<p>Coulter is unfortunately a bit more than “basically a shock jock,” because she, alas, has some serious credentials. She’s a shock jock on noxious steroids, maybe. After her undergrad days at Cornell from which she graduated cum laude, she picked up a law degree at the University of Michigan. She’s been a law clerk for a US Appeals Court, after which she worked for Senator Spencer Abraham, and while with Abraham had a hand in legislation intended to facilitate the deportation of illegal aliens. So, for these reasons many people in her audience regrettably consider her to be more than a mere shock jock. Her not unimpressive background really makes you wonder when and where she decided to play so fast and loose — and unethically — with the truth.</p>
<p>^ Coulter is undoubtedly an intelligent, logical, shrewd and ambitious woman. She couldn’t have gotten into or graduated with honors from Cornell if she were dumb, she couldn’t have gotten into and graduated from a top 10 Law school if she wasn’t highly intelligent. Her main goal in life is obviously to be famous, make money, and to get people all riled up. When you take her seriously she wins. Oh, I don’t doubt that she’s very conservative, but she’s not crazy like she sometimes makes herself appear. </p>
<p>Coulter dated Bill Maher, the left-wing religion-bashing pro-science atheist, remember? I also remember reading some article on how she was spotted enjoying dinner with a group of openly gay people. She claims women shouldn’t be able to vote, but she’s a woman, and she obviously votes. Someone as intelligent and logical as her can’t believe half the crap that spews out of her mouth. I bet Coulter and Maher laugh over the stuff they say in public sometimes. </p>
<p>So, Janet Reno is a CAS grad as well, we know…I wonder what Ann has to say about Janet? :D</p>
<p>I suspect Molly’s onto something. I think Coulter knows very well how absurd she is. She obviously agrees with the general worldview she espouses, but she’s too smart to actually believe her own arguments. It’s a show. </p>
<p>I spoke to one of Rush Limbaugh’s good friends from before he was “Rush” and he was saying that Rush started his radio show as a joke and blowhard satire. Then it was taken seriously by conservatives so he adjusted.</p>
<p>Kind of like when Merle Haggard wrote “Okie from Muskogee”. He did it as satire to mock the conservatives of the sixties holding onto their old ways. Then the song caught on as an anthem for them and he ran with it as if it were intended as a serious song supporting them. </p>
<p>Molly, I agree with almost everything you said in your last post, but would like to add a couple of caveats to the idea that Maher dated Coulter, or that he is an atheist.</p>
<p>Coulter has been recently cited in the New York Times regarding her history with Maher saying, Not dating, as people try to say on the Internet, but friends. Also, Maher never seems to have been quoted saying that he was an atheist. He rather has claimed to be either an agnostic, or alternatively an apatheist.</p>
<p>With respect to your outlook that Coulter appears to be crazy like a fox, laughing on the way to her bank in the Cayman Islands yup, I think thats likely a substantial portion of Anns regrettable equation.</p>
I remember watching Maher on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, and he bashed religion - he didn’t openly say “I’m an Atheist” but he mocked the concept of religion the whole time. Whether or not he’s atheist, he is the stark opposite of Coulter, I think we can agree on that.
it’s possible to be intelligent AND spew a lot of crap. If her ultimate goal is to get attention, make money, and stir controversy, she will accomplish those goals by spewing crap.</p>
<p>Maher’s modus operandi, with respect to a segment of religious partisans, seems to be to relentlessly expose the hypocrisy of the conventionally literalist and dogmatic mindset. So, yes he definitely likes to mock a subset of uncritical and anti-scientific fundamentalists, but I don’t think he considers himself an atheist. There’s a pretty clear difference between an agnostic and an atheist.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that Maher is a kind of polar opposite of Coulter, as is evidenced by their debates this week; and as for their purported dating … maybe sometimes opposites attract, but considering Coulter’s duplicitous and militant attributes I still have my doubts.</p>
<p>regardless of the Maher/Coulter relationship, my ultimate point is that I don’t think Coulter is nearly as extreme as she likes to portray herself to the media. Some of her statements are so illogical and unreasonable that I doubt even she truly believes them, she just says them for attention. Every comment in this thread is a sign of her success, everytime people criticize her, applaud her, everytime her face shows up on a TV screen or her name in a publication, Ann Coulter wins.</p>
<p>Molly, in the big picture, Coulter doesn’t really win, having made a freakish caricature of herself in the perception of so many. She may kid herself that it doesn’t matter, but my guess is that she must know somewhere deep down that she has sold out to the dark side. The tabloid — us versus them, the community be damned — media to me is the “dark side” in this context. Then again, maybe you are right in that she is conscience deprived, and living in her own little Tom Wolfe-ian Bonfire of the Vanities world.</p>
<p>It is also important to realize that Coulter matters much less to Cornell’s distinguished reputation, and to the grand scheme of things generally, than this drawn out thread might suggest. It would be poetic justice if she got no attention, but there is sadly a long list of sell-outs that get too much press. Also, the reason for this overly long thread is simply because Ann improperly dissed an area of her alma mater, as well as since watching one of Coulter’s media-hype “train wrecks” can be be an untoward, yet interesting, diversion.</p>
<p>I’m surprised this thread is still going - people like Ann Coulter and Michael Moore don’t matter as human beings, Americans, or anything else.</p>
<p>Also. There is a giant ad telling me I can subscribe to Ann Coulter (Free!) “Be among the first to read Ann’s column every week.” “First. Fearless. FREE.”</p>
<p>Urgh. Just look at her. She’s like a zombie that showers and puts on makeup…<em>shudders</em></p>
<p>yeah, when I see her in moments of vulnerability there’s a deep sadness or emptiness in her.</p>
<p>If George W. Bush couldn’t singlehandedly undermine the credibility of both Harvard and Yale (and he came pretty darn close), then I think we shall live to get another foot in an interviewer’s door.</p>