Idiot? Part Two

[This is a follow up to my earlier post about Ann Coulter's latest known idiocy.]

How To Read Ann Coulter If You Must

According to Ann Coulter, the charges against the men who threw a pie at her, at a speaking engagement, were wrongfully dismissed. Understandably upset at the waste of good food, the chronically malnourished insult to conservatives' intelligence lashes out at the local prosecutor. And, obviously still seething about the way Time Magazine portrayed her with size 13 feet on its cover, she also lashes out at reporters in general and the Arizona Daily Star in particular. Read her whole column here.Now it's important to know the following when reading anything written, or hearing anything said, by Ann Coulter:1. It's never the whole truth;2. It's probably not even a half-truth;3. If it contains any fragment of independently verifiable fact, it's there only as a lubricant to the fiction she is trying to slip by you;4. It has no other purpose than to preserve Ms. Coulter's cachet with that segment of the Republican base who buy her books and pay her for speaking engagements;5. If you make the mistake of taking Ms. Coulter seriously enough to challenge any of her assertions, you will be responded to with generalities, irrelevancies and insults. Ms. Coulter, drawn to publicity like a bee to honey, is a master at baiting serious interviewers.I was one of the privileged few who heard Ms. Coulter's account of the pie-throwing incident on Sean Hannity's radio show, shortly after it happened. Since trying to winnow facts from invective is ten times more difficult from Ms. Coulter's speeches than it is from her writings, I can remember very little of her account of the incident. She did repeat, several times, that she was in heels, prompting Mr. Hannity to comment whether it would have made a difference if she had been wearing tennis shoes.Interesting aside: If Ms. Coulter nattered to Time Magazine about her shoes in the same way she did to Sean Hannity, it explains the cover photo.But besides her shoes, she left me with the impression that her assailants were more than a little roughed-up by some of her adherents, as the assailants were trying to get away. It is possible that she sees a lawsuit on the horizon, either under vicarious liability if the pie-throwers were unnecessarily injured by her agents, or even primary liability if it is found that she ordered, instigated or encouraged the beatings. She may be interested in the prosecution of the pie-throwers either as mitigation of her possible liability or as a bargaining chip, i.e., "I'll drop the charges and you don't sue me". That she does not truly believe that pie-throwing is an earthshaking event is obvious, for she closes her column by advocating it against the local prosecutor.But, like I said, it is foolish to take Ann Coulter seriouly.

Originally posted by Iron Teakettle on April 22, 2005.

Reprinted by permission.