Ann Coulter’s recently-released book Godless shot to the top of Amazon.com’s best seller list for Non-Fiction. Loved by many and hated by many more, Coulter’s black & white approach to morality and relentless skewering of the liberal establishment has made her an icon in the political commentary sphere. Many charge that Coulter’s work is short on content and that the slender blonde primarily sells her image as the “hot chick who hates everything you doâ€. It is very possible that Ann herself would not disagree, as she has proven masterful in manipulating the media and controversy for her financial gain.
Do keep in mind, however, that Ann Coulter is capable of good, biting analysis. One standout example is her column “Kwanzaa: A Holiday From the FBIâ€, where she dissects the nefarious origin of the pan-African holiday and its founder Maulana Karenga:
In what was probably ultimately a foolish gamble, during the madness of the ’60s the FBI encouraged the most extreme black nationalist organizations in order to discredit and split the left. The more preposterous the organization, the better. Karenga’s United Slaves was perfect … Despite modern perceptions that blend all the black activists of the ’60s, the Black Panthers did not hate whites. They did not seek armed revolution. Those were the precepts of Karenga’s United Slaves. United Slaves were proto-fascists, walking around in dashikis, gunning down Black Panthers and adopting invented “African” names … In the category of the-gentleman-doth-protest-too-much, back in the ’70s, Karenga was quick to criticize rumors that black radicals were government-supported. When Nigerian newspapers claimed that some American black radicals were CIA operatives, Karenga publicly denounced the idea, saying, “Africans must stop generalizing about the loyalties and motives of Afro-Americans, including the widespread suspicion of black Americans being CIA agents.”
Coulter’s assassination of Karenga was thorough and informative. However, Ann’s haphazard and nonsensical outbursts tended to raise more eyebrows. In 2001, Coulter’s regular column was dropped from National Review Online after suggesting (possibly in jest) that America should invade and Christianize the Middle East:
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.
When asked to reconsider her work, Coulter proceeded to publicly bad-mouth NRO and its staff. In response NRO editor Jonah Goldberg issued an explanation for Coulter’s termination along with a frank character assessment that would be soon echoed by many other conservative and liberal pundits:
We did not “fire” Ann for what she wrote, even though it was poorly written and sloppy. We ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty … What’s Ann’s take on all this? Well, she told the Washington Post yesterday that she loves it, because she’s gotten lots of great publicity. That pretty much sums Ann up.
After parting with NRO, Ann Coulter became even more extreme and more visible, penning the hyperbole-laden books Treason, Slander, How to Talk to a Liberal, and most recently Godless. While the accuracy of her work was relentlessly dissected by political commentators of all stripes, her cult following of “ordinary citizens†–fed up with liberalism, multiculturalism, multilateralism and other cultural threats to their 1950’s era social ideals- continued to grow. The more infamous Coulter became, the more she became a symbol of intellectual populist rebellion against a government thought to be running out of control via taxation and social policy.
However much observers thumb their noses at Ann Coulter’s ad hominem attacks and crass commercialism, an army of copycats hope to achieve the same media success. Countless “right-wing†bloggers launch endless attacks on “liberal policyâ€, with the fortunate ones attracting small followings of angry citizens who openly dream of acting on their hatreds. Other bloggers take the Al Franken route by employing Ann Coulter-esque tactics against Ann Coulter-esque commentators. They too attract small followings of angry liberals who want to beat back the “fundamentalist†hordes. Most of these individuals distance themselves from Coulter’s controversial statements but at the same time monitor her movements.
Why? Because they want to be where she is – effortlessly outselling more substantive writers and making a fine living doing what most people do for free. This is what makes Ann Coulter a master of the media.
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