Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Coulter -- Wicked Witch of Right
"I'm melting! Melting! Mellllttttinnnngggggg........"
The voice you're hearing is not that of a fictional witch, but of a real-life one, self-anointed right-wing pundit (a.k.a. media whore) Ann Coulter, whose credibility melted down last week faster than Margaret Hamilton's character in "Wizard of Oz."
Coulter, Queen of the Heckler's Veto and the Ad Hominem Argument, lost whatever credibility she had left when she turned her name-calling reflex on a group of widows of 9/11 victims. She called them gold-diggers and "prosties," but in usual Coulter style did not make any effort to document those characterizations. No financial records, no hidden cameras on dark street corners. The widows' only sin, hardly a venal one, was that they criticized the Bush administration.
As far as I know, this is still America and people are allowed to have opinions without incurring virulent, off-the-mark smear campaigns (unless, of course, they are running for public office, which the widows aren't). That has never stopped Coulter, of course, who apparently slept through her Public Discourse class in college, if she ever took one. Especially when she has a new book she is trying to hype and hawk.
Well, at least for those of us for whom taste and civility still matter, she crossed that line in spades this time. And now she is suffering the inevitable fate of those of the self-important and self-righteous, the slow and delicious public spectacle of seeing her credibility (if has any with anyone other the semi-Nazis of Fox News and Bill Maher, whose attraction to Coulter was focused on anatomical features other than her brain, I've always suspected) form a puddle on the floor of the public stage.
Good for her. She now joins the others of like mind and madness who have self-destructed in very public ways -- Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, Bill O'Reilly (he of the sexy answering-machine voice), and Rush Limbaugh (good morning, is the pharmicist in?). Can Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, and James Dobson be far behind? Let us hope not. Wicked meltdowns are the just deserts of those who think everyone should take them seriously without any justification and get crazy when fewer and fewer fall for their acts. I am reminded of the very reverand minister who led the fight against an adult book store in the city where I was at the time; a few months later, he got charged with 30-some counts of child molestation (would you like to see my office, little Johnny? It's my little Neverland; you'll love it).
There may not be anything more enjoyable to watch than Coulter melting, melting, melting away (except maybe the "Kill Bill" movies). See Ann, Wicked Bitch of the Right, melt far, far away from home, the media spotlight. Pass the popcorn, please.
(In the interest of being fair-minded, a phrase not usually associated with anything Coulter, I must admit that I have never read any of her books. I have only heard her screeds on TV -- in 2- or 3-minute bites, which is all my gag reflex can tolerate -- but that is enough. Unapologetically, I will not be reading them now, either. I do think I will go back and reread Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer," which explains Coulter much better than anything she has ever written or uttered.)
The voice you're hearing is not that of a fictional witch, but of a real-life one, self-anointed right-wing pundit (a.k.a. media whore) Ann Coulter, whose credibility melted down last week faster than Margaret Hamilton's character in "Wizard of Oz."
Coulter, Queen of the Heckler's Veto and the Ad Hominem Argument, lost whatever credibility she had left when she turned her name-calling reflex on a group of widows of 9/11 victims. She called them gold-diggers and "prosties," but in usual Coulter style did not make any effort to document those characterizations. No financial records, no hidden cameras on dark street corners. The widows' only sin, hardly a venal one, was that they criticized the Bush administration.
As far as I know, this is still America and people are allowed to have opinions without incurring virulent, off-the-mark smear campaigns (unless, of course, they are running for public office, which the widows aren't). That has never stopped Coulter, of course, who apparently slept through her Public Discourse class in college, if she ever took one. Especially when she has a new book she is trying to hype and hawk.
Well, at least for those of us for whom taste and civility still matter, she crossed that line in spades this time. And now she is suffering the inevitable fate of those of the self-important and self-righteous, the slow and delicious public spectacle of seeing her credibility (if has any with anyone other the semi-Nazis of Fox News and Bill Maher, whose attraction to Coulter was focused on anatomical features other than her brain, I've always suspected) form a puddle on the floor of the public stage.
Good for her. She now joins the others of like mind and madness who have self-destructed in very public ways -- Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggert, Bill O'Reilly (he of the sexy answering-machine voice), and Rush Limbaugh (good morning, is the pharmicist in?). Can Sean Hannity, Joe Scarborough, and James Dobson be far behind? Let us hope not. Wicked meltdowns are the just deserts of those who think everyone should take them seriously without any justification and get crazy when fewer and fewer fall for their acts. I am reminded of the very reverand minister who led the fight against an adult book store in the city where I was at the time; a few months later, he got charged with 30-some counts of child molestation (would you like to see my office, little Johnny? It's my little Neverland; you'll love it).
There may not be anything more enjoyable to watch than Coulter melting, melting, melting away (except maybe the "Kill Bill" movies). See Ann, Wicked Bitch of the Right, melt far, far away from home, the media spotlight. Pass the popcorn, please.
(In the interest of being fair-minded, a phrase not usually associated with anything Coulter, I must admit that I have never read any of her books. I have only heard her screeds on TV -- in 2- or 3-minute bites, which is all my gag reflex can tolerate -- but that is enough. Unapologetically, I will not be reading them now, either. I do think I will go back and reread Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer," which explains Coulter much better than anything she has ever written or uttered.)
