Posted on 07/02/2003 4:50:57 PM PDT by The Raven
Ann Coulter blatantly missuses the footnote. It's a fact. Her general argument is valid, but she lets herself get carried by excess. If a person writes an op ed in the times, she says "The Times says...". It is intellectually dishonest of her, and she knows it, but she is more interested in proving her point than being scrupulous with sourcing and footnoting. She is the Michael Moore of the Right.
Oh, this example just shatters Ann's credibility. We all know that the NYT Week in Review has a wide variety of opinion from right to left, and this citation just happened to be from a left wing historian.
The other examples of "factual errors" the writer cites are like this. Mainly technical errors that do not detract from the essential truth that Ann conveys.
So the unvarnished TRUTH is now deemed a new low in America's political debate.
That the author sees this as a bad thing is all you need to know about him.
All true, so ... his point is???
It is well documented (footnoted) and I use it for easy (and immediate) references. That alone makes it worthwhile.
The book is so well written it could be the most important and timely political book in the last 20 years because it goes for the bedrock issues of what is mainly wrong with America. Just saying "liberal" or "Socialist" are too weak because after all Communism "IS" Socialism and is where all Socialism is heading in the end.
I think this book is so important because of what it DON'T say but implies. No doubt in my mind that is the intent of the book, and it will work. Ann Coulter merely inseminated the reader with a seed.... and a fetus is growing.. Because if this book is true what have the american communists been doing since the House Commitee on Un-American Activitys CLOSED...
A very pregnant question, not asked directly, but implied..
Excuse me? I heard her debate with numerous people on television and radio and she has substantiated her point of view very well. That is why the libs hate her so much.
Ann Coulter blatantly missuses the footnote.
Can you point to a few examples, or are you merely venting?
Totally off the mark and straight out of DU. You've been around too long to post crap like that. Since when is the use of facts/logic equated to lies/feelings of the left?
Excellent point. Thank you for bringing it out.
Read the entire article, and tell me if you genuinely believe she doesn't take liscence. I also just read the author's deconstruction of Michael Moore, and I think it is a valid analogy. Liberals agree with Michael Moore, and they ignore his shoddy research. Just because Ann Coulter is correct that McCarthyism for example, was completely overblown, it still does not justify her in misquoting, misidentifying, and obfuscating the context of the comments in question. The excesses of the left are great enough without resorting to such tactics. That is my point.
If you want to read a more serious refutation of the McCarthyism charging left, read Brent Bozell's work. His father worked with Joe McCarthy, and the book is more serious and scholarly in tone. Then again, 30 times more people will read Ann Coulter. It comes down to a measure of taste though I suppose. I prefer Hugh Hewitt over Michael Savage. Polemicists aren't my bag.
Spinsanity does go after both the right and the left for lies and distortions, but the two guys that run it openly admit on their own "About Spinsanity" page that they're card-carrying liberals, and IMHO they do have a tendency to attack those on the right for supposed "lesser crimes" that they would let slide if it were coming from a RAT. It's not an overt bias on their part, but it does exist.
Besides, we all know Ann Coulter is a professional bombthrower given to rhetorical flourishes. So what? And it's really quite lame for liberal columnists (of whom Nyhan is but one of dozens thus far) to use the Constitutional definition of "treason" in order to attack Ann's book, when the dictionary definition of "treason" means as little as "a betrayal of trust or confidence" ... a charge that can EASILY be made against almost any prominent liberal.
Unless Ann specifically says at the beginning, "I hereby accuse all the following liberals mentioned in this book of the CRIME of Treason as defined in Article III of the US Constitution," then it's disingenuous for any reviewer, including Mr. Nyhan, to judge her book by the legal definition of the word. (I have yet to read the book; I'd appreciate someone telling me whether or not she actually does this.)
For Nyhan or any other critic to claim otherwise is the equivalent of a newspaper concert reviewer hearing the band's guitarist backstage after the show saying "Wow, we really murdered them tonight!" and then spending the entire 1000 words of his review the next day complaining about how nobody at the concert was actually killed.
The well-turned eloquence of the day!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.