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Ann Coulter: Slander and Treason All in One Fell Swoop

BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

Bob Dylan, sagacious bard, noted that "patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings."¹ Truer words were never spoken as pertains to Ann Coulter, political pundit, best-selling author and Fox News regular. Ms. Coulter earns her living by questioning the patriotism of Democrats and lauding the fidelity of Republicans, often engaging in rabid hyperbole that has so far escaped serious critique apparently due to her willowy physique and allure.

But no more.

Ann Coulter has crossed a line, a line etched in stone, that cannot be easily ignored, excused, justified, mitigated or forgotten. In fact, it should attach to Ms. Coulter for the duration of her political and public life.

On August 14, 2003, in her weekly column on the extreme right wing mouthpiece, FrontPageMag.com, about former Vice President Al Gore and current Governor Gray Davis, Ann Coulter wrote:

"Both were veterans, after a fashion, of Vietnam, which would make a Gore-Davis Presidential ticket the only compelling argument yet in favor of friendly fire."²

This from a woman who has written two best selling books entitled Slander and Treason.

One does not have to look very far to find examples of Ms. Coulter’s blatant hypocrisy. The very first line of her latest book reads: "Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason."³ She later explains:

"Liberals could never figure out who the enemy was – other than an enemy called the United States of America. In the early 1970's, the current publisher of the New York Times, Arthur ‘Pinch’ Sulzberger, a college student and anti-war activist at the time, was asked by his father, the then-publisher of the Times, whom he would want to see shot if an American soldier came face to face with a North Vietnamese soldier. ‘I would want to see the American guy get shot," Pinch said. ‘It’s the other guy’s country.’ Today he issues treasonous editorials demanding that Bush get approval from the Vichy government before taking action against terrorists."⁴

In Ann’s world, advocating the death of an American soldier at the hands of a North Vietnamese soldier defending his country is treasonous. Advocating the "fragging" of an eventual two term Vice-President and California Governor is not.

Ann’s vitriol, however, should not be interpreted as being limited to Al Gore or Gray Davis, but extends to all Democrats. To her:

"Republican confidence and determination in waging war do not preclude occasional missteps and errors, but in the end, they win the war. Democratic presidents are just the opposite. Battles are won, but somehow the Democrats always manage to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory."⁵

She somehow has forgotten about World War II under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. She tries to explain away Nixon’s two term involvement in Vietnam, and the evacuation of Saigon and South Vietnam under President Gerald Ford. She ignores that the Pentagon Papers disclosed by Daniel Ellsberg revealed a continuous American policy of involvement in Vietnam spanning close to two decades.

Ann’s simplemindedness cannot be overstated. Her revisionism recalls that:

"Barry Goldwater ran against Johnson in 1964, saying that ‘I would have said to North Vietnam, by dropping leaflets out of B-52's ‘You quit the war in three days or the next time these babies come over they’re going to drop big bombs on you. And I’d make a swamp out of North Vietnam . . . I’d rather kill a hell of a lot of North Vietnamese than one American and we’ve lost enough of them.’ Democrats explained that Goldwater was a right wing nut who’d get us all blown up . . . More likely, the North Vietnamese would have reacted the way Iranian hostage takers did when Reagan was elected, immediately releasing their American hostages the very same day of his inauguration."⁶

She once again conveniently ignores seven years of subsequent fighting in Vietnam under Republican Presidents. And her homage conveniently omits reference to the consideration received by the Iranian hostage takers for their charity: money and weapons.⁷

Ann Coulter leaves her reader with a clear message:

"We should remember Vietnam. This is what we should remember. Whenever Democrats dabble in military affairs America suffers relentless defeat, entire continents fall to Communism, America loses wars, invasions fail, Americans are taken hostage. American soldiers are dragged through the streets, and the nation is demoralized and humiliated. It is a fact that the Democrats have been responsible for every unmitigated foreign policy disaster since World War II."

And this woman has written this after September 11th.

She would much rather Americans swallow whole her red herrings about the valor and virtue of Republican leadership, and ignore a simple reality: that despite her postulate that Democrats and wars don’t mix, especially as relates to Vietnam, it was the Democrats who actually fought in the war.⁸ For a black and white, cut and paste demagogue like Ann, I’m sure this glaring inconsistency rankles her to no end. The resolution to such theoretical quandary? To wish that the Democrats had simply been killed by their brothers-in-arms.

In writing this article, I have come to realize perhaps the reason why Ann has avoided criticism for any particular misstatement: the choice among the sheer volume of inaccuracies from which to expose and ridicule becomes a Sisyphean task. Such task definitely extends the boundaries of a single article. And even when Ann shows a rare moment of astounding prescience, she suffers a fatal flaw. A mere two days after the Twin Towers were destroyed, she wrote, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."⁹ Unfortunately, the big game has proven elusive¹⁰, and the proselytizing has not taken hold.¹¹

In his book, Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth, Joe Conason astutely observes about Ms. Coulter that:

"She is entitled to her banal sputtering of course. She’s even entitled to make millions of dollars by polluting the airwaves and bookshelves with mindless diatribes.¹² What is due, however, is a response commensurate with these right wing attacks. What is needed is an answer to conservative propaganda that holds the right accountable for its lies and hypocrisy."¹³

This article is an attempt to meet that challenge, and help fill that void. When someone mentions the name Ann Coulter, say "Traitor." When they ask for proof, respond that she advocated the murder of the elected President of the United States and the Governor of California on August 14th, in FrontPageMag.com.

A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY

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Sources:

¹ Bob Dylan, Sweetheart Like You, Copyright © 1983. Special Rider Music. [LINK] (BuzzFlash Note: Bob Dylan is credited with the quote because it is a lyric from a song and differs slightly from Samuel Johnson's original quotation, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." [LINK])

² Frontpagemag.com [LINK]

³ Ann Coulter, Treason p. 2. New York: Crown (2003).

⁴ Ibid. at 130.

⁵ Ibid. at 127.

⁶ Ibid. at 133.

⁷ Natural Law Party [LINK]

⁸ AWOLBush.com [LINK]

⁹ National Review [LINK]

¹⁰ ArabNews.com [LINK]

¹¹ArabNews.com [LINK]

¹² What she should not be entitled to, however, is the access to power that she receives, exemplified by her invitation to Restoration Weekend, a gathering of Republican powerhouses and their media mouthpieces. [LINK]

¹³ Joe Conason, Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth p. 2. New York: Thomas Dunne Books (2003).