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Posted on 08/26/2003 11:48:25 AM PDT by GulliverSwift
Ann Coulter was wearing a black cocktail dress, a Cartier watch and a diamond bracelet when she walked into Cafe Luxembourg. We hadn't had dinner for a few weeks and I wanted to see what was on her mind. But first I told her that over the weekend I'd stopped by the Book Hampton bookstore in East Hampton and noticed they had just one copy of her New York Times best-seller Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, and it was tucked away out of sight. Meanwhile there'd been bountiful displays of such liberal titles as Stupid White Men, the Radical Reader and The Chomsky Quartet.
She laughed. "They often do not have it at all," she said, adding that friends and conservative fellow travelers alert her when a bookstore seems to be hiding her book. "Now that conservatives have an Internet community, these right-wingers are like guerrilla warriors," she said. "They send in reports to my Web page, they post it on freerepublic.com."
How had Barnes and Noble been treating her?
"They've been fantastic!" she said. "They have a floor display! Although one Barnes and Noble that's been slow to stock my book is the one on the West Side, 83rd and Broadway. Got a lot of reports on that one!"
Ms. Coulter had just returned from a book tour in Ohio and Indiana. She got searched at the airport; she told me she wished more attention was paid to "swarthy Middle Eastern–looking men with smoke pouring out of their trousers" than to her underwear. She added that she wished passengers would "rebel and beat airport security senseless …. It's just stupid. No one thinks it's safer, and no one thinks it helps to goose little old ladies, to go pawing through my underwear. And what sort of person would sign up to do that? Why should we be polite to these people? These are people who would sign up for the SS."
But she loved the Midwest.
"Man, meeting real Americans—when you spend a lot of time in New York and L.A., you forget how great the average American is," she said. When she got back to New York, she attended Geraldo Rivera's wedding.
She ordered white wine, chilled soup and the salmon spring rolls. She said she hopes to plug her book until Labor Day, then take it easy until mid-September when the paperback of her previous best-seller, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, comes out.
She said she's been thinking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California recall.
"It's just too much fun—it's so great," she said. "It's the classic example of how Democrats govern, that's what's so great about it …. It's unbelievable what they've done to that state. It's mind-boggling!"
Did she think Hillary Clinton will run for President?
"She'll wait for the opening," she said. "I'm just glad she's gone away and we can talk about Arnold now. And I love that the Clintons are solidly behind Gray Davis. Democrats still won't give up on this guy. I really have moved on from the Clintons. I really consider them a bore. Arnold—now that's interesting. That's gonna be fun!"
She said the real danger, if any, is 2008.
"I don't know who we're going to run, and the Republican Party has a history of running people who they think are electable, like Gerald Ford, George Bush Sr. and Bob Dole. That is how you can have another Hillary Presidency."
I asked if people were afraid of Treason.
"Oh, yes," she said. "Liberals are terrified because I tell the truth, and people are reading it. And they've been lying about this for 50 years, and the truth is getting out there. I think there has been almost no liberal that hasn't denounced me. Look at Slander. Every liberal book being written right now is merely a response to Slander—[Joe] Conason, [David] Brock, [Al] Franken. I mean, Treason is going to keep them tied up for the next 30 years. They're squealing like mad, but it's too late—I've redeemed Joe McCarthy, it's done. People give me Joe McCarthy T-shirts, there's going to be a Joe McCarthy doll, there's another Joe McCarthy book coming out. It's over."
She said that liberals' first tactic is to label any conservative as "dumb"; if that doesn't work, the fall-back position is "crazy."
She said she was going to Los Angeles the next day, to appear on her friend Bill Maher's HBO show and to meet with people about her own TV project. She declined to give details other than that she'll be the host.
We talked about an unflattering photo that Time magazine had run of her last month.
"It's the strangest thing you've ever seen," she said. "You just look at that photo, and photos will never have the capacity to influence you again. That's the strange thing about liberal attacks on me: They can't hide me from the public. People can see me talking on TV, they can read my columns. They're not going to be able to persuade people that I'm giving orders to Salvadorean death squads. Like Ronald Reagan said, you can always trust the American people. They know when it's nonsense."
After we'd eaten, we got around to Nixon's "enemies list." She said the actual list was a myth.
"Needless to say, it was John Dean," she said. "Nixon never saw it. It was a figment of John Dean's imagination. I was always suspicious of it even before I looked it up and talked to some of Nixon's ‘colleagues' about it. Because it's just inherently implausible! He needs a list? Do you need a list? I mean, anyone in America could make a list of Ann Coulter's enemies. Nixon needed a list? It's so absurd! Oh, these liberals are such paranoid and insane people! It is so amazing: They really think that John Ashcroft is carefully monitoring their surfing of panties.com. They really think that.
"They are so predictable in their behavior," she continued. "Read The New York Times' letters to the editor—it's all the same thing. They're always, ‘I'm shocked,' ‘I'm appalled,' ‘I'm bewildered,' ‘I'm frightened,' because John Ashcroft is ‘frightening,' ‘shocking,' ‘bewildering,' ‘perplexing!' You read through the letters to the editor right now in the war on terrorism, and you realize how the myth of McCarthyism was created, this idea that people were terrified, frightened—because this is what letter-writers to The New York Times are saying every single day! It's my favorite section of the paper, other than the obituaries now that the old Commies are dying off. The letters to the editors are hilarious. Classics. Unintentionally hilarious. John Ashcroft arrested a Muslim—‘I'm frightened, I'm frightened!' Laugh-out-loud funny! In fact, when I talk to my friends at night, that is one of things we always talk about. We can quickly identify to each other what the best letter was that day."
Ms. Coulter said she was going to appear on Comedy Central's The Daily Show soon and that she loved its host, Jon Stewart, who she called "the No. 1 funny liberal in America."
Did she think she could convert him?
"Yes. Absolutely," she said. "I'd have to spend a lot of time with him. But yes, you can see he's someone …. The problem is, a lot of liberals just don't care about politics, so they'll stay liberal. But if he cared enough to engage—he's a really smart guy, and I think I can convert anyone who's smart. I love him."
What does she look for in a boyfriend?
"A large portfolio. That's a joke. I'm a look-ist. Height—very important. Funny. Right-wing. Skier. I don't always get that one. Did I mention nice?"
How did she go about dating?
"Well, I don't really go about anything. They have to go about dating me."
Earlier, I'd asked her about some anti-war Hollywood actors (Tim Robbins, Ed Norton) whom she'd written off as "sissy boys putting on little girls' plays."
Were there any actors she liked?
"Bruce Willis. He's a total stud. He's a Republican. Bill Pullman. Andy Garcia."
But her No. 1 lust object seemed to be the subject of her book.
Joe McCarthy, she said, was "a totally studly guy. He was a big bear of a man. Big, handsome man. Yes, McCarthy really would have been perfect. He was funny, he was big, he was studly, he was a boxer. Very solid on the issues. Really knew how to tick off liberals. He gets bonus points for that." She laughed.
Actress Hilary Swank and her husband Chad Lowe were at the bar. Ms. Swank had definitely noticed Ms. Coulter and was pointing her out to Mr. Lowe and another male companion. When they passed by our table quickly on the way out, Ms. Swank said a quiet "Hi" while Mr. Lowe looked sheepishly at the ground.
Ms. Coulter told me she didn't know who they were. She wondered if Ms. Swank might be conservative.
"Younger people are much more likely to be right-wing," she said. "I think they get sick of their professors. It's a natural instinct for a young person to rebel against authority. And there's no better way to piss off your professor than to be a Republican."
What did she think New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman was up to that evening?
"Probably writing up an article about his ‘friend Muhammad' and how his ‘stubby Arab fingers were feeling the small of my back,'" she said. "I cannot take those articles! He's even more of a girl than Maureen Dowd: ‘I was doing this, and he said to me and my friend, and I was in an elevator'—do I need the atmospherics?' Get to the point! He writes like a girl. It's like he's writing about his coffee klatch."
Anyone at The Times who doesn't write like a girl?
"John Tierney, he's a funny writer," she said. "I haven't seen him that much recently—they probable got rid of him to make room for Jayson Blair."
I got the bill. I asked her if there was any chance that liberals would one day be saying "We told you so" to her?
"Oh, they will never be able to say that," she said. "If we lose, and the liberals are running gulags, concentration camps and madrassas, and the re-education counselors are teaching the history—that is the only circumstance in which a liberal will ever be able to say, ‘We were right and you were wrong.' No, they are wrong about everything …. They are working ferociously to undermine America."
She said she's been thinking that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have had "an extremely conservatizing influence" on America, and that some former liberals may be changing their stripes.
"Who's the dog that didn't bark?" she said. "Where is Alan Dershowitz? Isn't that interesting? A guy you couldn't keep away from a camera. We haven't heard from him since 9/11, have we? Isn't that interesting? Where has he been? Who knows? But it's a striking and stunning fact that he has not been all over the TV denouncing Bush, Ashcroft, saying that 'prisoners are being tortured in Guantánamo,' 'we're in the middle of a civil-liberties crisis' ... I haven't talked to him, I don't know that, but he's the dog that didn't bark."
I wonder which channel is negotiating with Ann about a show?
Chortle! Do all the educrates think they're reproducing liberals, when actually they're programming students to HATE THEIR GUTS? Too funny!
"guerrilla warriors"...I like that.
Why do TSA agents have all the luck? Man, smoke would be pouring out of my trousers, too...
She is absolutely right, but I think saying this is probably a felony violation of the Patriot Act.
So here are two reasons to dump the Patriot Act.
What did she think New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas Friedman was up to that evening?
".... I cannot take those articles! He's even more of a girl than Maureen Dowd: ‘I was doing this, and he said to me and my friend, and I was in an elevator'—do I need the atmospherics?' Get to the point! He writes like a girl. It's like he's writing about his coffee klatch."
Priceless.
So9
Maybe I could be a writer for The New York Observer.
Shame on me :-(
Me, for one!
Oh, by the way, where the hell are the pictures?
Regards,
Kevin, J.D., LL.M. (never in my life been under a car).
Classic, absolutely classic..
This is obviously true since the piece claims to have been written by him but then says at the end "as Paul Harvey would say."
Last time I checked, Paul Harvey wasn't one of those irritating people who like referring to themselves in the third person.
......
I heard it on RUSH about ten or so years ago, then later heard it from Michael Medved on his program.
Snopes has proven to be quite liberal...check other posts about them here on FR and you'll see what I mean. There was a thread about it withing the last week.
I don't see how this is possible, I mean, I can see her shredding him and using him as kitty liter.
I just hope it's not HBO or some other PPV channel!
I do remember something about Paul Harvey and this subject and if he did a "Rest of the Story" on it, I will have it saved on my computer at home. It sounds very familiar but that could be because I have read it in so many other places and over a number of years. The first person I herad bring it up was Rush Limbaugh and, as usual, he had documented sources.
Nooo, actually this one is true. I read it in one of David Horowitz' books about the time when he was running with the Panthers. I don't recall all of the details but she was involved. She is one massive piece of work.
I LOVE it!
And fellow Bruce "The Studmuffin Willis" fan BUMP!!
They've "de-bunked" the Clinton Body Count, and are promoting a Bush Body Count.
They don't deserve my web hit. Nor yours or any FReeper's.
Hillary Clinton and the Black Panthers
Part 3: McCarthyism Redux
The facts of the case, so far as they can be confirmed, are not the main point of contention here. At issue, rather, is how the facts are represented and commented upon in such a way as to make them seem damning.
Examining the evidence objectively, readers may find reason to disagree with Ms. Clinton's college-age politics and even question her judgment in certain matters, but they will find nothing to support the inference that her actions at the time went beyond legal or moral bounds.
For two excellent reviews of the facts themselves, see "Black Panthers" by David Mikkelson and "Hillary Clinton and the Black Panthers" from Urban Legend Zeitgeist.
As to the misrepresentation of the facts, here are the main objections:
Was Hillary Clinton a "defender" of the Black Panther murderers?
Not in the sense implied. Remember, these were accused murderers at the time she and other campus activists took up their cause (unless presumption of innocence somehow doesn't apply here).
Secondly, there was a widespread suspicion among leftists that the Panther leaders had been framed by police and in any case were unlikely to get a fair trial in New Haven. Lastly, it's evident from the role for which Clinton volunteered during the actual trial – that of observer for the American Civil Liberties Union – that her interest lay precisely in its fairness and legality.
Did Clinton help the accused murderers "get off easy?"
No. How could she have? She played no direct role in the trial or sentencing.
Did Clinton organize demonstrations that "shut down" Yale University?
She was involved in such demonstrations, but how major a leadership role she played is under dispute. Eyewitness accounts place her at planning meetings but also characterize her as contributing a "moderate voice" to those proceedings. For the record, the demonstrations did not "shut down" the university. Similar protests went on at schools across the country.
Does Clinton's participation in the demonstrations and trial 30 years ago reflect negatively on Clinton in the present?
Only if you assume that student activism is bad and that having once been involved in it taints one for life. Taking into account the turmoil of the times and the widespread spirit of dissent on college campuses everywhere during the Nixon/Vietnam era, Clinton's documented activities were relatively tame and rational.
One can certainly disagree with her politic beliefs, but the evidence shows Clinton was neither anti-American nor a gun-toting revolutionary, however much certain parties in the present would love you to think so.
The Smear Campaign Continues
David Mikkelson's thoughtful dissection of the email rumor also supplies some of the missing context required to objectively judge Clinton's allegiances and activities at the time. It also betrays the motives of those so adamantly perpetuating the smear, and thus has aroused their ire. Mikkelson's piece was derided on one conservative message board as a "a thinly-veiled whitewash."
The angry reader wrote: "The learned liberals with their college libraries and research powers appear to first find an answer they like and then use their intellect and university education to obfuscate the truth that might hurt their views or their hallowed leaders."
In other words, we're to assume Mikkelson must have a left-wing agenda and his critique was biased. Unsurprisingly, no one on the message board took issue with Mikkelson's exoneration of G.W. Bush in the racial covenant affair, a case in which the smear tactics originated from the left. The fact is, Mikkelson and his wife, Barbara, have established an unblemished track record of political impartiality over the years.
Another nexus of conservatism on the Net, "Insight Magazine," regurgitated the anti-Clinton allegations in 2001 in an article entitled "Hillary Hides Her Panther Fling." It offers testimony verifying that both Clinton and Bill Lann Lee "indeed were student leaders during the Panther protests" and concludes from that rather bland fact that each can therefore be held accountable for the accused murderers "getting off easy."
But it's not entirely a muddleheaded rehash. The article goes on to enumerate in some detail Clinton's contacts with various communists during the time period in question.
You heard right. Insight reveals that Hillary Clinton associated with communists in her youth.
Is it true?
Yes. Among the lawyers trying the Panther case were some communists and former communists. Clinton knew them and worked with them.
Was Clinton herself a communist?
No.
Did she advocate a communist takeover of the United States?
No.
Then what is the point of "naming names" of these people Clinton knew and worked with as a student activist 30 years ago?
To find her guilty by association, we must conclude.
Some reading this may be too young to recall, but in the 1950s this particular tactic came to be known as "McCarthyism," and has been roundly condemned in the ensuing decades. But, as I said at the outset, the age-old dirty tricks are still very much in vogue and I would be hard-pressed to scrounge up a more perfect contemporary example.
Sounds like a bit more liberal dribble. What's the truth here?
What is really sad it that they ARE STILL DOING IT.
Look it up or FR search using 'snopes' as the key word.From:
The post was from 8/21/2003.I do remember something about Paul Harvey and this subject and if he did a "Rest of the Story" on it, I will have it saved on my computer at home. It sounds very familiar but that could be because I have read it in so many other places and over a number of years. The first person I herad bring it up was Rush Limbaugh and, as usual, he had documented sources.
Online Rumor Mill Spins Its Own Myth
(Snopes.com's leftwing bias undercuts its credibility)
Insight ^ | 8/21/03(originally 3/11/02) | John Berlau
Posted on 08/21/2003 4:23 PM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
The uncertain times after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have given rise to all sorts of rumors. E-mails have circulated about malls that will be attacked on Halloween, about Osama bin Laden being spotted in Utah and Oliver North having warned about bin Laden at the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987. None of these turned out to be true and quickly were debunked on Internet sites devoted to "urban legends."
The most prominent of these is Snopes.com, a Website started in 1995 as a hobby by David and Barbara Mikkelson, respectively a Web programmer and housewife in the Los Angeles area. The site flags rumors with red, green or yellow lights to indicate whether the rumor is false, true or uncertain. The Mikkelsons say the site was getting 2 million "hits" per day just after the 9/11 attacks. Increasingly the establishment media are promoting Snopes as an unbiased arbiter. The site has been featured on ABC's 20/20, as well as articles in Time, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, which said "Snopes.com offers more background information and definitive answers on the veracity of popular rumors than any other site we looked at."
Snopes, which features the status of about 100 war-related rumors, did help to quell baseless stories about Arab-Americans cheering the attacks at a Dunkin' Donuts and the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad being involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. It also has good information on some older urban legends such as alligators in city sewers. But some observers say the site is colored by a liberal political bias and that the Mikkelsons have been too quick to label politically incorrect news stories as urban legends...
-- snip --
But the biggest criticism Snopes has attracted for defending the Clintons involves Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and the Black Panthers. Differing sharply from news and historical accounts, and even from another urban-legends Website, TruthOrFiction.com, Snopes maintains that it is false that "Hillary Clinton played a significant role in defending Black Panthers accused of torturing and murdering Alex Rackley."
The Mikkelsons call a 2000 Insight piece by John Elvin detailing Clinton's role as a Yale law student in supporting the Black Panthers on trial for brutally murdering Rackley, a fellow Panther (see "Hillary Hides Her Panther Fling," July 31, 2000), a "woefully bad piece of 'journalism.'" According to Snopes, "the sum total of her involvement in the trial was that she assisted the American Civil Liberties Union [ACLU] in monitoring the trial for civil-rights violations."
In the interview with Insight, Mikkelson wonders how anyone could object to Hillary's effort on behalf of the Panthers. "She was working with the ACLU, which is what any smart law student would do," she says. When Insight points out to her that many believe some elements of the ACLU have a left-wing agenda, she replies, "There are some people who disagree with the Easter Bunny, too."
Shaky analogies aside, Hillary did more than simply compile reports. According to The First Partner, the authoritative biography by Joyce Milton, Hillary organized the students monitoring the trial, and the students "worked closely with the Panthers' lead attorney, Charles Garry." Based on the students' observations, Garry "raised a multitude of issues about the allegedly unfair treatment of his clients, which ranged from the trivial to the bizarre," Milton wrote. This strategy was ultimately successful in keeping two of the Panthers from being convicted.
Clinton later interned in Oakland for Panther lawyer Robert Treuhaft, an avowed Communist. "Anybody who leaves you with the impression that Hillary did not participate in support of the Black Panthers at the trial is not presenting an accurate impression," says Rich Buhler, operator of TruthOrFiction.com.
But Clinton was not just involved in the Panthers' legal defense. She was serving as a key editor of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action when the review published its fall 1970 issue defending the Panthers. Included in the issue were drawings of policemen as pigs, with one pig decapitated and the accompanying caption, "Seize the time." Again, the Mikkelsons put the best spin on this, writing that "no one has demonstrated that she approved (or even knew) of it." Besides, Mikkelson tells Insight, depicting the police as pigs is no big deal. "Were policemen never referred to as pigs before at colleges?" she asks.
Insight's Elvin laughs that those interested in separating rumor from fact must be at least as skeptical of Snopes as they are of urban legends in circulating e-mails. "It's obvious that they're agenda-driven," Elvin says. "The credibility that they've established is based on the laziness of reporters who have used them as a source." The NLPC's Flaherty, who also researched the Panther story when writing his biography of Hillary Clinton, The First Lady, reaches a similar conclusion. "It sounds to me like they're starting their own urban legends," he says...
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
We talked about an unflattering photo that Time magazine had run of her last month.From:
What photo was that?
[And, as an ANTIDOTE for that miserable picture, here are two MUCH BETTER images, courtesy of Race Bannon...]10 Questions For Ann Coulter
Time ^ | 7/07/03 | ANN COULTER; LEV GROSSMAN
Posted on 07/16/2003 1:49 AM PDT by kattracks
-- snip --
When Ann Coulter published Slander last year, she didn't just score a surprise No. 1 best seller; she also discovered an entire new audience hungry for her notoriously sharp-tongued, unabashedly right-wing rhetoric. Now she's back with Treason (Crown Forum; 355 pages), and as TIME's Lev Grossman discovered, she has in no way mellowed with age...
SHONNA VALESKA FOR TIME-- snip --
-- snip --To: kattracks
BEST COMEBACK AWARD: Do interviewers try to get you to say outrageous things?
No, I say them on my own!
Bwaaahhaaaaa!!!
5 posted on 07/16/2003 4:42 AM PDT by RaceBannon
Clinton could clear all this up very easily. She could produce a written explanation of her involvement in the Panther trial, or submit to an interview on the subject, and while she's at it she could permit Wellesley College to release her senior thesis, said to be a summing up of her political views in those days.
That she hasn't done any of these things shows she has something to hide. As always though, her friends in the press, like the guy at About.com, can be depended upon to write excuses for her and keep the public flummoxed.
I thought that this article sounded familiar...My Dinner With Ann [FR Mentioned; Coulter talks about TV show]
The New York Observer ^ | August 26, 2003 | George Gurley
Posted on 08/26/2003 11:48 AM PDT by GulliverSwift
Ann Coulter was wearing a black cocktail dress, a Cartier watch and a diamond bracelet when she walked into Cafe Luxembourg.
We hadn't had dinner for a few weeks and I wanted to see what was on her mind...
.
See also George Gurley's OTHER "dinner with Ann" article, from:
My Dinner with Ann [Ann Coulter Interview]
New York Observer ^ | August 6, 2003 2:04 PM | —George Gurley and Anna Jane Grossman
Posted on 08/06/2003 12:16 PM PDT by Forgiven_Sinner
My Dinner With Ann
by George Gurley and Anna Jane GrossmanAnn Coulter showed up for dinner at Cafe Luxembourg wearing a tight, stretchy blue shirt, white pants and Chanel flats...
CLICK HERE for the rest of that thread
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