How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This forceful, sarcastic, and often hilarious book offers tips on arguing with liberals, which include the following: don't be defensive, always outrage the enemy, and never apologize to, compliment, or show graciousness to a Democrat. Welcome to the world according to Ann Coulter. Ever combative, Coulter is unafraid to court controversy or confront her detractors head-on, whether they are mainstream journalists and talk-show hosts who have misquoted her without apology or "weak and frightened conservatives" craving liberal approval. Though the writing is often over-the-top, the book if full of one-liners that will delight conservatives, such as "the best way to convert liberals is to have them move out of their parents' home, get a job, and start paying taxes." But there is more here than just insults and countless jabs at Bill Clinton, and even her most devoted readers will find much new material in the book. Largely a collection of her syndicated columns from the past decade, How to Talk to a Liberal also includes columns that were never released or were rejected by editors--in Coulter's words, "what you could have read if you lived in a free country." --Shawn Carkonen

Amazon.com Exclusive Content

Ann Coulter on Election 2004
Ann Coulter has become a fixture among the country's leading conservative pundits with her take-no-prisoners approach making for controversial headline copy. She speaks out about Election 2004 in our exclusive interview.

Ann Coulter's Significant Seven
Ann Coulter kindly agreed to take the life quiz we like to give to all our authors: the Amazon Significant Seven. Read her answers here.

From Publishers Weekly

Never mind this book’s title; from the writings collected here, it sounds like Coulter has never talked calmly with anyone, much less "liberals." In her view, "liberals" aren’t even "sentient creatures." Rather, they are conspiracy theorists and "street performers" who "traffic in shouting and demagogy." Following her previous bestseller, Treason, this book reprints installments from the last five years of Coulter’s syndicated column. Her modus operandi is to "start with the maximum assertion about liberals and then push the envelope, because, as we know, their evil is incalculable." If the title isn’t clue enough, the "we" in that quote demonstrates her assumption that the reader is as angry as she is, which frees her to make any accusation, whether grounded in reality or not. Coulter’s favorite target, hands down, is the New York Times, which she claims distorts the truth, ignores the facts or gets them wrong altogether. Her proposed solution for the 2001 incident in which China’s "three-foot-tall dictator" held an American flight crew hostage: "give us the Americans and we’ll let them keep any New York Times reporters." Not surprisingly, she was in favor of attacking Iraq, and many of her columns dating back to the first months of the invasion sound exceedingly out of touch now ("The rebuilding in Iraq is going better than could possibly have been expected"). Besides previously printed columns, the book includes a few new pieces on Coulter’s pet peeves (like Democrats’ "double standards"), as well as articles rejected by editors at magazines like the National Review and Good Housekeeping. Frequently funny, if only for its sheer audacity, this book will gratify "cranky conservatives" and outrage everyone else.
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown Forum; First edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400054184
• ISBN-13: 978-1400054183
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (711 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #170,905 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hilarious., September 10, 2005

By	M. Snow "hater of you" (VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It would be cool if maybe one out of every five people who reviewed this book had some sort of sense of humor. Ann Coulter is hilarious and witty, and if you don't understand that many of her comments are just there to twist your nipple, you're slow.
It would also be cool if people who reviewed this with one star would figure out they're not fooling anyone into thinking they actually read it, instead of jumping on Amazon to insult her.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Edgy, but truthful, July 9, 2009

By	An Historian (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (Hardcover)

This is a compilation of Coulter's columns where she defends her views and points out the mistakes or outright omissions of other newspapers. As usual, Coulter is abrasive which I find distracting but like Savage, this is her style. There are many times she says what many conservatives are thinking and then some. Either way, she exposes the liberal media for the biased and hypocritical lot they are while showing us that not all liberals, especially with the last name Kennedy, are annoyingly narrow-minded. It is a shame John Jr died so tragically and early, who knows what kind of world we would have with him still here in charge of George...

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars How to Read Propaganda (If You Must), October 28, 2006

By	Joseph Newhard "Austrian Rationalist" (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must)

It was with a deep sense of shame that I recently trudged through the library with my reserved copy of Ann Coulter's How To Talk To A Liberal (If You Must) clutched under my arm, wedged in between two Diehard DVDs, fearing that someone might mistake me for the sort of person who watches right-wing staples like The O'Reilly Factor and Triumph of the Will at home. I mean, what attitude should I have going into the book when the front cover flap reads;

"I am often asked if I still believe we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!"

Finally! The perfect book for anyone who thought that Joe McCarthy was "too moderate." This book proved that my feelings for Coulter has been justified all along. One thing I discovered about Coulter: She likes to invoke men like John Stuart Mill, Edmund Burke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau to provide the illusion that her audience is reading political philosophy. I have studied actual political philosophers -- Plato, Rousseau, Oprah -- and their works are not wrought with logical fallacies, nor written on a third grade level, nor are caustic insults substituted for legitimate arguments. In 2001, federal judge Richard Posner (a Reagan appointee) named her one of our top public intellectuals. Yet she is the complete opposite of an intellectual. Rather than engaging in the honest pursuit of debate and truth, she writes for those staunch readers who have already made up their minds to be religious nuts and right-wing fascists as they sit at home nodding their vacuous heads in agreement while she attacks such evils as civil liberties and defends, among other things, detaining Middle Eastern immigrants (see pg 57).

The result is a barrage of logical fallacies, lies, and non sequiturs like "liberals are terrorists." The book is replete with examples of stereotypes, vitriolic language, and cheap shots at celebrities and politicians, all rolled into short, easily digestible nuggets of propaganda for the mental midgets that make up her fan base. But the poor quality of her arguments should surprise no one who realizes that they were written by someone who thinks the earth is 6000 years old despite Satan's attempt to fool us with the fossil record. Here are some highlights from the book:

This is War (pg 22). This is the notorious article where Ann made her infamous statement about invading the Muslim world and converting it to Christianity, an assertion so out there that it even led to her being booted from ultra-conservative National Review magazine. Note she has no problem sending others to fight in a holy war, yet has no desire whatsoever to dodge bullets and land mines herself. Besides, only someone ignorant of history (see: Republican) would come to the conclusion that conversion to Christianity will pacify anyone, lest she forget the inquisition, witch burnings, the crusades, and centuries of church-backed corruption, persecution and tyranny in Europe.

Attack France (pg 27) Ann begins this article by noting that given the principles of the Bush Doctrine, one must logically conclude that the US should invade France. Most people -- normal people -- would see that as an indication of a serious flaw in the Bush Doctrine. Not Ann. She adamantly concludes that it is America's imperative to invade France and then proceeds to build her case for such an attack. Kidding aside, she lists argument after argument in defense of her position (e.g., "they harbor terrorists"), and I repeat, she is not kidding. (I do have a theory that she is a brilliant liberal satirizing the right, but that is for another day).

Capitol Punishment (pg 313), is where Ann gives us guys some dating advice from her years of experience in Washington, at least since her sex change operation in the late 80s. Her years of experience, that is, if you believe there were actually guys who wanted to date her scarecrow-like physique, chicken legs, shapeless hips, her raspy, banshee-like voice, ratty hair, and malnourished, unshapely stick body (unless there is such a thing as an anorexia fetish). I do know several College Republicans who claim that they find her attractive, but I guess that is to be expected when your political party has slightly more women in it than the Dallas Cowboys.

The Plan (pg 62). There may be too many stupid Ann arguments in this article to refute them all, but I have to try. This article, believe it or not, is founded on the proposition that anyone who insisted that we have a plan for Iraq was misguided. Coulter quotes Senator Edward Kennedy on his concerns about the lack of a plan, and responds with an argumentum ad hominem without addressing his point. She then quotes Tim Russert of Meet the Press in an interview with Dick Cheney, and responds with an argumentum ad hominem without addressing his point. Then she goes on to claim that "plans are useless" (huh?) and continues laboriously with a series of arguments that make about as much sense as a James Joyce novel.

Drug Shills (pg 310). Coulter begins this article by admitting that the issue of drug legalization never interested her because, "It's not going to happen" (see above: Coulter is no intellectual). That statement sums up the political ideology of someone with no concern for justice or truth. Of course, a little thing like ignorance doesn't prevent a pundit like Coulter from forming an opinion, and despite her alleged apathy towards the issue, she goes on to list what she sees as "6 stupid arguments" in favor of drug legalization. Included is a defense of prohibition (a great success story).

Chicks with Dicks (pg 142). Well, she writes "Chicks with D****," but I guess censorship comes naturally to conservatives. I think this one was her autobiography.

Her last chapter, What You Could Have Read if You Lived in a Free Country, is a whiny, sniveling account of how the entire world is against her. In it, she includes four articles that she laments were never published by a host of editors more sensible than herself. Their refusal to print them is evidence, she says, that we don't live in a free country, even though her ideas were rejected on the free market and in the absence of government intervention, as is required by the 1st Amendment. Ironically, it is exactly ideas like hers that you would be most likely to find in a country that wasn`t free; drug criminalization, gay marriages bans, Christian theocracy, sodomy laws, etc.

You won't even know how bad this book is until you pick it up. For whatever reason, Coulter really hates Maureen Dowd, who is mentioned countless times as a victim of Ann's standard pattern of ad hominem attacks, but Dowd isn't Coulter's only target. In addition to affirming the superiority of Christians multiple times, Ann attacks Islam throughout the book with labels like "Islamic lunatics" and jokes like "A Muslim by any other name blows up just the same" (remember kids, suicide bombing is funny!). Reading this book was the worst several hours of my life, and I was once stuck in an elevator with Ben Affleck.