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File:Ann coulter time magazine.jpg
Ann Coulter on the cover of TIME in April 2005.

Ann Hart Coulter (born New Canaan, Connecticut, 8 December, 1961 or December 1963) is a conservative American author and commentator with a reputation for criticism of liberal politics expressed through provocative polemics, often including a use of insult humor popular with other conservatives, which she has parlayed into becoming a best-selling author.

Coulter has made frequent guest appearances on national television and syndicated radio programs. She has appeared on a large number of topical talk shows, including Hannity and Colmes, The O'Reilly Factor, American Morning with Paula Zahn, Crossfire, The Today Show, Real Time with Bill Maher and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Coulter is currently a highly-sought lecturer as well.

Her books include High Crimes and Misdemeanors, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Slander, and Treason. All of Coulter's books have been on the New York Times bestseller list. Coulter is also a legal correspondent for the magazine Human Events. She writes a syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate which is carried by or linked to by many influential conservative websites, including Frontpagemag.com.

Coulter was the subject of a TIME magazine cover story in April 2005.

Personal background

Coulter was born into a family that she has described as "upper middle class." She claims to have developed both her conservative opinions and her acerbic rhetorical style growing up in Connecticut. Her father, John V. Coulter, was a lawyer, known for his legal work in cases against labor unions; he later became a constable. Her mother, Nell M. Coulter, is member of the New Canaan Republican Town Committee. She has two elder brothers.

As an undergraduate in Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, Coulter helped to launch a conservative newspaper, The Cornell Review, with funding provided by Richard Mellon Scaife's Collegiate Network. She graduated cum laude from Cornell in 1984, and went on to receive her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was an editor of The Michigan Law Review At Michigan, Coulter founded a local chapter of the Federalist Society. She also received training at the National Journalism Center. After practicing corporate law for four years, she became a congressional aide in Washington, D. C. in 1994, working as a staffer to Republican Senator Spencer Abraham, who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee before working for a public interest law firm.

In 1996, the fledgling television network MSNBC hired Coulter as a legal correspondent and political pundit, which launched her media career. Though she was allowed to make many partisan and controversial comments as a panelist, she was fired in 1997 after an exchange with Bobby Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, in which she said, "No wonder you guys lost" (MSNBC's NewsChat, October 11, 1997).

Coulter, when asked if she is a fundamentalist Christian, told interviewer David Bowman, "I don't think I've described myself that way, but only because I'm from Connecticut. We just won't call ourselves that." (2003) Though she seldom argues from a religious point of view, Coulter has stated that she admires Jerry Falwell, and opposes Pat Robertson (Slander, ch. 9). She is a strong supporter of Phyllis Schlafly, and, like her, opposes the Equal Rights Amendment. (Coulter, July 2002 "Call")

Books

Coulter gained much of her recent prominence with two books. The first, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, addresses what Coulter considers to be media bias in the United States. The book claims that many American journalists have ties to the Democratic Party, which influences their reporting. Coulter argues that George W. Bush has faced a difficult and unfair battle for positive coverage in the media ever since he decided to run for president, and that a similar battle for fair coverage has been waged by practically every Republican presidential candidate since Calvin Coolidge. In effect, she asserts, news coverage is unkind to Republicans.

Her follow-up book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, claimed that Democratic politicians and the media have severely undermined much of America's foreign policy goals since the end of World War II, and that this is tantamount to conspiracy and treason. Summarizing recent history, she accuses Democratic presidents, including John F. Kennedy and Harry Truman, of having sometimes worked against the war against Communism and the Soviet Union, and charges Democratic members of Congress with similarly undermining the efforts of Republican presidents. In the final chapters, she argues that a similar process is undermining the present War on Terror.

Paula Jones controversy

Coulter debuted as a figure on the public scene during her days as an unpaid legal adviser lawyer helping the attorneys representing Paula Jones sue President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. According to the website Coulterwatch, Coulter told writer Michael Isikoff "We were terrified that Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the president," even though that had been Jones' express intention since the beginning of the suit ("Oh, Paula"; par. 5, 2). The website also stated Coulter wrote in the Hartford Courant in 1999 that she leaked the details of Jones's testimony to the press in order to prevent Clinton from avoiding publicity by settling ("Oh, Paula"; par. 5). If true, this does not necessarily mean, however, that Coulter actually acted contrary to Jones' best interests and/or wishes.

When the case did get to court, after Coulter had broken with Jones, it was summarily dismissed because Jones could not show that she had actually suffered any damages, even if her allegations proved true. Jones did eventually gain a settlement from Clinton in exchange for not appealing the decision, although at $850,000 it was only one-third of the amount she had been asking for and all but $151,000 went to pay her now-considerable legal expenses. However, the Jones case eventually led to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal and to the movement lobbying for Clinton's impeachment, as Coulter had wished. She appeared on MSNBC as a commentator on the case (doing so before her legal involvement with Jones), and went on to write a critical exposé of Clinton, boasting on Rivera Live that she "got a bestseller out of it" (High Crimes and Misdemeanors), and telling Hannity & Colmes, "The reason we were doing it for Paula – well, was for Paula. She had been defamed and I think we can say we got her reputation back." (Coulter, 1999)

Jones, who had divorced her husband during the case and purchased a house after the settlement, leaving her with a large tax debt, then posed for Penthouse, stating that she wished to use the money to fund her two grade-school-aged children's college education. Coulter publicly denounced her as "trailer-park trash," saying, "I totally believed she was the good Christian girl she made herself out to be. Now it turns out she's a fraud, at least to the extent of pretending to be an honorable and moral person" (Coulter, 2000). Jones defended herself by saying, "I haven't been offered a book deal like everybody else in this huge thing has done. Ann Coulter's done books. I haven't seen her call me up and say: 'Paula, would you like for me to help you write a book, a really nice, decent book?' I haven't had any help from anybody whatsoever."

Coulter's communication style

Coulter gained prominence in the field of conservative commentators with her brand of outspoken criticism of many liberal and Democratic Party figures and policies over the past half-century. She quickly became known for being a controversial and colorful speaker, and indeed has relished this role (Coulter, August 2002). As she told The Sunday Times in 2002, "I am a polemicist. I am perfectly frank about that. I like to stir up the pot. I don't pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do."

Coulter has said she likes to read anything written by humorist Dave Barry (Coulter, January 2004), and she often employs comic techniques similar in style to his writings. On the other hand, columnist and blogger Andrew Sullivan has created a parody Michelle Malkin Award for writing which he considers to be cliché-ridden, insulting, and in concordance with the reader's beliefs. Sullivan has declared that "Ann Coulter cannot be considered" for the award on the grounds that "No one else would stand a chance."

Relations with media outlets

When the editors of the National Review Online, the website of a well-known conservative magazine that carried Coulter's syndicated column, and of which she was the contributing editor, said they would like to discuss making changes to a piece written in 2001 directly after the September 11 attacks in which her friend Barbara Olsen had been killed (Coulter, July 2002, "Donahue"), she went on the national television show Politically Incorrect and accused them of censorship, claiming her pay was only five dollars per article. National Review Online then dropped her column and terminated her editorship (Goldberg, 2001). See Quotations: On the 9/11 attacks, bullet 2.

Coulter was contracted by USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention, but was replaced by Jonah Goldberg after a "disagreement over editing" (Memmot, 2004). The article began "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston", and referred to an indefinite number of female attendees as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons". The newspaper did not print the article, but Coulter published it on her website. (Coulter, July 2004)

Controversy regarding Coulter's accuracy

Coulter is frequently accused of being overly biased when reporting facts, and of twisting them to support her case. Even when she has taken pains to defuse these attacks by documenting her sources, as with the 780 endnotes provided in her book Slander, the criticisms have not abated. A large number of webpages have sprung up that take her Slander endnotes to task , prompting her supporters to launch equally vigorous campaigns in her defense amidst calls of unfairly partisan nitpicking.

Her opponents have also attacked Coulter for what they consider to be her unreliability in live interviews, alleging in particular that she frequently misstates facts rather than admitting error or unfamiliarity with the topic being discussed. Although many of these criticisms have been dismissed by Coulter and her defenders, a few have become staples among her critics.

Democrats richer than Republicans

In Slander, Coulter expounds the view that liberals are out of touch with America and "have absolutely no contact with the society they decry from their Park Avenue redoubts".

In an August 2002 Newsday article, she argued that the media are biased to the left because Republicans don't have the wealth to start media outlets, while Democrats do. That Republicans are rich, she said, "is one of the stunning lies that Democrats have been able to palm off... Liberals really are the idle rich."

Her critics, including Joe Conason, the author of Big Lies, accuse Coulter of double standards, arguing that she is a highly-educated, affluent woman with a high-profile media presence who does not similarly accuse herself, or other privileged Republicans, of being out of touch.

Canada and the Vietnam War

In January 2005, Coulter gave an interview to CBC's The Fifth Estate (video clip of this part of the interview) in which she argued that Canada's non-participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq demonstrated that Canada's "loyal friendship" with the United States was weaker than in the past. She attempted to contrast the situation with the Vietnam War, stating:

"Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

The interviewer Bob McKeown countered, "No, actually, Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam." Coulter and McKeown then politely contradicted each other repeatedly before Coulter finally concluded, "Well, I'll get back to you on that."

Later in the show, McKeown stated that Coulter never did get back in touch with The Fifth Estate, and reiterated the filmmakers' position that Canada had not sent troops to Vietnam.

In a subsequent interview on C-SPAN, Coulter admitted that she had erred, but also stated that thousands of Canadian-born Americans had gone to battle:

"Yes, 10,000 Canadian troops, at least. The Canadian Government didn't send troops they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada."

Later in the interview, when asked about the taping of the CBC show, she added:

"I talked to him Bob McKeown for three hours and the topic was not Canada's war history. It was an incidental point that he challenged me on and I didn't believe him because I had read about Canadian troops in Vietnam. I was right. People keep saying 'well, he didn't tell you that they - 10,000 troops - ran across to sign up with the Americans' because I don't think he knew." ibid

More recently, however, according to a Time Magazine artice on Coulter dated April 25, 2005, "Canada did send noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972." Media watchdog FAIR disputes this assertion, however, saying that writer John Cloud was "making quite a stretch" to prove that Coulter wasn't inaccurate. They explain: "Canada was officially neutral during the Vietnam War, so if any noncombat troops were sent they would not have been sent to support U.S. forces there." FAIR also notes that the alleged troops sent are not mentioned "in a detailed 1975 U.S. Army history, Allied Participation in Vietnam." Canada sent officials to Vietnam in 1954 and 1973 as observers with the International Commission for Control and Supervision.

Further detail about Canada's involvement in the Vietnam war is found in the CBC's "Canada's Secret War: Vietnam".

(See Canada and the Vietnam War)

References

Books by Ann Coulter

  • How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (Crown Forum, 2004) ISBN 1400054184
  • Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (Crown Forum, 2003) ISBN 1400050308
  • Feminist Fantasies by Phyllis Schlafly, foreword by Ann Coulter (Spence Publishing, 2003) ISBN 1890626465
  • Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (Crown Forum, 2002) ISBN 1400046610
  • High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (Regnery Publishing, 1998) ISBN 0895261138


External links

Biography and quotes

Book Reviews

  • "Limerick, Dr. Rush" (September 9, 2002). Liberally Lying About Liberals. Rev. of Slander. slannder.homestead.com. Looks at chapter 2.
  • Buckley, William F. (Winter 2003). Tailgunner Ann. Rev. of Treason. Claremont Review of Books . by biographer of Joseph McCarthy.
  • Horowitz, David (July 8, 2003). The trouble with Treason. Rev. of Treason. Frontpagemag.com. Article by a conservative both critical and praising.
  • Nyhan, Brendan (June 30, 2003). Screed. Rev. of Treason. spinsanity. Media analyst protests "complicated set of rhetorical tricks".

Criticism

Current events (fan sites and watch sites)

Interviews

  • Slander (June 26, 2002) Interview with Katie Couric. NBC. Today. Reprinted at Drudge Report Archive.
  • Slander (August 11, 2002) Interview with Brian Lamb. C-Span. Booknotes. Reprinted at Booknotes.org.
  • Treason (June 30, 2003) Interview with Chris Matthews. MSNBC. Hardball with Chris Matthews. Reprinted at the Rational Radical.

News features

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