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What to do with Ms. Ann Coulter? Like other right-wing hate-media stars, she's clearly all about character assassination and out-of-context cherry-picked facts and quotes. These media hacks don’t want debate, they want to grab attention. They deal with smears, they know innuendo and hate, that’s what they do. They are the stars of political hackery.
The Left has its own, but they don’t do as good a job, because their heart is less into it, in general, being more concerned with “fairness” and "community", concepts that don't lend themselves well to targeted assassinations of political opponents. The Right does it better, understanding power better, going for the gut better. It’s the difference between the Gore campaign and the Bush mafia in Florida.
This silly argument about the widows is just typical. Coulter is obviously over-the-top rude and hypocritical, spouting false or misleading facts and impressing vast segments of Middle America with her quick (though shallow) tongue and her physique.
Politics is full of hypocritical cant on both sides of the political divide, it’s just that Coulter and her fellow travellers take it to the extreme, and then have the constant gall to accuse more reasonable people of the craziness that she’s the master of. They're masters of hackery. Don't try to compete.
Let her speak, often. Let her on all the media outlets, but pin her, make her explain her b.s.–don’t just let her make wild statements unburdened by a reality check, because then the stupid amongst us will take her as Gospel. She sure sounds confident, like any jerk in a bar on a Saturday night, and she's attractive to some for her quick tongue and her cleavage, and the worst thing anyone could do is to limit her exposure.
The fault is not with Ann--if she keeled over tomorrow there would be 10 more like her, spawn from the same dark place of fear. The fault, really, is with our expectations of journalists and interviewers. We need to make sure they start to do as Matt L. did a bit: repeat her words back to her and have her explain them. Let her rant 'til the cows come home, but hold her to the truth of her statements, and she’ll shrivel in the light of day.
It doesn’t happen enough, and this clip was not enough.
