Before the publication of her book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery From the Seventies to Obama, I was slated to interview Ann Coulter. The protocol was significantly more formal than that for even better-known celebrities. But I answered the oddly specific questions I was asked as Id been rushed a copy of the book. I couldnt shake a lingering feeling that something would go awry. It did.
After I sent the advance questions, Coulter went missing. I attempted to track her down and got an apology from a press agent, coupled with a message suggesting I try again. I didnt. I knew Coulter wouldnt answer anything I asked sincerely, and my tongue-in-cheek questions about race and crime may have approached the edge of acknowledging this a bit too obviously. Her act relies on the interviewer playing it straight. I wasnt offended. Ann Coulter is a genius; she had bested me in advance.
Liberals know Ann Coulter as a vicious pundit with a propensity for saying the most hateful thing possible without being yanked off-air. Republicans know her as a fearless advocate for conservative values who eschews political correctness in her quest for truth. Theyre both dead wrong.
Ann Coulter is a particularly unique brand of polemic performance artist, some would say satirist. Imagine Stephen Colbert with a profound mean streak who doesnt let anyone in on the fact its a charade. Coulter has managed to do this by playing it relatively straight as a bona fide conservative commentator who bolsters the image with numerous best-selling books.
Most people arent aware that Coulter had a career as a journalistic voice and lawyer prior to her current incarnation. She helped found Cornell Universitys student paper the Cornell Review, obtained a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and practiced law in New York City. Her work as a litigator for the civil liberties organization Center for Individual Rights and assistance in crafting deportation legislation with Sen. Spencer Abraham may give an idea of her ideology.
Coulter got her break with the book High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton.Its a wordy, legalistic affair with a tone unrecognizeable in the Coulter of today. Serious and higher-minded, the book became a best-seller. What happened next began the birth of the Ann Coulter we know today: She released Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right in 2003. The drastic tonal change occurred without explanation.
Dripping with cynicism, she started lobbing fireball quotes at the left, each designed as little more than open provocation. Whether this was always the plan is hard to decipher. But Coulter had indisputably morphed into a phenomenon. The right was excited, but perhaps they should have exercised more caution.
Researchers accused Slander of playing fast and loose with the facts, most specifically a demonstrably false passage stating that the New York Times ignored the death of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt for days. Coulter acknowledged the error shortly after and removed it from the paperback edition of the book.
Thus began the descent, or arguably ascent, of Coulter into fact-flexible parody. She crafted deliciously malicious word-bombs and tested them out on an unsuspecting public. She lobbed one of her first bombs in an interview with George Gurley of the New York Observer.
Is your tape recorder running? Turn it on! I got something to say My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.
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Let’s all laugh at Ann Coulter, right-wing performance artist