Apparently (ash says “apparently” because it was too long ago to recall precisely) ash was motivated by another writer’s observations to contribute her own. What she does know for sure is that this piece, submitted to her paper as a guest editorial, somehow never saw the light of day. Maybe the fact that she took rather unsubtle shots at management had something to do with it.
As usual, I download Coulter’s column moments after she posts it on her website Wednesday night. Don’t ask me why I bother, since the same column appears in our Friday paper. OK, do ask me. I’m getting her over with. She’s the bad accident I can’t ignore but need to dispense with and move on to something more pleasant and less surreal. Then, if I’m lucky, Ted Rall (as late as Coulter is punctual) will have posted and I can read his column, always guaranteed to nullify Coulter’s nonsense. Or Arianna Huffington, not carried in our paper, my runaway favorite. (More about her later.)
This week is a little different. This week Coulter can be counted on to throw the vitriol at Hillary Clinton vis a vis her new book, which is fine with me. I’m a liberal who hates Hillary for reasons (phony, supercilious, calculating, cowardly in her choice of interviewers, and why does she shake her head and shrug her shoulders so much; her body language betrays her words) divergent from Coulter’s, though it should be gratifying to agree with Coulter’s sentiments. So I begin to read, to nod, to laugh at the quote, “Shocked,…I couldn’t believe it…” only to reinforce my contempt for Coulter greater than Clinton, herself.
That’s some feat. Yet, I shouldn’t be surprised. Coulter, after all, is as over the top as she is predictable in her choice of topics. Just as I knew Coulter would come through with all the ammunition she has against Hillary’s disingenuousness, I should have known Coulter would take it too far, into the realm of irrelevancy. And it’s not the stuff about Bill’s compulsive womanizing (not Hillary’s fault), the lame exaggeration about raping 7% of American women, that bothers me. As far as I’m concerned, Bill deserves almost as much disdain as Coulter can dish. It’s the examination of two people at the extreme edges of the story, among the first in line in New York City to buy the book. One has managed to be interviewed in numerous settings by the New York Times; the other has actually met the Clintons at social functions. To which I say, so what? So what that there are two insider wannabes, no doubt two among many, when this is an article ostensibly about Hillary’s cynical manipulation in book form, not their cloying sycophancy? And why would Coulter waste a huge chunk of space sneering at these guys, when she could have nailed Hillary that much more?
The next day, I find out why. On Thursday, FOX “news,” in nearly identical language, “reports” on two men in line to buy Hillary’s book. One, it seems, has managed to be quoted all over New York, while the other has met the Clintons in their homes. Wait a minute. Where have I just seen this little gem? Not on CNN, or MSNBC, which either missed it or passed on it as less than newsworthy. Oh, yeah. It was prominently featured by Coulter.
Which brings me to Arianna Huffington. A native of Greece, this woman has impressed me with her command of the English language almost as stunning as her thick, delightful accent. Based in Los Angeles, she is divorced from one Michael Huffington, a devout and very wealthy Republican who several years back failed to buy himself office. At that time, 1996, Arianna was a faithful Republican and frequent guest on Bill Maher’s now defunct Politically Incorrect, the flip side of Al Franken’s liberal character in a recurring skit called Strange Bedfellows. In an oversized bed, in their pajamas, they would trade barbs about Bill Clinton and Bob Dole, then running against each other for the presidency. Arianna, dependable conservative, towed the line, only to disappear from my radar screen until she resurfaced in 2000 as a Ralph Nader supporter. Wow. How rare, and how breathtaking, from Dole to Nader in four short years.
Now fastforward to a year ago, when I discovered Huffington’s syndicated column on her website, noting how she has further evolved to a dedicated environmentalist and champion of the little guy in matters ranging from corporate shenanigans to the Bush administration indeed leaving children behind. And suddenly I recall her latest column, in which she imagines Karl Rove, a la Bob Graham, keeping a diary in which he remarks on disseminating information damaging or embarrassing to Democrats to FOX, conservative radio hosts, conservative websites, and Ann Coulter, then smiling as they regurgitate, verbatim, Rove’s talking points.
As Paul Harvey would say, it’s the rest of the story. As I would say, Arianna Huffington, nobody’s shill, belongs in the State Journal-Register; Coulter does not. However, I’m not calling for Coulter’s removal, as I have in the past. I’m merely reminding the reader, as he or she reads Coulter, or Novak, or Kemp, or Safire, or Ivins, or Dowd, or Rall, or Reeves, to be on the lookout for similarly phrased items to those you have heard elsewhere. You might be the victim of an Administration – or opposition – mouthpiece.