Fortunately she posted her mangum opus on her website, so that we don't have to miss out on her brilliance. She opens her treatise with this brilliant paragraph.
"Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags. The people sporting shirts emblazened with the "F-word" are my opponents. Also, as always, the pretty girls and cops are on my side, most of them barely able to conceal their eye-rolling."
Note the immediate use of Biblical imagery. By calling Democrats the "Spawn of Satan" right off the top she places us in a black and white old testament context. We know who the evil doers are (they are Democrats). The second part of that sentence, however, throws a different light on her role in this Manichean Drama.
She describes herself and other conservatives as having to use covert signals, like gay men. In this biblical setting that Ann Coulter has thrust us into with her prose, one can only assume that doing anything like a "gay man" would be, in a word, wrong. Ann is defining the Democrats as evil "spawn of Satan," but she's not all that good herself apparently. One hears echoes of the one hundred forty sixth Psalm ("Put not your trust in princes") or of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues ("Don't follow leaders / watch the parking meters.")
Ann brushes the implications of this statement aside almost immediately, as if, having raised the doubt, she is content to ignore it. Instead she begins describing her allies and her enemies in this Mephistophelian landscape within which she finds herself. Her allies are those who wear the cross or those who wear the American flag. Like the Florida delegates for example.
Perhaps I spoke to quickly about us returning to moral clarity. For these are pictures of delegates to the convention. Presumably they are Democrats and therefore the "Spawn of Satan." Is Ann saying that she is allied with the Spawn of Satan who adopt a more pleasing image? Or is she deliberately confusing her own role in this drama.
The line about people wearing T shirts with the F word on them is a bit coy, but the meaning is clear. Ann can't be literally talking about people with those shirts on, but clearly is talking about a metaphorical shirt. Finally she moves on to talk about pretty girls being on her side. One is reminded of another biblical passage, namely the second half of Isaiah chapter three, in which another group of "pretty girls" is mentioned. Truly Ann has plunged us into a spiritual minefield where nothing is exactly as it should be.
Or else Ann is just a sloppy writer and doesn't really think through the implications of what she is writing.
Apparently USA today has decided that the latter explanation is more plausible, and I have to say, now that I've dropped my erudite critic voice, that I agree. Salon has a great article on how and why she was dropped that goes into her piece further. The piece contains a great bit on comparing Ann Coulter to Michael Moore (who USA Today has apparently tapped to cover the Republican Convention.
"USA Today editorial page editor Brian Gallagher, defending the choice, told a reporter Coulter "was a voice from [the conservative] side with standing and visibility." Notice how credibility was not a requirement. By contrast, for the Republican convention in August, USA Today has tapped Academy Award-winning director Michael Moore to file dispatches.
Are the two really compatible? Nowhere in his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" does Moore suggest, for instance, that Republicans hate America or that Bush's Cabinet members are akin to Iraqi terrorists. Moore is an accomplished and, yes, partisan filmmaker; Coulter is a factually challenged name-caller. Could USA Today honestly not tell the difference?"
Anyway, tune back in later when we continue the adventures of Suzi Registered Voter at the Democratic National Convention.
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