Why can’t we all just ignore Ann Coulter?
By Margery Eagan
Boston Herald Columnist
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
I am not supposed to write about Ann Coulter. That makes me part of the problem, not the solution, which is to ignore her.
How can I?
This Friday, as you probably know, she outraged both left and many on the right by describing would-be president John Edwards as a “faggot,” an awful word.
And almost immediately speculation began, as it does every time she utters some outrage: Is this the final straw, the beginning of the end for Ann Coulter?
No, it’s not, of course.
Why not? That’s my excuse today: to answer that question.
A “huckster of hate,” detractors have called her. And telebimbo, skank, lying liar, Twiggy with Tourettes living on Chardonnay and cigarettes, or Nicorette. “A drag queen fascist impersonator,” says writer Andrew Sullivan.
Born in la-de-da New Cannan, Conn., educated at Cornell and Michigan law school. Coulter was a former legal adviser to Paula Jones in her sex-harassment case against Bill Clinton, whom Coulter loathes.
In black miniskirt and mink stole she once reportedly made out in a stairwell with Bob Guccione Jr., son of the porn mogul. She’s been engaged at least three times, never married, endured scary stalkers. “She’s a pterodactyl version of Anna Nicole Smith,” said somebody yesterday, “with a much bigger brain and much smaller breasts. And you can’t look away, partly because every time she says something nutty, she’s all over cable, like Anna.”
She rakes in $20,000 to $30,000, or more, for every speech or interview where she says things like:
Democrats are “the treason party.“ Or “We ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning. Boom!”
Or, some 9/11 widows are “witches” and “grief-arazzis;” Ted Kennedy’s “a human dirigible;” Katie Couric’s “the affable Eva Braun of morning TV.”On gays, before the “faggot” remark, “How can you teach children about anal sex in a loving way?”
MSNBC fired her after she called Pamela Harriman, the late ambassador to France, a whore - as MSNBC was covering her memorial service.
“She’s my hero.” deadpanned local PR czar George Regan. “No resume. No idea what she’s talking about. But she’s got the best gig in America, raking in millions.”
But why, why?
Yesterday I read everything I could about Ann Coulter, America’s most recognized, written, blogged, talked about conservative polemicist.
My theories: When you see her on TV, she’s hard to turn away from. As Time magazine once put it, “it’s almost impossible to watch her and not be sluiced into rage or elation.” She’s both an example of the coarsening culture and of how we talk politics on TV and radio now: the more polarizing, furious, outrageous and even violent the soundbite; the more it provokes, enrages - and gets you invited back on the show - the better.
And then there’s the Coulter femme fatale factor. What you notice in so many interviews is how she charms reporters, makes them like her and then think to themselves: Well, maybe it’s not so bad that she, you know, wants to deport Arab immigrants, legal, or not. People on the left, like Michael Moore, say awful things, too.
Several Coulter stories talk about her attending power parties in New York or D.C. filled with hot shot journalists or political operatives. At first they’re appalled that she’s there. But then they line up to talk to her. And suddenly they’re drooling, groveling, star-struck groupies, especially the men. So if she were a thick-waisted dowdy brunette, nobody would care what she said. But she’s not, so we do.