Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right [Hardcover]

Ann Coulter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2002

“The immutable fact of politics in America is this: liberals hate conservatives.”

Ann Coulter, whose examination of the Clinton impeachment was a major national bestseller and earned widespread praise, now takes on an even tougher issue. At a time when Democrats and Republicans should be overwhelmingly congenial, American political debate has become increasingly hostile, overly personal, and insufferably trivial. Whether conducted in Congress or on the political talk shows, played out at dinners or cocktail parties, politics is a nasty sport.

At the risk of giving away the ending: It’s all liberals’ fault.

Cultlike in their behavior, vicious in their attacks on Republicans, and in almost complete control of mainstream national media, the left has been merciless in portraying all conservatives as dumb, racist, power hungry, homophobic, and downright scary. This despite the many Republican accomplishments of the last few decades, as well as the Bush administration’s expert handling of the country’s affairs in the wake of the worst attacks on American soil and of the war that followed.

With incisive reasoning and meticulous research, Ann Coulter examines the events and personalities that have shaped modern political discourse—the bickering, backstabbing, and name-calling that have made cultural mountains out of partisan molehills. She demonstrates how the media, especially, are biased—and usually wrongheaded—and have done all in their power to obfuscate the issues and the people behind them, bending over backward to villainize and belittle the right, while rarely missing an opportunity to praise the left.

Perhaps if conservatives had had total control over every major means of news dissemination for a quarter century, they would have forgotten how to debate, too, and would just call liberals stupid and mean. But that’s an alternative universe. In this universe, the public square is wall-to-wall liberal propaganda.

Refreshingly honest and unerringly timely, Slander continues where Bernard Goldberg’s number one bestselling Bias left off.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Liberals have been wrong about everything in the last half century," writes conservative pundit Ann Coulter, author of the bestselling anti-Clinton tome High Crimes and Misdemeanors. They've been especially wrong about Republicans, she writes. The bulk of Slander, in fact, is a well-documented brief dedicated to the proposition that most of the media despises anybody whose political opinions lie an inch to the right of the New York Times editorial page. This is hardly an original observation, though few have presented it with such verve. Coulter is the shock-jock of right-wing political commentary, able to dash off page after page of over-the-top but hilarious one-liners: "Liberals dispute slight reductions in the marginal tax rates as if they are trying to prevent Charles Manson from slaughtering baby seals." There's a certain amount of irony about an author who says "liberals prefer invective to engagement" also declaring, "The good part of being a Democrat is that you can commit crimes, sell out your base, bomb foreigners, and rape women, and the Democratic faithful will still think you're the greatest." But then carefully measured criticism never has been Coulter's shtick--or her appeal. Fans of Rush Limbaugh and admirers of Bernard Goldberg's Bias won't want to miss Slander. --John Miller

From Booklist

For those who don't know Ann Coulter, she is one of those blond, right-wing, talking heads who pop up on cable--the most outspoken one. "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," she remarked after the terrorist attacks. She is no easier on liberals, on whom she blames, well, just about everything: "The liberal catechism includes a hatred of Christians, guns, the profit motive and political speech." Page after page of invective follows: "In radical Islam liberals finally found a religion they could respect." The diatribe (complete with footnotes when she's quoting liberals) continues through discussions of the liberal press, the "apocryphal" religious right, and liberals' inability to engage in ideas, only name-calling(!). Sometimes she makes a valid point. She's exactly right about the way the media criticizes women because of their looks. She neglects to mention, though, that this criticism is not restricted to Republican women such as Linda Tripp. Just ask Hillary Clinton. Coulter tries very hard to be incendiary, but she comes across as merely tedious. Although she claims liberals run the press, she'll no doubt turn up on many right-wing call-in shows, among other venues, so a buy a copy. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Crown (June 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400046610
• ISBN-13: 978-1400046614
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,196 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #868,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

ANN COULTER is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Godless, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must), Treason, Slander, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors. She is the legal correspondent for Human Events and a syndicated columnist for Universal Press Syndicate. You can read her weekly column on her website, www.anncoulter.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well reseached, written, funny -- and flawed, June 30, 2002

By 

Joel L. Gandelman (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (Hardcover)

Slander is often brilliant: painstakingly researched, witty, and often making its case with breathtaking power. But it's also flawed: to make her case that liberals and the
news media demonize conservatives, author Ann Coulter consistently demonizes THEM.

It's a shame because Coulter often makes her case but resorts to the same tactics and language that she's criticizing. After you read it you wonder: then, what was the point?

She contends our political discourse increasingly resembles "professional wrestling," yet uses that exact style when writing about individuals and groups who she often effectively demolishes with facts. For instance, how does calling former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite a "pious left-wing blowhard" make our political discussion more issue oriented -- even if it IS INCREDIBLY funny (which it is) and may indeed be true (I would not be a bit surprised)?

If you are a conservative Republican (I am not) you will LOVE Slander and want to gift it to like-minded friends. If you are a liberal Democrat (I am not) you will HATE Slander and not finish it. If you're an independent (like me) you may feel sad since Coulter, an attorney, at times makes her case so well. But her slash-and-burn rhetoric turns Slander into a case of the pot calling the pot a pot.

She makes many points with wit, such as on how New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was demonized by liberals until 911: "After September 11, the average New Yorker faced a risk of death or bodily harm not seen since David Dinkins was mayor...The
characterization of Giuliani as a heartless brute vanished into thin air like the blather it always was."

ABC's hiring of former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulous, she writes, is "the equivalent of a major network hiring Chuck Colson immediately after Watergate."

Coulter did her homework well, using extensive quotations, facts and statistics to bolster her case on several points. A few of the many:

--An overall defense of Fox News Network and what happened on its election night reporting.
--The number of high-profile Democrats who left politics to work in the news media's upper echelons. She names names -- and it's DEVASTATING.
--How opponents constantly characterize conservatives as stupid and link them with things related to Nazis to spread fear and activate their own political base.
--Media and liberals' exaggeration and misinformation about the Religious Right's actual power and alleged "threat".
--How the media use "ultra" and "far"-right labels on conservatives but neglect to use these words, or even "liberal" on Democrats. This is her most devastating knock-out punch, using precise LexisNexis search statistics. She effectively PROVES bias.
--How liberals, feminists and the news media have ignored and ridiculed conservative author and activist Phyllis Schlafly's considerable education, accomplishments and ideas.
This is among her strongest sections.

Yet, this section points out Coulter's problem: to boost Schlafly she simply cannot resist attacking feminist Gloria Steinem who, she writes, "had to sleep with Mort Zuckerman, a
rich liberal media mogul" to keep the magazine Ms. afloat. This is elevating political discussion??

Her weakest contention: she writes of conservative women being branded as ugly by liberals adding: "Only conservative women have their looks held up to ridicule because only liberals would be so malevolent." Patently FALSE: conservatives have ridiculed Janet Reno, Chelsea Clinton, and others for their looks and conservative talk show hosts still liken Clinton administration cabinet women to the bar scene in Star Wars (by the way I love ALL this ridicule and hope it continues...but we are talking about what's FACTUAL here).

Elsewhere, she writes: "Liberals have been wrong about everything in the last half-century" while "conservatives in America are the most tolerant and long suffering people in the world...If a conservative calls you stupid, you are stupid...Liberal lie even when they call people names."

Coulter is definitely on the right track with Slander. Her writing, research and theme are topnotch. Slander WILL sell -- but its impact will be greatly reduced by its author's
nuclear-attack mode execution which, in the end, undermines its credibility.

139 of 187 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, biting sarcasm! A fun read., June 27, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (Hardcover)

Anne Coulter documents the bias in the news that all of us have heard over the years and inserts her sharp commentary about media bias. Many people may not agree with what she says, but I don't think that's the point. She provides extensive, well documented quotes from those in the main stream media and lets readers know exactly what she thinks about it. This is what makes the book so enjoyable. I think her perspective is interesting and I love the sarcastic wit and humor of the book.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars It is what it is., October 5, 2003

By 

"the_literati" (USA, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (Paperback)

This book, crackling with intensity and fervor, is of course far too brash to be read too seriously by anyone; except maybe Karl Rove or anyone else who has a penthouse in the Right Wing. To be fair I must say that the book has it's moments. The points expressed are over the edge, but then that's her schtick isn't it? If you go into expecting some sort of schollarly and balanced review then you either have been nastily misinformed or expect a bit much of her.

Ms. Coulter says it's for entertainment, and I undersatnd why. Look at the thing! Read it all the way through and honestly tell me that it wasn't like reading a transcript of Stand-Up night at the GOP. After all I'm a Conservative and I found more than a few of the passages were just ridiculous. Liberals don't eat babies for breakfast, and I know that, and that's how I can read this book and take it with a grain of salt.

If you really want to know what true Conservatism is about read The Portable Conservative Reader by Viking Press/Penguin. If you want to enjoy a few hours of Slander...and come on isn't that a witty title for a mud-slinging book?...then indulge yourself. Either it'll make you laugh, scream, roll your eyes, or become an active member of the re-elect Bush team. No matter what, if you want to see what the average FAR-FAR RIGHT person thinks but you don't want to visualize Limbaugh in a skirt, read Coulter.