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Ten years ago, Ann Coulter was featured onthe cover of Time magazinewith an article entitled Ms. Right. At the time she was a very big presence in the political media but the article pushed her into the realm of popular culture; thus, she became more than just a political bomb thrower. Shed always had the looks and the confidence, and now she had the imprimatur of the mainstream media. Coulter became a full-fledged star.

The article caused a tremendous stir. After all, Coulter was among the most flamboyant of the newer, edgier breed of right-wing provocateurs. In 2000, she had won the Media Research Center-presented Conservative Journalist of the Year award, and the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute gave her its annual conservative leadership award for her unfailing dedication to truth, freedom and conservative values and for being an exemplar, in word and deed, of what a true leader is. It seemed as if she and her incendiary polemics were everywhere, from daily personal appearances on television, her weekly newspaper columns and a series of books that were extremely popular among right-wingers.

From 1998 to 2005, when the magazine cover appeared, she had published a series of books High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and a collection of her columns, called How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter all of which were very successful. The theme of these books is obvious from the titles. She was famous for her cleverness in hating and baiting liberals. And in those heady days of conservative apotheosis, with sex scandals, stolen elections, terrorist attacks, unnecessary wars and liberalism on the run as never before, Coulter was the most deliciously vicious of all the haters.Among her famous quotes of the era were:

And one of her most memorable (to me at least) was this one:

We need to execute people like John Walker [Lindh] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors,

Coulter later clarified what she meant;

When I said we should execute John Walker Lindh, I mis-spoke. What I meant to say was We should burn John Walker Lindh alive and televise it on prime-time network TV. My apologies for any misunderstanding that might have occurred.

If that reminds you of certain fundamentalists operating today in the Middle East, you wouldnt be alone.

Slander and Treason were filled with such vitriol. And they were also cited by numerous critics for their many inaccuracies. Coulter, like her talk radio funhouse mirror image, Rush Limbaugh, always slithered away from any such controversies simply by claiming that shes a comedian of sorts. Heres how that Time Magazine article illustrated her comedic talent:

People say that Jon Stewart has blurred the line between news and humor, but his Daily Show airs on a comedy channel. Coulter goes on actual news programs and deploys so much sarcasm and hyperbole that she sounds more like comedian Dennis Miller on one of his rants than Limbaugh. Consider an exchange on Fox News in June 2001 with Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist. At the time, Barbra Streisand had suggested that Californians practice more conservation, to which Coulter responded:

See the article here:
Ann Coulter has fallen from grace and the reason why is ...