Monday, August 16, 2004

Ann Coulter tells England's Independent that the French are "a bunch of faggots," mocks Pakistanis ("Poor little Pakis"), and says that "To get into university without achievement or grades, you wanna have a name like Shafiqua, Jeffrika or Leroy."

Yeah, I know -- just another day at the office for Coulter. But some of these are new riffs, aren't they? And they're riffs she couldn't get away with on American TV or in American newspapers and magazines. It's bizarre, but she really could go on the air in America and say that "the best way to talk to [liberals] is to hit them in the head with a baseball bat" (as she does here), and I really think she could kinda-sorta-but-not-quite say that all Muslims are terrorists (as she does here -- "The question is not, 'Are all Muslims terrorists?' The question is, 'Are all terrorists Muslims?' And the answer is yes - every one I have to worry about"), without fearing that she'd be banished to the media margins. But "faggot" and black-baiting and possibly even Paki-bashing would be over the line.

Is Coulter shrewd enough to know that she can say this stuff overseas and there won't be any blowback -- that when her new book comes out she'll still be invited on warm-and-fuzzy soft-news morning TV and treated as an entertainer, the angry-seeming but ultimately harmless Don Rickles of American political punditry? Or is it just that no American has bothered trying to elicit this sort of talk from her -- possibly because American reporters and American TV talking heads see Coulter, regardless of the vileness of her words, as one of their own, someone who's in their clique, someone whose career they don't want to harm?

If an American interviewer got her to say "faggot" on the air, or to insult "Leroy," it would be a public service and great TV. But it would require an interviewer who wasn't willing to play Coulter's game. Do we have such an interviewer in America?

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