Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
Coulter also pummels nonsensical straw-man caricatures of political opponents throughout the book. Most obvious and striking is her treatment of "liberals." Without ever bothering to define exactly who she intends the term to include (at various points it includes Andrew Sullivan and Republican-turned-Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords, R-Vt.), she makes sweeping judgments:
Of course, in Coulter's asymmetrical political world, conservatives are universally good:
Coulter's style of argument is often based on jargon and invective rather than substance. Consider this dismissal of claims of conservative bias in the media:
"A 'study' analyzing the New York Times's coverage of the 2000 presidential race conclusively proved that 'this "liberal bastion" published 50 percent more anti-Gore articles than anti-Bush, and nearly twice as many pro-Bush article as pro-Gore.' Claims of 'conservative bias' in the media at large are amusing oddities. But a claim that the New York Times has a conservative bias can be explained only by the sheer joy liberals take in telling lies. This is how liberals flaunt their massive control over news in America. The fact that everyone knows they are lying is part of the fun. They take insolent pleasure in saying absurd things, like college radicals giving revolutionary speeches at their parents' dinner table: We will raid their wine cellars and have their women!"
Nowhere does Coulter engage the actual substance of the study. Instead, she places key words in quotation marks ("study," "conservative bias") to make them appear to be untrue, and makes reference to broad stereotypes of liberals. Finally, she rams home the suggestion that liberals lie by repeating it twice, then coining a jargon phrase ("We will raid their wine cellars ...") which she repeats later in the book. None of this has anything to do with whether or not the New York Times ran more stories that were critical of Bush or critical of Gore; it has everything to do with appealing to preconceived notions about the media -- notions Coulter herself has helped to construct.
Yet if readers can leave aside all of these problems (admittedly not an easy task), Coulter is actually driving at something important about the state of political debate in the media. She's right, for example, that left-leaning politicians and editorial pages sometimes mount sophisticated and unfair rhetorical campaigns against their political enemies. The example she chooses -- attacks against former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and his policies -- is exactly on point. She also chooses other examples to good effect, such as Rep. Charlie Rangel's equation of Gingrich's policies with those of Nazi Germany. Absurdly, though, she steadfastly refuses to admit that conservatives can be guilty of exactly the same thing -- an asymmetry so glaring that only the most partisan readers can accept it at face value.
A surprising amount of what Coulter has to say about the conduct of contemporary political debate rings true. "Instead of actual debate about ideas and issues with real consequences," Coulter writes, "the country is trapped in a political discourse that increasingly resembles professional wrestling." Likewise, she derides "arguments by demonization" and argues that "[l]ies and personal attacks are deeply corrosive of public debate and democratic compromises." She correctly observes that perceptions and falsehoods promulgated in the media have a self-reinforcing quality: "Cliches, biases and outright lies are constantly reinforced through the media echo chamber." But given how she herself uses these tactics throughout the book, even Coulter's more astute observations raise obvious charges of hypocrisy.
Yet "Slander's" sales, alongside those of Coulter's political opposite, Michael Moore, reveal something sad and important about the state of the country: Those with a talent for inflammatory rhetoric rather than facts have their fingers on the pulse of contemporary political debate.
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