Clinton's "distinguishing characteristic"his reportedly bent penis that Jones said she could recognize and describeto the news media. Her hope was to foster mistrust between the Clinton and Jones camps and forestall a settlement ... I thought if I leaked the distinguishing characteristic it would show bad faith in negotiations. [Clinton lawyer] Bob Bennett would think Jones had leaked it. Cammaratta would know he himself hadn't leaked it and would get mad at Bennett. It might stall negotiations enough for me to get through to [Jones adviser] Susan Carpenter-McMillan to tell her that I thought settling would hurt Paula, that this would ruin her reputation, and that there were other lawyers working for her. Then 36 hours later, she returned my phone call. I just wanted to help Paula. I really think Paula Jones is a hero. I don't think I could have taken the abuse she came under. She's this poor little country girl and she has the most powerful man she's ever met hitting on her sexually, then denying it and smearing her as president. And she never did anything tacky. It's not like she was going on TV or trying to make a buck out of it."[19]
In his book, Isikoff also reported Coulter as saying: "We were terrified that Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the President."[128] After the book came out, Coulter clarified her stated motives, saying:
The only motive for leaking the distinguishing characteristic item that [Isikoff] gives in his book is my self-parodying remark that "it would humiliate the president" and that a settlement would foil our efforts to bring down the president.... I suppose you could take the position, as [Isikoff] does, that we were working for Jones because we thought Clinton was a lecherous, lying scumbag, but this argument gets a bit circular. You could also say that Juanita Broaddrick's secret motive in accusing Clinton of rape is that she hates Clinton because he raped her. The whole reason we didn't much like Clinton was that we could see he was the sort of man who would haul a low-level government employee like Paula to his hotel room, drop his pants, and say, "Kiss it." You know: Everything his defense said about him at the impeachment trial. It's not like we secretly disliked Clinton because of his administration's position on California's citrus cartels or something, and then set to work on some crazy scheme to destroy him using a pathological intern as our Mata Hari.[130]
The case went to court after Jones broke with Coulter and her original legal team, and it was dismissed via summary judgment. The judge ruled that even if her allegations proved true, Jones did not show that she had suffered any damages, stating, "...plaintiff has not demonstrated any tangible job detriment or adverse employment action for her refusal to submit to the governor's alleged advances. The president is therefore entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's claim of quid pro quo sexual harassment." The ruling was appealed by Jones' lawyers. During the pendency of the appeal, Clinton settled with Jones for $850,000 ($151,000 after legal fees) in November 1998, in exchange for Jones' dismissal of the appeal. By then, the Jones lawsuit had given way to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.
In October 2000, Jones revealed that she would pose for nude pictures in an adult magazine, saying she wanted to use the money to pay taxes and support her grade-school-aged children, in particular saying, "I'm wanting to put them through college and maybe set up a college fund."[131] Coulter publicly denounced Jones, calling her "the trailer-park trash they said she was" (Coulter had earlier chastened Clinton supporters for calling Jones this name),[132] after Clinton's former campaign strategist James Carville had made the widely reported remark, "Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, and you'll never know what you'll find," and called Jones a "fraud, at least to the extent of pretending to be an honorable and moral person."[131]
Coulter wrote:
Paula surely was given more than a million dollars in free legal assistance from an array of legal talent she will never again encounter in her life, much less have busily working on her behalf. Some of those lawyers never asked for or received a dime for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work performed at great professional, financial and personal cost to themselves. Others got partial payments out of the settlement. But at least they got her reputation back. And now she's thrown it away.[133]
Jones claimed not to have been offered any help with a book deal of her own or any other additional financial help after the lawsuit.[131]
As the 2008 presidential campaign was getting under way, Coulter drew criticism for statements she made at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference about presidential candidate John Edwards:[134]
I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm... so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions.
The comment was in reference to Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington's use of the epithet and his subsequent mandatory "psychological assessment" imposed by ABC executives.[136] It was widely interpreted as meaning that Coulter had called Edwards a "faggot," but Coulter argued that she did not actually do so, while simultaneously indicating she would not have been wrong to say it.[137] Edwards responded on his web site by characterizing Coulter's words as "un-American and indefensible," and asking readers to help him "raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry."[138] He also called her a "she-devil," adding, "I should not have name-called. But the truth isforget the namespeople like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."[139] Coulter's words also drew condemnation from many prominent Republicans and Democrats, as well as groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).[138][140][141] Three advertisers (Verizon, Sallie Mae and Netbank) also pulled their advertisements from Coulter's web site,[142] and several newspapers dropped her column.[143][144] Coulter responded in an e-mail to the New York Times, "Cmon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."[141] On March 5, 2007, she appeared on Hannity and Colmes and said, "Faggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays. It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss.'"[145] Gay rights advocates were not convinced. "Ann Coulter's use of this anti-gay slur is vile and unacceptable," said Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, "and the applause from her audience is an important reminder that Coulter's ugly brand of bigotry is at the root of the discriminatory policies being promoted at this gathering." A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, called Coulter's comments "wildly inappropriate."
As the campaign waged on, she continued to insert her commentary regarding the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. In a June 2007 interview, Coulter named Duncan Hunter as her choice for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, highlighting his views on immigration and specifically his anti-abortion credentials, saying "[t]his is a winning issue for us, protecting little babies."[146] On January 16, 2008, Coulter began endorsing Governor Mitt Romney as her choice for the 2008 Republican nomination, saying he is "manifestly the best candidate" (contrasting Romney with Republican candidates John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani).[147] By contrast, Coulter was critical of eventual Republican nominee John McCain. On the January 31, 2008 broadcast of Hannity and Colmes, Coulter claimed that if McCain won the Republican nomination for president, she would support and campaign for Hillary Clinton, stating, "[Clinton] is more conservative than McCain."[148]
Regarding then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama in an April 2, 2008 column, she characterized his book Dreams from My Father as a "dimestore Mein Kampf." Coulter writes, "He says the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's 'easier than spending all your time mad or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.' Here's a little inside scoop about white people: We're not thinking about you. Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it."[149]
In March 2010, Coulter announced that she would be embarking on a speaking tour of three Canadian universities, The University of Western Ontario, the University of Ottawa and the University of Calgary. The tour was organized by the International Free Press Society.[150]
On the eve of Coulter's first speech at the University of Western Ontario, an e-mail to Coulter from Franois Houle, provost of the University of Ottawa, was leaked to the media. The e-mail warned that "promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges." Coulter released a public statement alleging that by sending her the e-mail, Houle was promoting hatred against conservatives.[151] During her speech at the University of Western Ontario she told a Muslim student to "take a camel," in response to the student's question about previous comments by Coulter that Muslims should not be allowed on airplanes.[152]
On March 22, the University of Ottawa made international news when liberal protesters conspired to prevent Coulter from speaking. The event was canceled in spite of a massive security presence; Alain Boucher of the Ottawa Police Service said there were ten officers visible at the scene, "plus other resources" nearby.[153] Boucher alleged that Coulter's security team decided to call off the event, saying, "We gave her options," including, he said, to "find a bigger venue." But "they opted to cancel ... It's not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision."[154] Boucher claimed there were no arrests.[155] CTV News reported, "It was a disaster in terms of just organization, which is probably one of the reasons why it was cancelled," citing the small number of students tasked with confirming who had signed up to attend Coulter's talk.[156]
Event organizer and conservative activist Ezra Levant blamed the protest on the letter sent to Coulter by Houle.[157] After the cancellation, Coulter called the University of Ottawa "bush league," stating:[158]
I go to the best schools, Harvard, the Ivy League, and those kids are too intellectually proud to threaten speakers. ... I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslimwho appear to be, from what Ive read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada. I think Ill give my speech tomorrow night in a burka. That will protect me.
On September 14, 2001, three days after the September 11 attacks (in which her friend Barbara Olson had been killed), Coulter wrote in her column:
Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. 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.[159]
Responding to this comment, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations remarked in The Chicago Sun Times that before September 11, Coulter "would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues," but "now it's accepted as legitimate commentary."[160]
David Horowitz, however, saw Coulter's words as irony:
I began running Coulter columns on Frontpagemag.com shortly after she came up with her most infamous line, which urged America to put jihadists to the sword and convert them to Christianity. Liberals were horrified; I was not. I thought to myself, this is a perfect send-up of what our Islamo-fascist enemies believethat as infidels we should be put to the sword and converted to Islam. I regarded Coulters phillipic (sic) as a Swiftian commentary on liberal illusions of multi-cultural outreach to people who want to rip out our hearts.[161]
One day after the attacks (when death toll estimates were higher than later), Coulter asserted that only Muslims could have been behind the attacks:
Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslimsat least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under two hours.[162]
Coulter has been highly critical of the U.S. Department of Transportation and especially its then-secretary Norman Mineta. Her many criticisms include their refusal to use racial profiling as a component of airport screening.[163] After a group of Muslims was expelled from a US Airways flight when other passengers expressed concern, sparking a call for Muslims to boycott the airline because of the ejection from a flight of six imams, Coulter wrote:
If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.[164]
Coulter also cited the 2002 Senate testimony of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who was acclaimed for condemning her superiors for refusing to authorize a search warrant for 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui when he refused to consent to a search of his computer. They knew that he was a Muslim in flight school who had overstayed his visa, and the French Intelligence Service had confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups. Coulter said she agreed that probable cause existed in the case, but that refusing consent, being in flight school and overstaying a visa should not constitute grounds for a search. Citing a poll which found that 98 percent of Muslims between the ages of 20 and 45 said they would not fight for Britain in the war in Afghanistan, and that 48 percent said they would fight for Osama bin Laden she asserted "any Muslim who has attended a mosque in Europecertainly in England, where Moussaoui livedhas had 'affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups,'" so that she parsed Rowley's position as meaning that "'probable cause' existed to search Moussaoui's computer because he was a Muslim who had lived in England." Coulter says the poll was "by the "Daily Telegraph", actually it was by Sunrise, an "Asian"(i.e., Indian subcontinent-oriented) radio station, canvassing the opinions of 500 Muslims in Greater London (not Britain as a whole), mainly of Pakistani origin and aged between 20 and 45. Because "FBI headquarters ... refused to engage in racial profiling," they failed to uncover the 9-11 plot, Coulter asserted. "The FBI allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered on the altar of political correctness. What more do liberals want?"[165][166]
Coulter wrote in another column that she had reviewed the civil rights lawsuits against certain airlines to determine which of them had subjected Arabs to the most "egregious discrimination" so that she could fly only that airline. She also said that the airline should be bragging instead of denying any of the charges of discrimination brought against them.[167] In an interview with The Guardian she said, "I think airlines ought to start advertising: 'We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs.'" When the interviewer replied by asking what Muslims would do for travel, she responded, "They could use flying carpets."[126]
One comment that drew criticism from the blogosphere, as well as fellow conservatives,[168] was made during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2006, where she said, referring to the prospect of a nuclear-equipped Iran, "What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with nuclear weapons? I think our motto should be, post-9-11: Raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences."[169] Coulter had previously written a nearly identical passage in her syndicated column: "...I believe our motto should be, after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about 'camel jockey'? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?"[170]
In October 2007, Coulter made further controversial remarks regarding Arabsin this case Iraqiswhen she stated in an interview with The New York Observer:
We've killed about 20,000 of them, of terrorists, of militants, of Al Qaeda members, and theyve gotten a little over 3,000 of ours. That is where the war is being fought, in Iraq. That is where we are fighting Al Qaeda. Sorry we have to use your country, Iraqis, but you let Saddam come to power, and we are going to instill democracy in your country.[171]
In a May 2007 article looking back at the life of recently deceased evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell, Coulter commented on his (later retracted) statement after the 9/11 attacks that "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America ... helped this happen." In her article, Coulter stated that she disagreed with Falwell's statement, "because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and 'the Reverend' Barry Lynn."[172]
In October 2007, Coulter participated in David Horowitz' "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," remarking in a speech at the University of Southern California, "The fact of Islamo-Fascism is indisputable. I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy ... I want to kill them. Why don't Democrats?"[173]
In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings Coulter told Hannity host Sean Hannity that the wife of bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev should be jailed for wearing a hijab. Coulter continued by saying "Assimilating immigrants into our culture isnt really working. Theyre assimilating us into their culture."[174]
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris, Coulter said France needs to move to the next step in dealing with terror. Coulter said of some immigrants:
They dont want to live in Muslim countries, and yet they want to change the non-Muslim countries they move to [into] Muslim countries. It may be a small minority of Muslims and still its enough of them that maybe you take a little pause in Muslim immigration for a while.[175]
On March 16, 2011, discussing the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, Coulter, citing research into radiation hormesis, wrote that there was "burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine."[176] Her comments were criticized by figures across the political spectrum, from Fox News' Bill O'Reilly (who told Coulter, "You have to be responsible .... in something like this, you gotta get the folks out of there, and you have to report worst-case scenarios")[177] to MSNBC's Ed Schulz (who stated that "You would laugh at her if she wasn't making light of a terrible tragedy.")[178]
More:
Ann Coulter - Wikipedia