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I began to wonder, in a moistly liberal formulation, whether Ann Coulter might be ... misunderstood? All her right-wing capering aside ("We've got to attack France!"), Coulter was an Ivy League--educated legal writer before she was a TV pundit. She's an omnivorous reader (everything from her friend Matt Drudge's website to the works of French philosopher Jacques Ellul), and she isn't afraid to begin a column on Bush, as she did in January, "Maybe he is an idiot." (The column pointed out that the most direct way to make abortion illegal would be ... to make abortion illegal--not, as Bush had exhorted that week, "to change hearts.") Although Coulter is often compared to Rush Limbaugh, he is "first a broadcaster," as he described himself in one of his books. He said his show "is, after all else, still entertainment." Coulter, on the other hand, doesn't think of herself as an entertainer but as a public intellectual. Many would say she's more of a shrieking ideologue, but regardless, her paychecks come solely from writing and giving speeches. She earns nothing from TV.
To be sure, Coulter is far from the most accomplished conservative presence in America today. Even post-OxyContin, Limbaugh has greater reach; Sean Hannity has his own TV show; old-guard guys like William Kristol and George Will have more power in Washington. Countless conservative scholars--Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, Richard Posner--write with greater intellectual heft.
But no one on the right is so iconic, such a totem of this particular moment. Coulter epitomizes the way politics is now discussed on the airwaves, where opinions must come violently fast and cause as much friction as possible. No one, right or left, delivers the required apothegmatic commentary on the world with as much glee or effectiveness as Coulter. It is almost impossible to watch her and not be sluiced into rage or elation, depending on your views. As a congressional staff member 10 years ago, Coulter used to help write the nation's laws. Now she is far more powerful: she helps set the nation's tone.
Coulter's ubiquity on political talk shows is exceeded only by her inability to write a book that doesn't become a best seller. Her current effort is titled as churlishly as the three that preceded it: How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. It recently ended a 16-week run on the New York Times best-seller list even though it's mostly a collection of previously published columns. Despite Coulter's indifference to the online world--she doesn't blog, and until recently she had little direct role in anncoulter.com--she has a staggering presence in cyberspace, where pro- and anti-Coulter forces wage unending battle. Her "official chat" site, which Coulter never visits, draws 1,000 posts a day. A recent documentary, Is It True What They Say About Ann?--co-directed by a friend of Coulter's, journalist Elinor Burkett--has played at film festivals and won some favorable notices.