Literally seconds after finishing that last post on Coulter, I came across yet another masterful review of her latest screed, this one from the WaPo. It’s by Anne Applebaum, author of a new book on the Gulag that is high on my must-read list.
A scholar on the USSR, Applebaum is nothing if not direct:
I should reveal here that I have spent a great deal of time — perhaps the better part of the last 10 years — writing about communism, Stalinism and the West’s relationship to both. Yet about halfway through Treason, an extended rant on these subjects, I felt a strong urge to get up, throw the book across the room, and join up with whatever Leninist-Trotskyite-Marxist political parties still exist in America. Even the company of Maoist insurgents would be more intellectually invigorating than that of Ann Coulter. More to the point, whatever side this woman is on, I don’t want to be on it.
After chronicling the book’s abundance of errors, misleading generalizations, distortions and outright lies, Applebaum concludes:
All of this, of course, might be funny if it were meant to be funny, but it doesn’t seem to be. Coulter hasn’t got an ironic or witty bone in her body. Her insults are crass and dull-witted, and her jokes fall flat. She has no sense of history and skips back and forth from the Truman administration to the Reagan administration, as if 40 years made no difference. She quotes liberally from newspaper cuttings, television interviews and other conservative diatribes, apparently having done no actual research at all.
She wonders, with some bewilderment, why — how — this trash made its way to the top of the Times best-seller list. That Coulter apparently has so many fans who are willing to shell out money for this shit should make us all very afraid.
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By Adam Morris
That Applebaum quote is great. Thanks.
I can’t help but wonder, perhaps blogging makes people want to buy it to see if it’s as bad as it really is?
Also, don’t worry about the millions. It isn’t a reward. Everyone involved in the deal will get shit in their face and, best of all, Coulter, if she gets any footnote in history at all it will be as the butt of some really awful joke.
July 28, 2003 @ 4:24 pm | Comment
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By edward
i think the impulse behind her following is really her looks. if madeline albright (sorry!) had written the same words, it wouldn’t have sold 1/10th of it. ann coulter has that your local gym aerobic instructor aura that attracts some folks.
August 18, 2003 @ 7:58 pm | Comment
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By Rick
Truly a skewed view of Ann’s words. She is a sensible, sensitive woman with a common-sense view of politics and mob mentality.
Every true tyrant fears the truth. We all know why you hate her. It is her fear of informing the masses how liberal, socialist and marxist forces have damaged so many individuals, cultures, governments, the environment, education, economies.
Shame on you. Crawl back into whatever hole you came out of. Modern communication media, like the internet, satellite TV, etc, will help spread the word of bright thinkers like Ann, and expose you for the backward, negative, arrogant, repressive people you are.
Have a nice Christmas Holiday!
December 18, 2003 @ 4:36 am | Comment
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By B Turner
Ann Coulter is NOT attractive.
Not only that, but she is widely despised. This is coming from me and a whole lot of other “red state” people.
November 15, 2004 @ 7:04 pm | Comment
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By China
was it a liberal or conservative that gave her millions? i’m switiching to the other party.
January 26, 2006 @ 12:51 am | Comment
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By Katie
Rick and others like him are why as a sixteen year old i have grown up not thinking of my country, America, as a beacon of freedom but as a symbol of injustice. Any women who tries to criticize the democratic party as being Godless must not understand that the seperate of church and state is what seperates us from the tyranical governments she accusing liberals of attempting to raise up.
June 29, 2006 @ 12:52 pm | Comment