I’m Defending Ann Coulter Now

Ann Coulter is making headlines again. Normally, I’d assume she had a book coming out soon, but the past several times she pulled a stunt like this, I turned out to be wrong on that.

To see her latest shit cloud, take a look at this charming little bit of religious diplomacy that she managed on national television: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/12/coulter-we-want-jews-to-be-perfected/

First of all, because this is Ann Coulter, I want to do both her and myself the obligatory favor and open with a pot shot. If you don’t begin a conversation with Ann with a death threat or hero worship, I’m pretty sure she realizes it’s not worth her time to pay attention. I agree with her conclusion, for her very special case. I don't, however, encourage others to emulate that special case.

Below is as close as I can bring myself to come to threatening the life of a lady who looks so charming in a leather corset (see the cover of her second to last book), but it’s necessary:

“Miss Coulter, in your interview, you are reported to have engaged in the following exchange of philosophical pleasantries:
----‘Asked by CNBC host Donny Deutsch
----what the U.S. looks like in her dreams,
----Coulter said it would look like the
----Republican National Convention in 2004.
----"People were happy,” she said,
----according to a transcript provided to
----CNN by CNBC. “They're Christian.
----They're tolerant. They defend America."
“Miss Coulter, first, surely you must realize that the Republican National Convention was a bigger stage show than anything Britney Spears has ever done. Don’t get me wrong. The DNC was a stage show too. The RNC was better and more effective (though I won’t comment on how or what I mean by that). But to claim that the people there were all happy is akin to saying that Britney looks like she does without having to put on makeup or fake hair. People complained that Britney looked “fat” at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards. I would like to point out that some scientists have successfully argued that she might have simply forgotten to peel off the previous night’s makeup before applying fresh stuff for her performance. Either way, everyone agrees she was a good 15 pounds heavier than usual. The 2004 RNC was like that. Those people might have been happy, but you’d have to peel off 15 pounds of makeup each to find out.
“Second, you highlight that everyone there was Christian. I would like to remind you that the RNC itself spends a small fortune trying to make that statement appear as false as possible. They do so for the express purpose of wanting to appear tolerant, which was your follow-up ‘already accomplished’ claim. Your joining of this modified pair of ideas -- where everyone started off the same to begin with and was thus tolerant -- is vexing.
“Third, you state that everyone there was defending America. I will grant you that I do recall a small military presence at the RNC. However, as they spoke, they were not actively defending America. In contrast, most of the people there would just as soon take a bullet as defend America, because they feel the two concepts are the same. Again, I will throw out there that I feel this was also true at the DNC. But the RNC was mostly a forum for making the case to attack people overseas. That’s not defending America. That’s playing offense.”

That’s as close as I can come to threatening Ann Coulter’s life. I fail. But having tried, let’s return to my original intent, which was to defend her position.

You read right. I’m going to be defending Ann Coulter here.

She states as the foundation of her main argument (not what I was joking about above) that, “[Christians] believe the Old Testament [and thus by, definition, accept the Jewish faith by logical extension]. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe — this is just a statement of what the New Testament is — is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. [Jewish people] don't believe [the New T]estament.” She follows this up with very reasonable observations about the shared aspects of the two religions. Further, she concludes that practicing Jews are welcomed into the Christian heaven. In fact, she jokes that since the laws demanded of both Christians and Jews are the same, the Jewish tradition of following said laws rather than letting Jesus pick up the slack is a lot harder.

In that respect, she is arguably less theologically correct. But that actually makes her seem almost uncharacteristically generous.

Unfortunately, in two key areas, her choice of words is just horrible. I had to carve this turkey pretty carefully to avoid them while quoting above. Let’s take a look at one of the problem areas: “[That] is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.” (You know. Just like Jews, but infinitely better.) From the context clues that she provides, I feel that she was probably referring to religious simplicity, not superiority. But God damn. She just HAD to use the word “perfected” and repeat it several times, thus inviting the path-of-least-resistance interpretation.

Second, in response to, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" she said, "Yeah." No, Anne. Even if you plan to make a somewhat-more-reasonable-than-usual case in which you basically argue in the affirmative, you need to answer a question like that with more than one word. That’s not the answer your previously-more-friendly Jewish interviewer was looking for.

And by the way, Anne, it is possible to use your exact argument to conclude that the Islamic peoples are nothing more than perfected Christians and/or super-perfected Jews. Watch yourself on these little details. They’re killers in broader contexts.

But still, thanks for arguably trying to be nice on this one. I've got your back for that.