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Commentary: Ann Coulter Has The Right

By Rawlins Gilliland, KERA 90.1 Commentator

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-519014.mp3

Dallas, TX –

Ann Coulter wants our attention and she's getting it in her latest bestseller, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, attacking the 9/11 widows as being "millionaire harpies...enjoying their husband's deaths." Coulter's contention: they were paid for their losses and, therefore, questioning governmental policies is using their celebrity to bite the hand that fed them.

Remember that the next time you deposit your dead husband's Social Security check.

So who's buying this book? For starters, an adoring 40-ish male friend who describes Coulter as "good looking, strong, extremely intelligent, witty, and right all the time." Adding that "she gives the Silent Majority (meaning white men) a voice"; those who otherwise "fear being judged politically incorrect."

Whether any "majority" - OR minority - is silent anywhere today is questionable. What is unmistakable is this; Coulter is touching a nerve.

Ann Coulter is the Right's brassy answer to Michael Moore, Arianna Huffington and James Carville combined. Her weapon of choice is journalistic napalm, with its snide message: "It's simple, stupid." This from a woman whose televised 2001 answer to environmentalist concerns was: "God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"

Many approach opening an Ann Coulter book as I would lifting the lid off KFC's "Famous Bowls": bracing to see slop masquerading as food for thought. But ours is a land where "fast food" means "instant gratification." And Coulter delivers "Jeez Whiz" one-liner nachos to friend and foe.

What repels me is not Ann Coulter's slandering-pandering that the left is a de-facto Anti-God religion. Rather, how she uses sex as a weapon, decades after women fought to be taken seriously for the right reasons. Her signature look is embarrassing, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, pretending she's unaware how her calculating sexuality makes women uneasy and (hopefully) affects any men.

Tossing her long hair in defiance and denial, one wonders if, unlike the 9/11 widows she savages, Coulter's definition of a "bad day" is when her hairdresser is booked. She's the poster girl for tactics I watched in corporate life; those who grab advantage using sexist wiles, while nailing anyone for sexual grievance who dares inhale their perfume.

Coulter is the anti-feminist - and less; 100% ambitious and 50% talented; compensating for that deficit with shrill political maneuvering and over the top theatrics, sneering that critics are "threatened by strong women." Ann Coulter isn't strong; she's strong willed.

Her bogus bile is no more "progressive" than a Phyllis Schlafly Barbie doll drinking a triple latte. She's educated, certainly. Clever? Clearly. But fair? Never. She's a lawyer; the kind of prosecutor who couldn't care less whether the accused is guilty or innocent. It's not about truth; it's about winning! .

There's a Chinese proverb. At 20 we have the face God gave us, at 40 the face we created, and at 60, the face we deserve. If that's true, God help Ann Coulter. But who'll be there to see? The tabloid politicos will have long since moved on to newer, louder femme fatales - and better writers, maybe even one with an honorable heart beating behind her pious wonder woman facade.

Rawlins Gilliland is a writer from Dallas.

If you have opinions or rebuttals about this commentary, call (214) 740-9338 or email us