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.