Another problem plaguing "Slander" is the deceptive way Coulter uses footnotes to lend a false sense of legitimacy to questionable points. To take one example, in her discussion of media treatment of former Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., she provides a list of 10 quotes alternating between positive coverage prior to his political demise following allegations of sexual harassment, and negative coverage afterward. Coulter introduces the list with the claim that "What happened to Packwood is a stunning example of the media's power both to destroy and protect ... In the case of Packwood, the media's good dog/bad dog descriptions were applied to the exact same human being."

To the casual reader, the list must seem fairly damning. Yet if one flips to the back of the book and checks her sources, it turns out that her claim about "the media" rests on a very small sample. Rather than the 10 different articles the casual reader would assume Coulter is quoting, she relies on one article for four of the five negative quotes, a second for three of the five positive quotes, and a third for the other two positive quotes. In all, the list comes down to four articles -- thin evidence at best for the broad suggestion that coverage of Packwood proves "[t]here is no intellectual honesty whatsoever in media descriptions of politicians," which she makes two paragraphs later.

Coulter's use of quotes from liberal commentators as proof of media bias is equally problematic. She disregards the importance of conservative commentators, by writing, for example, "Rush Limbaugh is not the president, the vice president, or a Massachusetts senator. He's not the New York Times. He's not ABC, NBC, or CBS." Coulter also tells us that "What conservatives object to is not liberal opinion commentary, but rather ostensibly objective news coated with smears." Yet much of her evidence for media bias and unfair attacks on conservatives comes from the opinion columns of liberal pundits. Particularly damaging is the way in which she bases broad comments about "the media" in at least two places exclusively on opinion columns. Writing that "the media quickly sketched out the larger themes" about Bush's intelligence, she cites the Kansas City Star's Steve Kraske and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman to support the contention that the media portrayed George W. Bush as dumb -- all of whom are columnists.

In all, Coulter offers more than 40 citations of columnists and pundits to support her assertion that conservatives are treated unfairly by the mainstream media. Though most of these quotes are identified as coming from commentators, and some of her examples are certainly outrageous, the danger is that the casual reader may interpret many of these as evidence of reportorial bias. If read carefully, however, much of her evidence reveals little more than then banal fact that liberal pundits and the New York Times editorial page are critical and often unfairly dismissive of conservatives and their policies. Using Coulter's methodology, one could easily string together quotes from conservative pundits and Op-Ed pages to make the case that the media treats liberals unfairly, rather than conservatives.

In addition to her troubles with facts, Coulter also engages in what my co-editor Brendan Nyhan has called "some of the most consistently emotional, subrational jargon in national politics." Throughout "Slander," she uses what Nyhan identifies as her three favorite tactics: various names and issues used solely to rile her readers' emotions; vicious, sweeping attacks on "liberals"; and loaded language and nasty insinuations disguised as rational arguments. Former President Bill Clinton comes in for some of the harshest treatment; she refers to the "pizza boxes, women's panties, and other detritus of the Caligula administration," describes his "adolescent cramming in all-night slumber parties, leaving the place littered with pizza rinds and women's panties" and refers to him as "IMPOTUS" and "the felon." Coulter even uses "clintonized" as an adjective without a capital letter, genericizing the name into an attack as others have done. Nor is she above simple name-calling, referring to Katie Couric as "the affable Eva Braun of morning TV" and referring to Tom Rosenstiel of the Committee of Concerned Journalists as "Concern Propagandist Rosenstiel."

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