How can Ann Coulter stand herself?

Is Ann Coulter truly as outrageous as she appears to be? Or, is it an act for which she is well paid? She reminds me of Westbrook Pegler, the far-right zealot columnist for the Hearst newspapers during the 1940's and ‘50's. Pegler basked in the glory that he assumed he had from his rants. Coulter could be his progeny.

I have just scanned her latest screed, Godless, The Church of Liberalism. That’s the one that became famous for her referring to the New Jersey women left widows by the 9/11 attacks as "the Witches of East Brunswick," and going on to say, "These broads are millionaires...I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much...And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

* Godless, The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter, Crown Publishing Group, New York 2006

Her above comments are just a sampler of her foul mouth. In other venues, there was the one where she wished Timothy McVeigh had bombed the offices of the New York Times rather than the Federal building in Oklahoma City. Or, "Like the Democrats, Playboy just wants to liberate women to behave like pigs, have sex wothout consequences, prance about naked, and abort children." (from her book How to talk to a Liberal (If You Must)) Or, calling a student at Indiana University a "gay boy" when he asked during the Q&A following her speech there about her hatred of Democrats. (These last references came from the encyclopedia Wikipedia.)

Coulter does some little credit to herself by occasionally saying something in Godless that does make sense. An example is her coverage of the Willie Horton incident that figured in the 1988 presidential election. Horton, a convicted murderer, sentenced to life without parole and serving time in a Massachusetts prison, was one of a number of prisoners who were granted occasional week-end furloughs by Governor Michael Dukakis, who was the Democratic opponent of George H.W. Bush in the election. While on this furlough, Horton went to Maryland and raped a woman before he was captured and returned to his Massachusetts prison. Dukakis took much deserved flack for letting such a man be free on a furlough. According to Coulter, Dukakis was disdainful of such criticism and refused to meet with a sister of the man who was murdered by Horton, for which he was sent to prison, and also would not speak to the Maryland woman who was raped by Horton or her husband.

She also makes a sensible argument for capital punishment. Likewise, she viscerates a school district in Connecticut for allowing a sex education teacher to order a high school boy to handle a condom in front of his class.

But these few merits fall far short of offsetting her demerits.

I raise the question: does Coulter genuinely believe the outrageous bilge that she spews out? My guess is that, at the beginning of her career, she was inclined toward the far right, but as time went on she found how much richer going more and more in that direction would make her. So, if going more toward the lunatic fringe puts more money in my pocket, you’re damn right I’ll go for it, she thinks. It’s a bit like a stripper who takes off most of her costume–but as the applause grows louder, she takes off the pasties and then, with still more applause, off comes the bottom.

Although she still seems to be on a gravy train with her syndicated column, her books, and her public appearances, the ride may be slowing down. Following are comments by some of her non-admirers.

"We’ve decided that syndicated columnist Ann Coulter has worn out her welcome. Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives." David Stoeffler, editor and publisher of the Tucson, AZ Arizona Daily Star, 8/28/05, as the reason for dropping her column from that newspaper.

"Life is too short to read pages and pages of rant." From a review of her book Treason by Arnold Beichman in the Washington Times 8/2/03. And that newspaper generally leans toward the right!

"...Ms. Coulter is reviled because she is mean, malicious, the barbed-wire front woman for a cabal of bloviators, bully boys and blowhards (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage and others) who are pleased to regard themselves as the guardians of conservatism’s soul. Conservatism’s soul should sue for slander." (Leonard Pitts, Jr., columnist for The Miami Herald, as published in the Baltimore Sun.)

It appears that Coulter is unmarried (there is no mention of a marriage in her biog in Marquis Who’s Who). Small wonder. What man could live with her?