Coulter writes what you wish you could

Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right

The New York Times felt it needed to explain to its readers why Rush Limbaugh's book, The Way Things Oughtta Be, spent more than a year at the top of its best-seller list. One reviewer helpfully spelled out that the book appealed "to a part of middle America--call it the silent majority or the American People or the booboisie."

It is for the booboisie-those who reject the dogma of Northeast liberalism-that Ann Coulter sings in Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (Crown).

In her new book, Coulter spends 205 pages doing what she does best. She speaks to the conservative out there-the one who finds himself daily bombarded from all directions by liberal propaganda and vitriol-and she tells him, in her fiesty tone and addictive cadence, exactly what he is thinking.

This is the perfect summer reading for any conservative who cannot get enough of politics. Coulter brings up examples of the liberal hypocrisy and double standards that so infuriate savvy conservatives across America, and then fires back the biting retort you wish you could have come up with. You'll laugh out loud and read quotes to your friends.

The general point of the book is that liberals, lacking any good ideas, employ their stranglehold on the media and academia to launch scurrilous attacks on the characters of conservatives, relying on invective rather than argument. "Bereft of winning issues, persuasive arguments, or real ideas, liberals are bitter," Coulter summarizes in her concluding chapter. "The one impulse that consistently unites them is hate."

Armed with the super search-engine LexisNexis, Coulter assembles in the first chapter an impressively offensive stock of left-wing slander of conservatives and Republicans-- just the kind of statements that would call for retirement and sensitivity training if they came from a politician, commentator, or baseball owner who di$n't dwell on the far left.

Chapter One, "Liberals Unhinged," can serve as a reference book for anyone wishing to show just who in politics is actually "mean-spirited." And this isn't a collection of off-the-handle commentators. She brings together prominent Democratic politicians and "objective" reporters and anchors.

High-ranking Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel (N.Y), for example, calmly characterized conservatives' arguments for limited government thus: "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. They say, `Let's cut taxes."'

Coulter's compendium is important because of how thoroughly unreported in the major media are these outrageous statements by the racial left. Coulter quotes Jesse Jackson after the 1994 elections: "In South Africa, the status quo was called racism. We rebelled against it. In Germany, it was called fascism. Now in Britain and the U.S., it is called conservatism." The New York Tmes left that quote out.

The slander goes on and on, and it gets worse.

A liberal reading this book will ask, "what's the point?" Coulter's writing style does not include a hypothesis and then a syllogistic argument followed by a conclusion. It is not exhaustive because it would take volumes to document the left's smears. But the point is easy to see for any conservative reader.

First, Coulter's handling of the attacks provides a catharsis for the Christian, libertarian or right-winger who is infuriated that the left gets away with calling advocacy of limited government "authoritarianism" or belief in a "being higher than the New York Times" extremism.

She paints a pretty clear picture of the media's uneven treatment of liberals and of conservatives. Coulter reports, for example, how obsessed the media were with Bush's verbal missteps, and how they gave free passes to Gore for his factual blunders.

Second, she shows clearly the nature of the left's battle strategies. As she notes, liberal Republican Sen. Bob Packwood (R.Ore.) spent years as the media's darling because he stood up for abortion. Once they didn't need him, though . . . well, Coulter quotes from media reports:

When they needed him ... He was the grandson of "a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention."

As soon as he became dispensable... He was the "nerdy son of a timber lobbyist in the state legislature"

Slander will likely not change the mind of a single liberal, and her tone is far too caustic to win over any moderates. A conservative reader would do well to arm himself with some of her facts,-though, and he will surely find the read entertaining.

BY TIMOTHY P. CARNEY

Mr Carney is a reporter for the Evans-Novak Political Report

Copyright Human Events Publishing, Inc. Jul 1, 2002
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