The Most Hateful Of All American Women

THE HATRED OF ANN COULTER... Trash Talk

Ann Coulter has been getting a lot of coverage as of late... and she is quite self-absorbed by it all. She appeared on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and took umbrage with American liberals for being offended by everything she claimed about liberalism except that they were godless. But she doesn't get it. Most liberals are not offended at being called god-less because such is not the case. Most liberals are convinced that God has called them into service of others and need to be in the forefront of the governmental process to assure that our rights and needs are met, in accordance with our CONSTITUTIONAL values and principles, as set forth by our framers and forefathers in the Preamble of our "supreme law of the land."

Most liberals are also not offended by being called god-less by someone who really has not read the Scriptures (at least not the Christian Scriptures) in light of the teachings of Christ, which include the concepts of free will, choice and being called (not forced into) to a relationship with God. As Coulter has stated in many of her writings, all people must worship God and believe as she believes--with her being a self-proclaimed goddess of ultra-conservativism--or be converted, imprisoned or put to death.

But what does offend liberals is the unrelentless, unwarranted, un-American and mericless attack she perpetrates without having all of the facts, an understanding of dynamics or one iota of compassion for her fellow human beings. Ann, it is not your ideas we find offensive... it is you, and your willingness to say anything to sell your outrageous diatribes in order to sell yourself and your books, my dear.

Well, color me happy! Ann Coulter has finally hit the big time. Forget scoring the cover of Time last year. Plenty of second-tier political personalities have done that. (Weren't the Dixie Chicks on just a few weeks ago?) And so what if her latest book is a best-seller; she's already enjoyed a string of those and is apt to enjoy plenty more, assuming her liver doesn't stop over-excreting bile any time soon. But this week Coulter arguably reached the pinnacle of American notoriety when no less a zeitgeist authority than The National Enquirer named her "The Most Hated Woman in America." Now that is a big deal. We're talking Hillary Clinton-level public loathing here.

Many Coulter devotees will welcome this news as further confirmation of their dreamgirl's role as a tough cookie who dares to make all those fearless observations about, for instance, "ragheads" and "jihad monkeys" that even the most militant trailer trash would only mutter under their breath. But to see Coulter's m.o. as simply giving the finger to acceptable discourse is to underestimate it--and her. Coulter thrives not simply because she is the rawest, nastiest, rudest--not to mention blondest--voice in the arena, but also because she manages to be all those things within the framework of what may be the last politically correct form of unbridled bigotry: political partyism.

Once upon a time, people were allowed to harbor all sorts of ugly prejudices against blacks, Jews, gays, Catholics, Mexicans, the Japanese, the Irish, uppity women--you name it. Ugly or not, it's human nature to pin your troubles on The Other--however you choose to define it. Can't find a job? Blame the Mexicans. Crime on the rise? Blame the blacks. Can't find an adequately adoring wife willing to put up with all your crap? Blame the feminists.

But increasingly it is socially unacceptable to badmouth individuals simply because they are members of a particular race, religion, ethnic group, etc.--or to attribute unflattering characteristics to such groups. You can decry what certain groups do--for instance, threatening the institution of marriage by (gasp!) demanding that two men be allowed to get hitched, or making a mockery of the law by sneaking across the U.S.-Mexican border in search of lousy jobs--but not who they are. Obviously old fashioned bigotry will never completely die out. But in today's stereotype-averse culture, there are fewer and fewer places where jokes about blacks/Mexicans/Jews being lazy/dishonest/greedy will earn you hearty laughs rather than uneasy glances--or a pop on the nose. And 9/11 angst notwithstanding, an overly broad remark about Arabs or Muslims can get you labeled an ass-backward bigot faster than you can say "Pat Robertson."

So what's an angry, frightened populace to do with all that pent-up desire to name-call and finger-point? Easy: Channel it at folks in the opposing political camp. For hard-right wing-nuts this means attributing every filthy characteristic imaginable to Democrats/Liberals/the left, ascribing venal motives to their every action, and blaming them for every misfortune to have befallen your beloved country over the past half century. Under the new rules of the game, you still can't deride Mexicans--but it's perfectly acceptable to deride liberals for pushing policies that allow Mexicans somehow to screw up your life. Ditto blacks, Asians, Eskimos, Episcopalians, and lesbians named Jackie. As a bonus, partyism can be rationalized as a more thoughtful brand of bigotry--since theoretically your hatred is an expression of political philosophy: You don't loathe liberals (or conservatives) for who they are but what they do. As practiced, of course, the phenomenon increasingly goes well beyond hating the sin into the realm of hating the sinner. Thanks to my Republican upbringing, I have long-time friends who sincerely believe that whatever Democrats/liberals/lefties do/believe/advocate by definition must be either irredeemably wicked or irretrievably stupid. (Some of them, I suspect, still pray for my full recovery.)

Though liberal bloggers are laboring to close the gap, conservatives are still vastly better at bare-knuckles partyism--hell, they've been referring to "the L word" for more than a decade--and Coulter is arguably their reigning champ. While she talks trash about blacks, women, and "camel jockeys," her primary villain is always the liberals/Democrats who champion the PC policies and ideology that allow Group X to threaten decent God-fearing conservatives everywhere. Her books have titles like Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, How to Talk to A Liberal (If you Must), and, most recently, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Her gasp-inducing slap at the 9/11 widows appears in a chapter of Godless titled "Liberal Doctrine of Infallibility: Sobbing Hysterical Women." Even her infamous post-9/11 anti-Muslim war whoop for the United States to ""invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity" came in the context of a rant about how liberal insanity had undermined security efforts: "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 ..." Yadda. Yadda. Yadda.

This message that liberals are the root of all evil provides precisely the sort of guilt-free, reflexive license to hate that so many Americans need from time to time. Better still, Coulter, having deliberately transformed herself into a cartoonish, Cruella de Ville-type symbol, provides the left an uncomplicated focus for its hate as well. In a sense, everyone wins--or everyone loses, depending on your perspective. And, despite all the hand-wringing about the coarsening of political discourse, we clearly shouldn't expect the situation to improve any time soon, if ever: The more unacceptable it becomes for us to rail against traditional Others, the more we should expect extreme partyism to thrive--and along with it shameless provocateurs like Coulter.

Which is sad, because I just hate people like that. Don't you?

Kline: Coulter Book Promotion Crosses The Line

Sadly, it never occurred to me, or my publicist, that insulting 9/11 widows would get my book talked about by every news outlet in America. Clearly, this brilliant, albeit evil, idea has worked for Ann Coulter whose vicious attacks on a group of women whose husbands died during the attack on the World Trade Center has propelled her up the bestseller list.

Since 9/11-victim bashing has already been taken, I’m toying with releasing a statement going after war widows and maybe something that insults soldiers who have lost limbs defending their country. I’m also considering a scathing attack on John McCain and Bob Dole, because they certainly seem to have allowed their miserable war experiences to shape their political views.

Of course, no decent person would do these things because while all authors want to sell books, most of us understand the difference between right and wrong. Since my book, "50 Things Every Guy Should Know How To Do," is aimed at male readers, I could probably get a lot of attention for it by insulting women.

I’ve been on countless major radio shows in the last month and if I had just included a few horrifically sexist comments in each appearance, I could have ridden a wave of bad publicity up the sales charts. All it would take would be an offensive line like, "Laci Peterson deserved it" and my horrific comments would be reprinted in every paper in the country - all of which would print the title of my book.

Pretty much any offensive statement any person could make will find a demographic it appeals to. Coulter completely understands this and she clearly aimed her remarks at her far right wing constituency - a group that she knows would step on a puppy if the puppy had said something nice about a Democrat.

Coulter attacked the 9/11 widows because their grief at the loss of their husbands - under George W. Bush’s watch - has made them want to speak out against the President. Their sin, according to the right-wing commentator, was not sitting at home being miserable while thinking only happy thoughts about the man who sat doing nothing while the Twin Towers fell.

"These broads are millionaires," Coulter writes in her latest book, "lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much." She goes on to call the women "self-obsessed" and "witches."

Coulter’s basic argument is that by using widows to deliver a message, the Democratic party has offered up spokespeople who can’t be argued with. If John Kerry calls Bush an irresponsible buffoon, he can be attacked back, but if women with dead husbands do the same thing, the opposition must bite its tongue.

Coulter would have a point, - albeit one made with excess cruelty - if adopting a political stance due to grief, pain or suffering was a tactic strictly used by the left. Republicans and Conservatives use this tactic too, however, by making veterans, soldiers and other military figures as spokespeople in favor of whatever war we happen to be fighting at this point.

The reality is that people become passionate about causes after bad things happen to them. Losing a spouse to a terrorist attack, being a prisoner of war or having a loved one die In Iraq will impact everyone differently, but it’s naﶥ to think that these types of events won’t shape our political views.

September 11 widows should speak about their political views whether their pain makes them against the war or causes them to want to ravage Muslim world as revenge for their suffering. Ann Coulter is the self-obsessed witch in this scenario, but she’ll be a self-obsessed witch who sells a lot of books. That might not keep her up at night or distract her when she’s counting her money, but the rest of us should remember not to judge each other by how rich and famous someone is, but what they did to get that way.