Daily Howler - April 26, 2005

CONTEMPT (PART 2)! Good Lord! When the New York Times reviewed Coulter’s book, it praised her brilliant research

TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 2005

CONTEMPT (PART 2): There’s a word for Coulter’s approach to the public; Ann Coulter is filled with contempt. It takes a special kind of contempt to write a book like her best-seller, Slander—a book that’s defined by its endless wild statements and bizarre, multi-faceted “errors.” As we’ve seen, Coulter’s “mistakes” often show up in layers—layers that display her open contempt for our society’s most basic values. For example, she closes Slander with a crazy screed about “liberals,” who are said to be “savagely cruel bigots who hate ordinary Americans and lie sport.” But uh-oh! Coulter’s generalization was built on a claim about the New York Times—a factual claim which turned out to be utterly false. But so what! Coulter said she’d change her “mistake” when the book appeared in paper. And sure enough, she did change her “mistake”—to something else that was blatantly bogus! Yes, there’s only one word for the type of person who would produce such layers of misstatement. That person is filled with contempt for the truth—and for the people who purchase her books.