Book Review

Over at Pop Matters some poor soul (Barry Lenser) has read Ann Coulters latest work, and written a review of it. Since he agrees with my analysis of Ann Coulter, namely that she's mostly in favor of making money for herself, I agree with him.

That said, he does make some comments on the thin line between humor and analysis that she gleefully dances over and back.

Is she a jokester or a serious observer of politics? Perhaps a satirist? When, if ever, should her words be accepted at face value? In her newest book’s chapter on the manipulation of language, Coulter admonishes that “you’d have to be either retarded or work for the Soviet thought police not to understand that much of what I say is a joke”. Despite the patina of self-definition here, she’s still hedging on the issue. “Much” is hopelessly vague, and probably with good reason. At her convenience, Coulter can simply deploy the defense that “It was just a joke” while the joke in question still gets its essential message across.

Not that the proudly shameless Coulter minds the umbrage. But her apologists often end up in a problematic spot: how to defend words and a personality so erratic and undefined.

It's an interesting conundrum. I don't know too many Coulter defenders, but those who I see are usually defending her in the most generic terms.