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Volokh Conspiracy

P.J. O'Rourke eviscerates Ann Coulter

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When P.J. O'Rourke is on, he's on. In his latest essay for The Weekly Standard, O'Rourke takes on Ann Coulter for her rhetorical excess, and for being Ann Coulter. The essay was occasioned by a recent Coulter tweet on the GOP debate referencing "f-king Jews," but takes broader aim at its target. By the time O'Rourke is finished, there is not much left of his subject.

Here's how his piece begins:

Toward Ann Coulter I had always taken a "suffer little children to come unto me" attitude. Not that she ever came on to me or anything. It's just that she's a kid. She was born in 1961. I've got skinny Brooks Brothers neckties in the back of my closet older than that.

Ann Coulter grew up during the "I-was-conservative-after-conservatism-was-cool" era, helping found the Cornell Review in the early 1980s. She's noisy and she gives me a headache. But kids are, and kids do. I have several.

She's from Connecticut and is very upset about immigrants. I am willing to lend a sympathetic ear to people from Connecticut who are very upset about immigrants, if they have a tribal casino.

And I forgive her for supporting Donald Trump. Kids do that stuff. My 17-year-old daughter has wheedled the car keys and right now is out probably behaving at least as stupidly.

Other than that I've been, I suppose, to the extent I've paid attention, on the same political page as Ann Coulter. Well, in the same political book, several chapters further on, under the subhead "Grumpy Old Farts and the Libertarian/Neocon Conundrum."

Then, during the September 16 Republican presidential candidates' debate, Ann Coulter twittered or tweeted or whatever the verb form of that waste of time may be. . . .

As some would say, go read the whole thing. Consider it your Saturday afternoon entertainment.