Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [5]
Pretty powerful indictment, I have to admit. No mention for two days! One small problem. Dale Earnhardt died on February 18, 2001. On February 19, 2001, which by my calculation is the next day, the Times ran a front-page account of Earnhardt’s death written by sportswriter Robert Lipsyte under the headline: “Stock Car Star Killed on Last Lap of Daytona 500.” Here. Look at it.
Frankly, I think the fact that The New York Times did have a front-page article on Dale Earnhardt the day after he died kind of undercuts her point that they didn’t. Don’t you? I mean, if they didn’t, that would have been something, huh? But they did.
And, by the way, the article that Coulter refers to? The one written two days later? It was by Rick Bragg,1 a Pulitzer Prize winner who grew up in Piedmont, Alabama. Boy, I hate those Piedmont snobs! It’s always “Piedmont has the best this and Piedmont has the best that.” Yeah, well, fuck you, Piedmont!
Where did Ann Coulter come from? Well, she’s a lawyer, one of the “elves” who helped Paula Jones go after Bill Clinton. That’s a feather in her cap. She was born in 1961. Or 1963. Depending on whether you believe her old Connecticut driver’s license (1961) or her newer D.C. driver’s license (1963). (The Washington Post looked into this.) Ann claims the D.C. license is correct, which means that when she registered to vote she was sixteen. (The Post checked with the New Canaan, Connecticut, registrar’s office.) That, of course, would be voter fraud.
Either way, she lied on at least one of her driver’s licenses, a government I.D., which is a violation of federal law under the Patriot Act. I believe she could be locked up indefinitely for that without being allowed to talk to a lawyer or a judge. Or Paula Zahn.
Now, lots of women lie about their age. But it raises a concern about Coulter (if that really is her name). Coulter’s misstatements about her age make us question the veracity of the seemingly factual statements in her book, such as:
“Liberals hate America.”
“Liberals hate all religions except Islam.”
“Democrats actually hate working-class people.”
“Liberals hate society.”
“Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do.”
“Democrats . . . will destroy anyone who stands in their way. All that matters to them is power.”
“Liberals can’t just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race.”
“Liberals seek to destroy sexual differentiation in order to destroy morality.”
“That’s the whole point of being a liberal: to feel superior to people with less money.”
“Liberals are crazy.”
All this seems the slightest bit odd considering that the first line of the first page of Slander is “Political ‘debate’ in this country has become insufferable.” And she explains, “Instead of actual debate about ideas and issues with real consequences, the country is trapped in a political discourse that resembles professional wrestling.”
So what is Coulter’s contribution to civilizing our political discourse? Well, in the entire 206 pages, she never actually makes a case for any conservative issue. Not school vouchers, not supply-side tax cuts, not privatization of Social Security. The entire book is filled with distortions, factual errors, and vicious invective—slander, if you will—bolstered by the shoddiest research this side of the Hitler diaries.
Take, for example, this gem from page 68. To support her claim that the mainstream media is in the hands of lefties, Coulter makes the point that Newsweek Washington