For example: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." The ignorant and leftists -- who are generally one and the same -- would assume that Ann is a freak maniac who wants to kill, kill, kill. Rimensnyder knows damned well why she said it and to whom she was referring. Why did she not mention that?
And even though she doesn't crucify Coulter like the folks on the left who are the recipients of her merciless truth, Rimensnyder does tend to send a message that Ann is a little crazy, which we know is not so.
I attribute a lot of the attacks on Ann to people who are not used to being beaten over the head with her comedic honesty, not to mention jealousy of her success. Screw 'em.
I do have to say that Rimensnyder's line, "Indeed, her eyes fairly dance when she's challenged -- though somewhat maniacally, as if she were reaching for her machete," cracked me up. I still have tears in my eyes picturing it.
Neil A. Runyon
Katy, TX
Thanks for the wonderful piece on Ann Coulter. It is no part of a satire to ask searching questions about a subject, of course, but it would sure be interesting to know what happened to Coulter in the last year. Perhaps it is a case of easy fame and fortune corrupting what was once an able and interesting writer.
For Coulter does have brains. I do not know where she finished in her law school class at Michigan, but it must have been high to obtain a federal clerkship. Her campaign tormenting Bill Clinton over the Paula Jones matter was a masterpiece of legal strategy. Her use of the 19th-century Hayes-Tilden election laws was brilliantly conceived and almost became the basis of the Supreme Court's opinion in Bush v. Gore. Prior to the National Review affair, her articles for Human Events were lengthy and sporadically insightful rambles about everything from the nature of reality to why she couldn't get a decent date.
Then her articles dropped to one short, well-edited but sterile rant per week, her television interviews became ever more confrontational and superficial, and she merged almost completely into her telebimbo persona.
Maybe if her book stops selling or she develops a bad case of acne, she could be persuaded to give up her day job as a stand-up comic and go back to real writing and real thinking. It is probably hard to do that, though, when your shtick as a national dartboard figure is playing so well.
John Mack
New London, MN
The ad hominem attack on Ann Coulter in "Bitch Goddess" is so over the top and out of character with what I've come to expect from reason that I just have to wonder what's going on.
Rimensnyder obviously has personal issues with Coulter. She calls her a "hilariously shrill" TV pundit, an "inveterate nest fouler," and the "queen" of "the kingdom of snark." Her "large floating head" (displayed in the accompanying photo) seems "designed to double as a dartboard." Wow!
Was this supposed to qualify as a book review? I can't tell because it's so "hilariously shrill."
Jon A. Longerbone
Laguna Niguel, CA
Coulter's post-9/11 "infamous foreign policy suggestion" would have been infamous if it were a policy suggestion, but of course it was no such thing. Coulter frequently makes her point using rhetorical exaggeration. She's a writer to take seriously but not always literally. The same can be said of H.L. Mencken, Thomas Wolfe, and even Molly Ivins on the other side of the fence. When H.L. Mencken recommended that civilization send missionaries to "Darkest Arkansas," was that a "domestic policy suggestion"?
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