Ferrini is a graduate student in microbiology, immunology and
molecular genetics.
By Roger Ferrini
Imagine what would happen if you genetically spliced Rush
Limbaugh and Jenny McCarthy. The result would be worse than
Frankenstein: it would be Ann Coulter.
For those of you who don’t know her, Coulter is a lawyer
turned talking head who has become one of the most rabid
polemicists of the extreme right. She has made a lucrative career
of bashing the left and has spun a spectacular spider’s web
of sub-rational rhetoric to push her incredibly self-righteous
agenda.
Last Wednesday, UCLA got a taste of her blonde widow’s
venom when Ann came to rally the troops against “Terrorism
and its Friends on the Left.” She blew me away.
Miss Coulter has always been pretty far out there in right
field, but in the wake of the Sept. 11 tragedy, she’s really
gone off the deep end. The war on terrorism is a just and necessary
war, but Ann’s bloodlust is neither. Not only does she
advocate the immediate expulsion of all foreign nationals from
suspicious countries, but she also urges that we “invade
their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to
Christianity.”
When asked what she thought the causes of terrorism might be,
Miss Coulter replied that she didn’t care about root causes
because when a “dog bites your leg, you just kick it
off.” This is classic knee-jerk Coulter, sounding off loudly,
with nothing more than an admittedly shallow understanding of the
issues, devoid even of the most basic motivation to understand what
is really going on.
It must be nice to live in such a simple world, where historical
context, complex ideas and rational thought are merely figments of
the left’s hysterical imagination. I’d say that she is
intellectually lazy but judging from her vocal contempt for
academia, she’d probably take it as a compliment.
Coulter makes her money by being belligerent and inflammatory,
pandering to the emotions of the angry white male. It’s an
old shtick. Although it’s tempting to write her off as an
ignorant hack, that would seriously underestimate this woman.
She’s not stupid.
Ann is a virtuoso of spin, able to throw up a fog of sophistry
that could choke a horse, and cloud even the simplest of issues.
One of her favorite tactics seems to be the old bait-and-switch
where she makes statements to deliberately inflame the opposition,
then cries foul when she is criticized, bemoaning her struggles
against the left’s intolerance for conservative ideas.
She uses this double-speak to shield her own intolerant, hateful
and deliberately insulting rhetoric. But while Miss Coulter has
repeatedly gotten away with flirting with sexism and racism in the
past, her comments on Wednesday night went way too far.
In response to a question on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
Miss Coulter said she supported the government of Israel for the
same reason she supported apartheid in South Africa, because they
were surrounded by “savages.” OK Ann, I’ll take
the bait. Apartheid cannot and will not be tolerated, and those who
support it are just plain old evil.
Despite her imagination, it is not just the left that has a
problem with Ann. Her recent shenanigans have also drawn fire in
her own corner, from the very hand that used to feed her. In an
editorial explaining why the ultra-conservative National Review has
dropped Ann’s column, her former editor, Jonah Goldberg,
describes her convert-them-at-gunpoint article as an
“embarrassment,” and cites her “sloppiness of
expression and thought” and “total lack of
professionalism.”
Unfortunately, she encountered little, if any, opposition on
Wednesday night. The audience at her talk was, as she described it,
the friendliest college audience she’s ever addressed. This
could mean one of two things: either she is too insignificant to
even show up on our radar screens (I hope) or this is an indictment
of political apathy for this campus (I fear).
Taking a look at the bigger picture, I’m not too surprised
Miss Coulter is so popular. This is what we should expect in the
age of 24-hour cable news, when journalism has become entertainment
and editors put shock over substance, and ratings over reality.
Ann fits the bill perfectly. She’s photogenic; she loves
attention (even negative); and she has the talent to spin reality
into whatever version gets the best ratings. Don’t be fooled,
she’s not a journalist, or even a pundit. She’s an
entertainer, masquerading as someone to be taken seriously. Just
think a little bit ““ it’s not illegal, yet.