Ann Coulter is coming out with a new book: If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans. I read Coulter’s last book, Godless, and I can tell you that having Ann Coulter call anyone else stupid is like seeing cockroaches complaining about vermin, or a pig farmer turning up their nose at someone else’s stink. It’s just not right.
Speaking of that Godless tripe, my challenge to her fans still stands. I still get email now and then from supporters whining that I dare to criticize her, but not one has ever plainly pointed to one single paragraph in the evolution chapters that they will stand up for as factually correct.
I think this might just be my favorite quote today.
Speaking of cockroaches and Coulter, you think it would be possible if she could produce babies without a functioning head?
Does anyone else think that’s one of the weakest book titles ever?
She sounds like a 12 year old girl telling people if they had any brains
they would be Backstreet Boy Fans too. Is that supposed to be funny?
At least Al Franken’s Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot was original.
She’s pathetic.
What a weird partisan title. I’m not in the US, but if I was, I don’t know who I would vote for. People with brains seem in short supply in both the major parties.
That title is similar to, but probably not inspired by, this classic album (produced by Bob Mould of Husker Du):
http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=22434
Steve_C:
Yep. Godless, at least, had a bit of punch. One could in principle imagine a good book with that title on the front; it might well’ve been a rejected title for The God Delusion. By contrast, IDHABTBR sounds like. . . I dunno. . . a man with emphysema spitting up tobacco?
Another book already? Amazing how you can rip those out when you’re unencumbered by fact-checking and all that nonsense.
…that has to be a working title, a sort of inside joke at whatever publishing house handles her. It can’t be the final title, right? Right?!
I mean, Coulter is a liar and a gleefully evil propagandist, but she’s always had a flair for self-promotion. This title might as well be Neener Neener: I Know You Are, But What Am I?
Robert, Rush Limbaugh is using Neener Neener: I Know You Are, But What Am I? as the title of his autobiography, due out in 2009.
Oh, the naivity.
Oh the nativity? heh. I think its naiveness. Or Naiveté.
Yes, that too…. Can’t you people just speak a civilized language?
Nope. Pidgin Latin-Germanic with a drizzling of French is the only way to pay homage to the barbaric turmoil that followed the collapse of the Roman Empire.
And that ‘i’ really ought to have an umlaut over it.
Well, she’s already halfway there.
The question is what mantislike male will be willing to mate with her and find himself devoured afterward?
I always thought Rush would be up for something like that. Too bad he was sterilized during the radioactive mishap that created him.
hahaha, I read it and laughed out loud. Then PZ’s “Coulter drives a stake through irony’s heart”. Then “I can tell you that having Ann Coulter call anyone else stupid is like seeing cockroaches complaining about vermin.” This post made my day.
I’m almost curious why we’re lacking in brains since we’re democrats. Oh man. It’s dripping irony, you’re right.
She’s such an ass, its funny.
Who’d want to be in the same party as her? She makes them look badddd.
…possibly a tragic incident involving lizard mating displays, Lee Atwater, and a Mr. Potato Head?
I always thought Rush would be up for something like that. Too bad he was sterilized during the radioactive mishap that created him.
Then it seems like Coulter’s species is doomed to extinction.
The question is what mantislike male will be willing to mate with her and find himself devoured afterward?
http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com/
It’s a perfectly good English word, except it’s spelled naivety. If you’re going to speak English, speak English. Your resume does not have accent marks unless you’re French or a pompous idiot, and the plural of your CV is not “curricula vitarum.” [Whereupon the hook drags Speedwell off stage, in the middle of her rant about grammatical lapses and sins and hellfire and brimstone…]
You know, this is probably the first time in Coulter’s life that she’s the one trying to drive a stake into something.
Most days, I figure it probably works the other way around.
Maybe she only devoured part of his brain, which explains how Bill Maher became an altie.
Ah. Good. I was wondering already.
However, I dare not imagine how you might pronounce it…
Ah. Good. I was wondering already.
However, I dare not imagine how you might pronounce it…
If Republicans had any brains, they wouldn’t buy Coulter’s book.
I think it’s become obvious that she’s nothing but an attention-whore troll who’ll do anything to get the spotlight on herself. I think we should ignore her and let her fade into the obscurity that she richly deserves.
Wow, she sure writes books fast, dontya think?
Seeing as we’ve had an outbreak of pedantry: it’s not an umlaut, it’s a diaeresis.
An umlaut (in German and German only) indicates the vowel under the mark has moved forward in the mouth (from u to ü or more obviously a to ä, where ä is pronounced more like ‘e’) whereas a diaeresis in English (it is optional, but present, despite what speedwell thinks) indicates that two vowels that would be pronounced as a diphthong otherwise should be sounded separately. You’ll usually see this on words of “foreign” origin (about 20% of the words I’ve used so far are foreign in origin) such as Noël and noöcyte, but I have occasionally seen it on coöperate. On naïvity therefore it stops the first two syllables becoming one.
[shuffles back on stage looking sober and a bit sheepish]
Well, I’m an American, so I pronounce it as the majority of Americans do, with the accent on the first syllable, “REHZ-@-may” (where @ indicates that neutral, not-quite-pronounced schwa thingy). Many Americans would disagree with me, and that’s just how it is in pronunciation.
They will tear the Harvard Comma away from my cold, vise-like death grip, however. I have used it like a handy rag to stuff the hole where my religious faith used to be. :)
Her book-buying market is so well defined by now, why bother with pretenses that anyone but Republicans will throw their money away on one?
And, knowing her market, the publisher has made it very easy for even the completely brainless to find it.
I finally got around to reading the sequel, which in many ways is even funnier than the first:
http://backinanncoultersasssaddleagain.blogspot.com/
warning to prudes.
Does anyone else think that’s one of the weakest book titles ever?
Lame! Let’s brainstorm:
“If Democrats Had Any Brains They Would Get Elected” Oh.
“Geekiness is Next to Godlessness” There. That’s a devastating retort if I may say so.
Is she gonna wear her black pajama/cocktail one-night-sit minidress on the cover again? Oh, goodie. Camille Paglia will like that.
I’d pay close attention to the language lessons, because Coulter’s ignorant bigoted screeds read much better in the original German.
Good timing!
Just today, I stumbled across this weird Ann Coulter doll from Japan:
“Harvard comma”? Is that what we’re calling the Oxford comma these days?
I didn’t get the memo.
The last time I checked, academia and science as a whole seemed to favour the democrats. It’s got to be kind of hard for her to argue her point when the public representatives of braininess are providing a counterexample.
However a complete resistance to reality does seem to be one of her professional traits.
I posted a link to this blog entry on Coulter’s website, in a thread about her book “Godless”:
http://chat.anncoulter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=841836#841836
You must be registered and logged in to see. Feel free to join up if you like.
I have heard Coulter say on the Hannity & Colmes show that she herself posts on the forum too, but I have no idea what her username is on the forum or how often/little she posts/reads.
Thanks,
Brian
It’s not an umlaut, but a trema (aka diaeresis).
I once had a bad case of diaeresis but some Pepto Bismol cleared it up.
Coulter’s problem (or one of them, anyway) is that nobody buys her stuff because they want facts, analysis, insight, anything like that; she’s purely in the business of being shocking. Which means her career is one long round of hmmmm, how can I top my last public tantrum? Which means her career as a celebrity on the clock; there’s a point where shocking slops over into just plain disgusting, even for the Right.
However, there probably won’t be some dramatic moment when she becomes an object of general public shunning. Crown Publishing (according to the article) publishes her books because her stuff sells, and that will likely always be true–even, eg, collections of The Family Circus cartoons sell some copies. Twenty years from now, you’ll see an obit featuring her and her cirrhotic liver (the details of which will be provided by some flack from Crown, a few days after her body was discovered by her condo’s super) and it’ll take most people a few seconds to remember who she was.
Twenty years from now, you’ll see an obit featuring her and her cirrhotic liver (the details of which will be provided by some flack from Crown, a few days after her body was discovered by her condo’s super) and it’ll take most people a few seconds to remember who she was.
OTOH, they might decide to do a two week media blitzkrieg, like they did with Anna Nicole.
…and thousands will flock to her gravesite in the Bahamas.
*sigh*
Some of the discussion int he blogosphere is that Coulter is concerned she’s already going to be replaced with newer firebreathers like Michelle Malkin. So all she can do, having made a career on lies and hate, is ratchet it up. Her time will come when she’s too old hat, not as pretty (if she ever was, she does nothing for me), and someone else will replace her.
All she has is lying and hate. That’s literally it.
If Republicans had any brains, they’d be fascists.
Oops, they are.
BTW, if you ever meet Coulter in person, just stare at her throat. It’s gruesome.
it is schtick. she does it very well and sells many books, but in the end it is still a put on and the louder you holler the happier or harppier she is.
Hey, someone’s got to keep Regnery in business right? I’m sure the new book will be full of that cutting satirical conservative wit that’s been absent thus far…right?
Coulter is in many ways the female David Horowitz, putting out some useless rag of a read every 3 months. The funny thing is, it takes normal people months to write a dissertation for a degree, or a white paper on a given subject, yet walking propaganda tools like Coulter spend 2 weeks on material, 2 months in editing, and 2 weeks hyping books with commentary that claims to tear down centuries worth of political science and history. Maybe it the palgiarizing that makes it go so much faster…
I forget, did I originally get this quote from comments here? Anyway, it applies:
“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.” – John Stuart Mill
I get why conservative non-thinkers love Coulter. Hey, even the most erudite of us like to read something that rabidly trashes our opponents once in a while (though I think we realize it’s in the vein of venting, rather than compelling evidence to support our point of view). What I don’t get is why so many men seem to think she’s hot. What is it, she’s blond, and, um, sexier than Rush? Is that all it takes?
That quote is a little bit off. The actual quote goes:
I’d really be happy if people stopped paying attention to this harpy.
She simply says inflammatory things and fat rich people giggle. “She said ‘poop’ hehehehe” she has no idea what she’s talking about, she’s just looking for a reaction.
That book title makes it pretty clear that her writings are directed towards her faithful conservative followers. No one reads Coulter for insightful commentary, clever insights, or even a well-argued point-of-view. Her audience reads her books and columns because she tells them that they are Right and the other side is Wrong. After Godless, they’re not just wrong, they’re evil, to boot.
Oddly enough, that book title is pretty close to my father’s favorite political commentary to anyone who didn’t vote Bush: “When you grow up, you’ll realize being a republican is what *adults* do.”
Oh god, is my father ann coulter? Or vice versa? *goes to jump off a cliff*
Karen, far be for me to dis your dad. But voting for Republicans isn’t what adults do. It’s what people who can’t tell the difference between being an adult and playing dress-up do. It’s not what responsible Americans do, and it’s no longer something an American with a shred of patriotism would do.
Can anybody play?
If Coulter has any brains, she’d be brain dead.
If fundies has any brains, they’d be atheists.
If Democrats had any brains, they’d ignore Ann Coulter.
I’m just amazed that she calls herself a true Christian, yet the woman (like many other fundies) just spews hatred. Sometimes reading her shit and watching The 700 Club is just fun.
Yeah, Coulter doesn’t really strike me as the church-going type. Well, not unless it’s the World Church of the Creator. Plus, I think I have a pretty good idea of what she might have been up to during her college days. I have an unflattering term for it, but it could be construed as misogynist, so I’ll keep it to myself.
Most Sunday mornings, I think, she’s probably picking up spoons and syringes and cleaning the white stuff off of her nose.
Don’t forget Coulter’s writeup in The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2006:
Actually, I strongly suspect she isn’t deliberately lying – because she is plainly insane.
The give-away was the Paxman interview, where she calmly stated that all the scientists were in a giant conspiracy to promote “evilution” – this actually left Paxo speechless with incredulity.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the best put-down I”ve heard of the lovely Ann was when she appeared on the BBC’s newsnight programme after the publication of “Godless”. Jeremy Paxman’s first question to her was:
“I’ve read the first chapter. Does it get any better?”
Way to go, Paxo
AnthonyK
I’ve mentioned this before, but the best put-down I”ve heard of the lovely Ann was when she appeared on the BBC’s newsnight programme after the publication of “Godless”. Jeremy Paxman’s first question to her was:
“I’ve read the first chapter. Does it get any better?”
Way to go, Paxo
AnthonyK
[Y]ou think it would be possible she could produce babies without a functioning head?
That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. Incinerate the body, Sergeant.
(Yes, sir!)
Just one of those things wiped out most of my squad in less than twenty-four hours. If they breed, Earth itself could be in danger.
I bought a Mike Savage book once, could not keep my breakfast down after a few pages. You are man of steel, PZ.
As penance for increasing sales of the coultergeist, who will you send your used copy to?
Up to 50 years ago or so, it seems to have been compulsory (at least in scientific literature) on any vowel cluster. “Coössified”, “reëvolve”, everything.
The Oxford Comma is the last one in “A, B, and C”, right?
Up to 50 years ago or so, it seems to have been compulsory (at least in scientific literature) on any vowel cluster. “Coössified”, “reëvolve”, everything.
The Oxford Comma is the last one in “A, B, and C”, right?
The second part of it isn’t bad, but the first is sick… ugh.
The second part of it isn’t bad, but the first is sick… ugh.
Thanks for the info, Wes!
David, yes, that is the Oxford (Harvard, serial) comma. It’s American standard usage unless you’re a journalist (they omit it to save space), in the name of a law firm or railroad, if quoting something like a book title in which the authors omit it, or in the rare occasions in which its use would lead to confusion (in these cases the sentence is best rewritten). You would also want to use it if your company’s style sheet required it; alternatively, you could try to correct the style sheet.
A few people make a specious argument that the list construction is itself a case of unsophisticated or substandard writing, but those people are not correct. Apparently the rules for the Harvard comma, like the well-known rules on using quotation marks, are somewhat different across the pond. I can only speak with authority on American English usage (non-academic authority on language, plus a dollar, will buy you a cheap cup of coffee, incidentally, but I do have some professional experience).
Now as far as the diaresis is concerned, its use for doubled vowels was formerly widely accepted, but was never the majority usage, I think. In any case, the various sorts of wiggles above and below letters are not part of English, except in cases in which a word is not fully assimilated into the language. Fully assimilated words lose their accent marks.
Why, yes, this discussion is a desperate effort to avoid talking about that skan…. I mean, Miss Coulter.
Geoffrey K. Pullum:
The comment about “voting Republican is what adults do”, sounds like it is derived from the expression, “a young man who is not a liberal has no heart, and an old man who is not conservative has no brains”, but that was from back in the day when “liberal” and “conservative” had some real philosophy behind them, today they have both drifted so far from their roots as to be parodies of themselves (e.g. Ann Coulter).
That’s genius Blake.
Thanks, Steve_C. I keep thinking I should do something with that quote, like a Google-bomb. . . .
Lipstick Lesbian might be a better one. It’s not fair to lesbians though.
“back in the day when “liberal” and “conservative” had some real philosophy behind them”
“Liberal” and “conservative” elude easy definition. Without writing a long essay, suffice to say their meanings have changed over time and they mean different things in Europe and the nonwestern world than they do in the US. Then there is the decomposition of these terms into their cultural, economic, and foreign policy associations, which are often multiple. For example, both left and right have interventionist and isolationist traditions.
Even in the contemporary American scene there are marked differences within camps. Self-identified liberals have contrasting views on even a figure as important as Harry Truman. And some self-identified conservatives revere Lincoln, while others vilify him.
In “Godless”, she even goes so far as to say “I defy any of my coreligionists to tell me they do not laugh at the idea of Dawkins burning in hell.”
Yes, she’s Ann “Tertullian” Coulter.
It’s not even really clear that she’s wonderfully good at selling books. The right has had a long history of buying books in bulk. Just because they got smarter and stopped ordering insane quantities from a single book store so the it can’t be tracked doesn’t mean they actually stopped doing it.
Saw this posted a while back on a humor website:
Q: How many bleached-blonde, boney, right-wing, political pundits who resemble transvestites does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: Just the one.
See a tongue-in-cheek visual of Ann Coulter launching her latest war on terror…here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
Ah, thanks. I was simply taught that was how to do it in English (even though we first and foremost learnt British English at school), so no name was mentioned, and I found out much later that it wasn’t that obligatory.
In German, BTW, it’s wrong unless you want to put extra emphasis on the separation between B and C (as in “A and B as well as C”, and that seems to be the case in all other languages I know something serious about.
Ah, thanks. I was simply taught that was how to do it in English (even though we first and foremost learnt British English at school), so no name was mentioned, and I found out much later that it wasn’t that obligatory.
In German, BTW, it’s wrong unless you want to put extra emphasis on the separation between B and C (as in “A and B as well as C”, and that seems to be the case in all other languages I know something serious about.
More irony: Debbie Schlussel of “Atheists are muslim extremists” fame is calling someone else’s insane conspiracy theory crazy. Sigh. She’s such a one trick pony with everything being about Islam. Ann Coulter at least expands her repertoire. DS is even lamer than AC and yet she gets interviewed on CNN. WTF has this world come to?
People can be kooky on some things and correct on others. While Rosie O’Donnell’s 9/11 conspiracy mongering is indeed insane (and stupid), O’Donnell is correct about Oprah-endorsed “The Secret” being crap, and Oprah was (belatedly) right about James Frey being an incorrigible fabulist.
David, you’re right; the comma usage we’re discussing is not part of most European languages, though I only recently found that out myself, and I have no idea of the rest.
I have no idea whether Coulter’s sales numbers are true representations of her following, but I know more than one person who thinks she really gets what liberals are all about……I try not to spend very much time around those people, but they’re cousins so…
BTW
English is most likely a Latin-Germanic creole. Pidgins are not full languages, so English cannot be a pidgin. The English core vocabulary and grammatical structure are Germanic in nature, but most of our vocabulary is of Romance or Latin origin. Too much linguistics makes my head hurt, but we’re a four-field anthropology school, so we all have to learn it.
Controversy is merely a method for Ann Coulter, who is really just a working girl trying to make a living. During a Bill O’Reilly interview early in 2006 (I believe) she admitted the truth. When asked why she says the things she does, she told O’Reilly, “I’ve got to sell books!”
I heard this on the radio, NPR, the other day. I can’t remember who said it.
“Valerie Plame is who Ann Coulter THINKS she looks like.”
When asked why she says the things she does, she told O’Reilly, “I’ve got to sell books!”
Oy, God, she thinks she’s going to make all the obsessed capitalists climax by coyly admitting her oral service to the profit motive. “Talk dirty money to me, baby.”
When do you know you’re really off the deep end? When you become such a caricature of nasty, grasping, greedy, f**k-for-a-buck selfishness that you manage to disgust a lifelong admirer of Ayn Rand.
(Yeah, I’m a lifelong admirer of Ayn Rand, but I’m also said to be distantly related to her… wanna make something of it? ;)
Robert M. Bah. Mr. Potato Head is far too intelligent and moral to be used for such fiendish purposes …
speedwell: All life on earth is possibly distantly related to Ayn Rand. It is just a matter of degree …