Reading Coulter (If You Must)

The final chapter of Ann Coulter's latest book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (Crown Forum, October 2004), is comprised of Coulter columns that publications rejected. Media Matters for America has reviewed the chapter, titled "What You Could Have Read If You Lived in a Free Country," and has catalogued passages from the four previously unpublished articles -- which Coulter refers to as the columns "editors didn't want you to see."

National Review asked for an article on "feminist legal theory." The following excerpts are from Coulter's resulting article, titled "Call Me Ms.":

• The real reason I loathe and detest feminists is that real feminists, the core group, the Great Thinkers of the movement, which I had until now dismissed as the invention of a frat boy on a dare, have been at the forefront in tearing down the very institutions that protect women: monogamy, marriage, chastity, and chivalry. And surveying the wreckage, the best they have to offer is: "Call me Ms." [p. 324]
• Now, I have no dispute with gay men, but I consider an evening out sorely incomplete if it does not include at least one heterosexual member of the opposite sex. [p. 327]
• I hate to give the game away, but men were essentially put on earth to serve women. [...] Back in the prelapsarian fifties, women worked if they happened to fall into the .01 percent of the population who were able to have interesting jobs or they retired in their twenties to raise children and, incidentally, do what all serious people would like to do anyway -- be a dilettante in many subjects. As far as I'm concerned this was a division of labor nothing short of perfect. Men worked, women didn't. [...] To the extent one gender is oppressing the other, it's not women who should be complaining. [p. 327]

Cigar Aficionado magazine commissioned a column on campaign finance reform. From Coulter's resulting article, "This Congressman Bought for You by the New York Times":

• [U.S. Representative Chris] Shays (R-CT) was one of only five Republicans to vote against the impeachment of a lying, felonious president. I'm hopping mad about it, to the point that I want to commit an act of free speech against him. [p. 331] [...] Without limitation or consultation with fancy lawyers, I could spend a million dollars producing speech of the Debbie Does Dallas variety. But if I want to engage in speech of the "Vote Against Chris Shays" variety, I can only spend $2,000. It is easier to pander obscenity than it is to engage in core First Amendment Speech. [p. 332]
• Of course, for bribing politicians, nothing beats owning a newspaper. Newspapers like the New York Times have absolutely no limitations on running editorials exhorting, "Vote for Chris Shays" -- as that paper did in violation of an almost uninterrupted, century-long tradition of endorsing only Democrats. Nor are there any restrictions on how often the Times can run "news" articles describing Chris Shays as a "moderate." [...] It was a wise investment. Shays voted against almost every member of his party -- but with the Times -- on the not insignificant issue of a President's impeachment. [...] I'm not saying free speech can't function as a bribe. I just think private citizens ought to be able to bribe politicians as easily as the New York Times does. [p. 333]

Coulter submitted an unsolicited article titled "Sally Does Monticello" to The Wall Street Journal. According to Coulter, "the Journal turned it down, explaining they just weren't interested in the topic. A few weeks later, they asked someone else to write about the exact same topic."

From Coulter's "Sally Does Monticello":

• An editorial in the Washington Post promptly denounced Jefferson for carrying on "a private sexual partnership with an inherited young slave girl" and proclaimed that having sex with slaves smacked of racism -- separate and apart, evidently, from merely holding them as property. It was as if Jefferson was morally obligated to carry on exploitative relationships with Latina, Asian, and Caucasian chattel as well, just for the sake of appearances.[p. 338]

Good Housekeeping magazine asked Coulter to write about a proverb. From Coulter's "If You Sup with the Devil, Use a Long Spoon":

• Satan takes the form of gorgeous actresses, successful politicians, and pop icons cavorting across the gossip columns, subliminally exhorting the reader: Be like me! Don't be a prude! This is how the glamorous people live! [p. 343]
• When you go along with the in crowd and don't speak out against liars, against promiscuity, against abortion, you are taking a step closer to the devil.[p. 343]