Posted on 09/06/2002 3:45:57 PM PDT by Richard Poe
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon," writes leftist agitator Saul Alinsky in Rules for Radicals "… it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage."
Super-pundit Ann Coulter has turned the left’s own tactics against them. Her new book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right makes laughingstocks of the media. It is paralyzingly funny.
Predictably, the media have attacked like rabid wolverines – proving, with each snap of their drooling jaws, that they are every inch the totalitarian fiends Coulter says they are.
Even before the book was published, leftist editors tried to strangle it in its cradle.
When her editor died of cancer, HarperCollins deep-sixed the book. Coulter’s agent shopped it around for two months, getting rejection after rejection.
"This book does not move the national dialogue forward," sniffed one Doubleday editor.
"That’s funny," Coulter responded. "I thought book publishers made money on the basis of how many books they sold."
Crown Publishing finally picked it up. With over 400,000 copies sold, Slander has topped the New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list for eight weeks straight.
"The American people like me; editors don’t…" Coulter remarks to The New York Observer. "If I were Rupert Murdoch, I think I’d fire some of the people at HarperCollins for turning down the No. 1 best-selling book of the summer for purely ideological reasons."
When Coulter hit the talk-show circuit, the talking hairstyles pulled their usual tricks. They fought with Coulter instead of interviewing her. Some forced her to share airtime with belligerent leftwing zealots who mocked, interrupted, misquoted and belittled her.
Yet Coulter’s sales kept soaring – even as public disgust with the media grew.
"Why Do Many Readers Hate Us Again?" asks a plaintive headline in the influential trade journal Editor & Publisher. The question refers to a recent Pew Research poll showing that public contempt for the media – which had decreased after 9-11 – has now skyrocketed back to its usual stratospheric heights.
No mystery there. If the folks at Editor & Publisher want to know why middle America hates their profession, they need look no farther than their own pages.
On September 1, a newspaper editor in a small, Pennsylvania college town publicly "fired" Coulter in an open letter – accusing her of being a "hater" and likening her to the 9-11 terrorists. It was an obvious publicity stunt.
Nothing happened, so Bob Unger of the Centre Daily Times in State College, PA tried a different gambit. He claimed that an avalanche of reader e-mails supported his action.
Editor & Publisher leaped on this non-event as if it were news.
"Paper Backed After Canceling Coulter," trumpeted the headline in E&P’s September 3 online edition. "Editor Reports 97% Support."
According to E&P, "of the more than 500 e-mails that poured in, about 485 supported the paper's decision." That would leave only about fifteen e-mails supporting Coulter.
Fifteen pro-Coulter e-mails in two days. Hmmm.
"Funny, since I and conservative friends of mine sent in way more than fifteen on our own," commented "republicanman" on the conservative message board FreeRepublic.com.
In fact, FreeRepublic.com had posted Unger’s open letter two days earlier, on September 1 – with his e-mail address prominently displayed. Activity was intense, with 106 messages posted that day.
"Based on my experience with similar efforts on FreeRepublic.com, I would wager [Unger] received hundreds and hundreds of e-mails in support of Ann," comments Gene McDonald, President of the Florida Chapter of Free Republic.
By September 5, the number would likely have been in the thousands. One pro-Coulter correspondent received the following auto-responder message from Unger that day:
"Executive Editor Bob Unger has received thousands of e-mail messages concerning his column about columnist Ann Coulter. He apologizes that he is unable to answer each."
Thousands.
Of course, conservatives are not the only people who employ e-mail campaigns. Islamic activists use them too. And Islamists hate Coulter for her stand against Muslim terror.
The radical Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has sent out an e-bulletin, urging supporters to "Send a note of thanks to Bob Unger at runger@centredaily.com."
Interestingly, Unger told E&P that his 500 e-mails were "local, national, and international in origin."
Now what sort of national and international readers would be sitting around watching a small-town news site in Pennsylvania, just waiting to zap e-mails to it?
If indeed Unger ever received as many as 485 anti-Coulter e-mails, I wonder how many came from Muslim activists. Editor & Publisher should investigate. It would make a perfect 9-11 anniversary story.
How about it, guys?
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Richard Poe is a New York Times bestselling author and cyberjournalist. His latest book is The Seven Myths of Gun Control.
PS I really enjoyed The Seven Myths of Gun Control. Keep up the good work.
And you have a very pretty website. I like those colors.
Actually, State College isn't that small. During the school year, it has about 40,000 students on campus. My Rand-McNally says that it has about 38,000 permanent residents. I doubt that many of either group actually reads the Centre Daily Times, but the area is bigger than the "small town" label would imply. It's interesting that in a town that size only 500 people would respond to the editor's little rant. I think you're right in commenting that he is lying about the whole situation.
WFTR
Bill
My goodness! What happened then?
Indeed. That's like reading a 500 page novel and the last 3 pages are missing. Well, maybe not 500 pages but you get the point.
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