Following reports that her January 6 appearance on NBC's Today had been canceled, author and syndicated columnist Ann Coulter -- who reportedly told CBS News that her new book is “about the rewards and praise you get for being a victim and the way liberals use victimhood” -- complained during January 5 appearances on Sean Hannity's radio and television programs that “the Today show thing was a hoax from the beginning” and “a setup to block me from other TV shows.” Coulter also asserted of NBC,“They try to turn conservatives like me into a pariah, into David Duke,” and said: “I had a best-selling book, so now the MSM [mainstream media] will just ignore conservatives like me, which is why, you know, writing this book, it ended up being a lot more about the media than I planned on it being.” The next day, CBS' Harry Smith told Coulter: "[T]he more I listen to your complaints, the more I kept thinking, well, you're the whiner. You're the one who's claiming victimhood here. That you're the victim of this great left-wing conspiracy." According to a January 6 post on her website, Coulter is now scheduled to be interviewed during both the 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. ET hours of the January 7 broadcast of Today.

Notwithstanding Coulter's claim to having been set up by NBC, the network and its affiliated channels have interviewed her at least 194 times on at least 13 different programs from April 28, 1997, to October 1, 2007, according to a Media Matters review.

A January 6 article on CBSNews.com reported that Coulter said of her new book, Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America: "(The book is) basically about how victimhood is rewarded and everyone wants to be a victim. ... It's about the rewards and praise you get for being a victim and the way liberals use victimhood and they oppress others." While discussing President-elect Barack Obama and singer Alicia Keys during her January 5 appearance on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Coulter similarly claimed, "[A]ll of these children of a black father who abandoned them and a white mother who raised them, they all identify with the ethnicity of their black fathers to establish victimhood status in America. Because that is how you get ahead in America, by being a victim."

Despite her criticism of how Obama and “liberals” use “victimhood,” Coulter suggested on Hannity & Colmes that she herself had been victimized when NBC canceled her January 6 appearance on Today. Coulter asserted, "[T]he whole thing was a setup from the beginning. It was to book me so that I wouldn't go on, which I will be on, CBS News, The Early Show." Coulter later added, “I know the whole thing was a setup to block me from other TV shows. I know that their one conservative host, [Joe] Scarborough [co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe], the head producer told the publicist, 'No, I think we'll pass on this book.' Just the best-selling conservative author in America. So, I knew this was a setup.”

Earlier that day on Hannity's radio program, Coulter similarly claimed, “I do think the Today show thing was a hoax from the beginning, and they never planned on having me on.” She then added:

They try to turn conservatives like me into a pariah, into David Duke, as with the Katie Couric interview on Slander and Matt Lauer on Godless and his hysteria for what I said about the Jersey girls, and it didn't work.

They're Q ratings went down. My Q rating went up. I had a best-selling book, so now the MSM will just ignore conservatives like me, which is why, you know, writing this book, it ended up being a lot more about the media than I planned on it being. And I realized about halfway through, you know, it would be as if -- as if I'm living in Nazi Germany, and I'm trying to write a book on bird-watching, and yet it turns into yet another book on the Nazis.

The media are everything. They control information, and -- and I'm reminded more than ever of the importance of Fox News right now. If Roger Ailes ever goes, we are finished, and if you ever go, Sean Hannity. I mean it really is stunning, their control of the information.

During her January 6 appearance on CBS' The Early Show, co-host Harry Smith confronted Coulter about whether she is in fact “claiming victimhood” herself. Smith stated: “You talk about victims and victimhood in America, which I think is a serious problem. On the other hand, the more I listen to your complaints, the more I kept thinking, well, you're the whiner. You're the one who's claiming victimhood here. That you're the victim of this great left-wing conspiracy.” Coulter replied: “No I'm not. But there are real victims.” Among the purported “real victims” Coulter cited were President Bush, former Sen. Joseph McCarthy, former Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork, and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Moments later, Smith added: "[Y]ou should have a cross. You should put yourself up on a cross." Coulter responded: “No, but I'm not citing me. I'm citing the real victims whom I'm defending and demanding that this perpetual-motion machine of the liberal-victimization machine, playing victim while oppressing others, the millions of illegitimate children born every year, the people who are mugged by the millions of illegitimate children every year. They are the genuine victims.”

From the January 5 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

HANNITY: First of all, the headline on Drudge. What's going on? You were scheduled for how many weeks to be on the Today show tomorrow morning?

COULTER: For a long time, but the whole thing was a charade and a setup. It's clear now.

HANNITY: They canceled you.

COULTER: Yeah, well, I was never listed in the promo. People are wondering about that. I was never on their web page, though their no-name guests were all listed. The interviewer -- the interviewer forget we had a pre-interview, and said he didn't know who the interviewer was going to be. So the whole thing was a setup from the beginning.

It was to book me so that I wouldn't go on, which I will be on, CBS News, The Early Show. I love you, Harry Smith. But it's going to be hard having an interview with an MSN reporter and -- and, you know, letting -- having an argument with him. I'm going to love him so much for having me on. “I agree, Harry. I was wrong.”

HANNITY: Well, I can hardly wait to see it, but -- all right, but you've had a few run-ins with Matt Lauer over the years. I mean, you've had --

COULTER: I don't know why NBC -- well, there was the Katie Couric thing. She's not at NBC.

HANNITY: Yeah, what was the Katie Couric thing, again?

COULTER: The affable Eva Braun of morning TV.

HANNITY: Yeah.

COULTER: But she's not there. She's at CBS, and I will be on CBS tomorrow morning --

HANNITY: Well, that's true.

COULTER: -- at 7:30 in the morning. No, I'm very upset about this. This is --

HANNITY: All right, but so -- but they're now denying -- they're now denying that you're banned for life. So are they backing off out of pressure, or were you told you're banned?

COULTER: I know the whole thing was a setup to block me from other TV shows. I know that their one conservative host, Scarborough, the head producer told the publicist, “No, I think we'll pass on this book.” Just the best-selling conservative author in America. So, I knew this was a setup.

I've now heard -- you know, I've been kind of busy. The book comes out tomorrow, not today.

HANNITY: All right. But NBC --

COULTER: But now they're backing down, so I guess Matt Drudge gets results. That's what we know. And this is very upsetting. This is like being fired from Chrysler. Because NBC, I mean, they are just chugging along.

HANNITY: Now wait -- wait --

COULTER: I think if this book does well, I can buy NBC.

HANNITY: But now wait a minute. Chris Matthews had on the unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. So here's a guy that blew up the Pentagon and the Capitol, but they won't let Ann Coulter on because you are too controversial? You dare to -- look, I read the whole book cover to cover, and I love it, and it's thoughtful. And you're right: Liberals do make themselves out to be victims when they are the victimizer all the time.

[...]

ALAN COLMES (co-host): You go after single motherhood, and then you go after Barack Obama and Halle Berry and Alicia Keys and what you call “matinee idol Barack Obama” --

COULTER: Matinee idol.

COLMES: -- for dissing their fathers and having their mothers raise them.

COULTER: No, dissing their mothers who raised them while -- right --

COLMES: Well, insulting the women who struggled to raise them --

COULTER: Right.

COLMES: -- when you insult single mothers by saying they're strippers and they're --

COULTER: I don't insult single mothers.

COLMES: -- it's a recipe to create criminals.

COULTER: It is a recipe --

COLMES: You're insulting them.

COULTER: -- no, it is a recipe to create criminals, strippers, rapists, murderers --

COLMES: So you're insulting them.

COULTER: No, I am insulting single motherhood, which is avidly promoted by the left. And they are --

COLMES: But that's what you are accusing Barack of doing.

COULTER: No, those are different chapters and completely different points. You are conflating two things that have nothing to do with one another. The point is, in -- on the Alicia Keys and Barack Obama, it is that all of these children of a black father who abandoned them and a white mother who raised them, they all identify with the ethnicity of their black fathers to establish victimhood status in America.

COLMES: And you accuse them of insulting --

COULTER: Because that is how you get ahead in America, by being a victim.

From the January 5 edition of ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show:

HANNITY: Well, let's talk a little bit about some of this stuff, because, you know, it's only a matter of days now before, you know, the onslaught, you know, starts against you, but --

COULTER: I hope so. It looks like they're gonna try to ignore me. It may be that you will be the only outlet I will ever have when a new book comes out, although I can say that I will be on the CBS Early Show tomorrow at 7:30 a.m. I do think the Today show thing was a hoax from the beginning, and they never planned on having me on. They try to turn conservatives like me into a pariah, into David Duke, as with the Katie Couric interview on Slander and Matt Lauer on Godless and his hysteria for what I said about the Jersey girls, and it didn't work.

They're Q ratings went down. My Q rating went up. I had a best-selling book, so now the MSM will just ignore conservatives like me, which is why, you know, writing this book, it ended up being a lot more about the media than I planned on it being. And I realized about halfway through, you know, it would be as if -- as if I'm living in Nazi Germany, and I'm trying to write a book on bird-watching, and yet it turns into yet another book on the Nazis.

The media are everything. They control information, and -- and I'm reminded more than ever of the importance of Fox News right now. If Roger Ailes ever goes, we are finished, and if you ever go, Sean Hannity. I mean it really is stunning, their control of the information. And in chapter three, for example, I talk about their hysteria over the Republican attack machine, because as the title of the book indicates, the basic theme of the book is how liberals are always pretending they're being victimized, oppressed by right-wingers and fascists, and, you know, frat boys with rich daddies. And yet they are, of course, always the oppressors.

They're the ones creating genuine victims, and the Republican attack machine hysteria is an example. What is the Republican attack machine? What? Some -- some little, you know, Republican National Committee putting up little web videos? I mean, that doesn't even compare -- forget the counterpart. They use that to throw you off and make you think that the counterpart would be the Democratic National Committee. No, no, no, no. The only attack machine in America is the mainstream media. They destroy people for sport.

HANNITY: I -- I think this was the chapter I probably enjoyed the most. It's interesting you brought it up right away, and that is the rage against the machine. You made the point in this book -- in this book, which is just coming out today, and I made this point many, many times.

You know, they had this website that they put up I guess in June of this past year before the election, Fight the Smears. And literally, I don't -- and I kept raising the point. I'd read the smear, and I'd say, “There's no prominent Republican or conservative that ever made this point.”

COULTER: Right.

HANNITY: Nobody's making these points, but yet they created this, you know, these false smears and defended them.

COULTER: Yes, yes. We're on the attack, we're on -- or we're on the defense. We're being attacked horribly. I mean, the only way you would have ever heard the smear is by hearing someone in the MSM or on the website denouncing the smear. And meanwhile, the genuine defamatory remarks, outrageous remarks, the smears being said against, for example, our beauteous Sarah, those were all coming from the media, not even from the Democratic National Committee, from the Democrats.

One of the -- one of the reasons, well the story, for example, about at Sarah Palin rallies people yelling out, when she mentioned Obama, “Kill him.” That didn't come from a Democrat operative; that came from the media. And it turned out to be a fraud after, you know, a massive investigation by the Secret Service interviewing hundreds of people there, other Secret Service officers, people who had tape-recorded the speech. Nobody heard “kill him,” and, by the way, the Secret Service takes things like that very, very seriously.

From the January 6 edition of CBS's The Early Show:

SMITH: Here's my only other real serious point about this. You talk about victims and victimhood in America, which I think is a serious problem. On the other hand, the more I listen to your complaints, the more I kept thinking, well, you're the whiner. You're the one who's claiming victimhood here. That you're the victim of this great left-wing conspiracy.

COULTER: No, I'm not.

SMITH: And if there --

COULTER: But there are real victims.

SMITH: If there was a real, live left-wing conspiracy --

COULTER: Well, it's not a conspira --

SMITH: -- how do you account for a Republican president being elected and then re-elected.

COULTER: It's amazing it happens, because of the great wisdom of the American people. But the point is, I'm not saying I am the victim. I'm saying that by playing victim, real victims are created. You have millions of unborn babies -- they are -- they are real victims. You have the Duke lacrosse players -- real victims. You have George Bush, the most persecuted, attacked -- and assassination movies and books -- president, I think, since Richard Nixon. You have Joe McCarthy, you have Robert Bork, you have Tom DeLay. Everyone who is identified --

SMITH: Tom Delay is a victim?

COULTER: -- as an oppressor -- Sarah Palin.

SMITH: Tom Delay is a victim?

COULTER: Yes, and all the ones --

SMITH: Of what?

COULTER: -- who are identified as oppressors -

SMITH: Right.

COULTER: -- are always genuinely the victims. And the ones who are the play victims are, in fact, the oppressors.

SMITH: You should -- you should have a cross. You should put yourself up on a cross.

COULTER: No, but I'm not citing me. I'm citing the real victims whom I'm defending and demanding that this perpetual-motion machine of the liberal-victimization machine, playing victim while oppressing others, the millions of illegitimate children born every year, the people who are mugged by the millions of illegitimate children every year.

SMITH: Are the -- it's the liberals' fault?

COULTER: They are the genuine victims.