While much of what Ann Coulter says is true, that truth is hidden beneath layers of acidic attacks which do more harm than good. (Perhaps she should have read my warnings in Me vs. the message.)
I think Coulter has done a great job of getting a conservative message out to the masses, but she has also thrown too many bombs. You can’t call our enemies in the War on Terror “ragheads” and expect to be taken seriously.
The points that Coulter raised in her book, Godless, need to be addressed. The left continual shrouds their message in the cloak of an unassailable (for whatever reason) witness – Cindy Sheehan, Joe Wilson, Michael Berg and the Jersey Girls (to some extent Rep. John Murtha and Sen. John Kerry because their military service). If anyone questions the political statements of these bastions of innocence, they are immediately put down as making a personal attack against these brave people.
“How dare you question Cindy Sheehan buddying up with communist dictator Hugo Chavez and calling President Bush the world’s biggest terrorist? She lost her son in Iraq. You can say anything about her.”
Coulter thought she found a way to break through the barricade – a sledgehammer of her vitriolic statements. Maybe she thought she was “taking one for the team.” She would attack these spokespeople, take the heat herself (sell a few books in the process) and actually open up their policies for debate. She would remove the protection by force, but it didn’t and won’t happen that way.
While she has sold some more books through her rhetoric, she has also further insulated these liberal darlings from credible questioning. From here on out, the instant someone disagrees with a Jersey Girl they will be connected to Coulter. They will be asked if they think the widows are enjoying their husbands’ death. The debate will move away from the actual issues to something Coulter wrote – which may be good for her, but it’s not good for conservatism.
