The Orbis

 Because Ann Coulter will be speaking as part of the Impact Symposium on March 21 along with Rev. Al Sharpton, it seems like a pertinent time to formally introduce her to student body. For those who aren't familiar with Coulter, she is the bestselling conservative author of "Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right," "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terror" and the recently released "How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)." She originally made a name for herself in the aftermath of the Monica Lewinsky scandal as one of the attorneys who helped Paula Jones go after Bill Clinton.

She begins "Slander" by lamenting that, "Political debate in this country has become insufferable." She goes on to blame all this on "liberals," who have lowered the discourse to the sort of name-calling and trash-talking found on the playground. To give you an idea how hard she's worked to create a more civilized and intelligent political discourse in this country, consider some of her insights:

• "Clinton is in love with the erect penis."

• "Clinton masturbates in the [White House] sinks."

• "Liberals hate all religions except Islam."

• "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is that he didn't go to the New York Times building."

What's really ironic about the opening line of Slander is that Coulter's outrageously sophomoric style of deriding anything and anyone who doesn't fit into her extreme brand of delusional conservatism is the only reason that she has any popularity.

Consider her article on last summer's Democratic National Convention that got rejected by USA Today (or that was "too hot" for USA Today depending on whom you ask...). It begins, "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do. My allies are the ones wearing crosses or American flags." As if that wasn't enigmatic enough, she later announces what she calls the "7-11 Challenge." She says, "I have developed the 7-11 challenge: I will quit making fun of, for example, Dennis Kucinich, if he can prove he can run a 7-11 properly for 8 hours.... Within 8 hours the money will be gone, the store will be empty, and he'll be explaining how three 11-year olds came in and asked for the money and he gave it to them." All politics aside, the thing about the article that is most baffling is how someone who throws together such unstructured, shallow writing can get gigs with USA Today.

As unpredictable as Coulter seems, the substance of what she says (if there is any) is actually very easy to predict. It's only how she will go about saying it that is left to the imagination. She regurgitates all sorts of typical conservative arguments, but rarely gives any serious political analysis. In her most recent book she reiterates the problem with political discourse in our country, arguing that, "Liberals traffic in shouting and demagogy ... A major impediment to arguing with liberals is: They refuse to argue." One wonders what it is she wants to intelligently argue about.

Most of her work consists of a series of loosely thrown together rants about how terrible and evil all liberals are. What's disturbing is her consistent evocation of her opponents as "liberals." After reading one of her books, the term "liberals" conjures an image of a faceless group of extremist "street performers" (her words) that deserves blame for all of America's problems.

She often doesn't focus on particular views or issues that are generally considered liberal, but instead directs her venom at the catch-all group for criticism, the "liberals." She launches mean-spirited attacks at "liberals" as though all liberals are alike. What she doesn't realize is that issues, and people for that matter, are often more complicated than the night/day labels of liberal versus conservative or Democrat versus Republican. She even finds a way to make movies into a partisan issue, claiming that, "In movies, we always learn that there is NO REASON, EVER, to fight a war," despite the fact that there are too many movies to name that run contrary to this claim.

It will be interesting to see if Coulter will utilize her time speaking during the Impact Symposium in March to further her cause of rectifying the "insufferable" political discourse created by liberals. It is difficult to see how taking such a posture on liberals, or conservatives for that matter, is supposed to foster a more intelligent, informed debate on the issues facing Americans.

I for one hope she uncorks her unique position on environmental policy. "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, ‘Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours."

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