I was browsing the interwebs when I saw an ad that said “Ann Coulter Free”. I thought – that’s good – this must be an idiot free zone! Then I saw it was an ad for her blog, which is free! They should pay you to read it – the resultant therapy bills must be quite high. Although I’m certain that reading Ann Coulter would free your mind – more than few paragraphs and I’m certain mine would be running for the hills.
Tony: I see that you didn't post the link to Coulter's site, which might help her ranking in Google's eyes! I'll go visit on my own to see if I have the same reaction as you predict.
. . .
OK. I'm back from Coulter's site. You were right.
I have an upgrade request for W3C… can we please have an 'anti-url' tag – a 'do not follow this link'? It would make avoiding sites like Coulter's so much easier!
Tony: I'll bet this question has been asked many times before, though I don't know what people generally think:
What kind of publicity, if any, would Ann Coulter have received over the past 10 years if she had been a old fat man instead of a leggy blond woman wearing short skirts, assuming that the old fat man version spouted the exact same opinions?
what- you mean like Limbaugh?
I don't think Coulter has Limbaugh's delivery which (despite the fact that I disagree with much of what he says) is impressive. Imagine putting Coulter into Pat Buchanan's body and ask yourself whether her ideas would have any traction at all. In fact, I'm not sure her ideas have any traction, any more than Sarah Palin's ideas have traction. I think they've both survived only because so many Republican men are hung up on the idea of screwing a reasonably attractive woman who is willing to parrot GOP planks sprinkled with vitriol.
I don't like either of them (surprisingly enough!)
Limbaugh sounds ingratiatingly bombastic to me (I'm a good old boy and just you listen to me, now, while I tell it like it is). He is Forghorn Leghorn without the humor, and a puerile delivery. Yes – he strings words together with nary a pause for breath (it seems). But I'd prefer that the words made some sense, and actually connected logically.
Listening to Coulter is like listening to nails on a chalkboard. That woman can screech. I'm not sure I've ever heard what she actually said, first time through. Maybe she emits harmonics that cause my brain to freeze.
Regardless of their verbal delivery skills – I don't rate either as a strong communicator. Their ability to present a cogent argument, complete with supporting evidence, is completely absent. They never 'argue the case' – they simply beat you down with a barrage of unsubstantiated talking points.
Their core communication method seems simply to be to complain and moan and whine – which does have an appeal to certain audiences (those who already agree with many of their statements). But argue and communicate? Not so much.
I have to echo Erich's sentiment that Coulter does not have much rhetorical panache. On television, she has the dull, dreary personality of a wet blanket- her voice is low and unemotive, her posture and face are slack, and her manner of speaking is awkward and halting. To me, everything about the rail-thin, pale pundit evokes a walking corpse. Rush has some high-quality delivery, I don't think anyone can deny that! Given the great chasm that divides the speaking skills of the two, Ann must have some other appeal that many of us find impossible to see.
If Ann had better delivery, then I could say with certainty that she performs her act as an ironic ruse. Sometimes I really do think she intends to construct a reductio ad absurdum of the hard-right- but frankly, she isn't enough of a performer for that to be so. She must be a really deluded, standoffish and sad person (who also makes terrible arguements).
I think it's obvious what Ann Coulter has – simply put she is a woman in a world of men by men (the GOP and the right wing in general). As such, many simply swoon at such a 'pretty young thing' — the remarks about Palin were similar in their fawning misogyny.
Personally speaking – she could have the looks and body of a screen goddess, and the voice of a siren, and I'd still find her unattractive.
I don't see her attraction or appeal anywhere.