Saturday, June 24, 2006
Ann Coulter a Satirist?
Meghan Daum, writing in the Los Angeles Times for June 24, asserts that ultra-conservative author Ann Coulter is a great satirist. She compares Coulter’s work with that of Jonathan Swift. In particular, Ms Daum cites Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” in which he suggests eating the children of poor Irish people. That was a shocking proposal at the time and if you didn’t have a sense of humor you would want to see Dean Swift drowned in the River Liffy. [check geography for name of river through Dublin]
The comparison with eating the children is Coulter’s comment about the widows of the victims who died in the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Ms Daum quotes Coulter as follows:
There’s a flaw in Ms Daum’s analogy. Swift was satirizing the upper-class English and Irish wannabes at the time who held the native Irish, particularly the poor, in low esteem. That is, his sympathies were with the poor who were unable to find enough food for their children, not with the insensitive rich who were letting them starve by doing nothing. If the analogy were to hold, Coulter’s sympathies would be with the 9/11 widows and liberal critics of the Bush Administration. From the tone of the comment quoted, along with other quotes of Coulter’s work cited by Daum, I gather that Coulter’s sympathies are with Mr. Bush, not with his critics.
I must be an old fogy with no sense of humor, because I can not see Coulter as a satirist. I certainly can’t see her as funny, even though Daum quotes one person as declaring that Coulter is funnier than Bill Maher and Al Franken combined. Instead, I see her as a mean-spirited conservative ideologue, in the style of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly, but meaner and more vicious.
The comparison with eating the children is Coulter’s comment about the widows of the victims who died in the twin towers on September 11, 2001. Ms Daum quotes Coulter as follows:
Then there's her assessment of the four 9/11 widows who gained national attention for demanding an investigation into how the Bush administration might have prevented the attacks. Assuming you aren't a fetus, you've probably heard that Coulter referred to the widows as "witches" who are "enjoying their husbands' deaths." This — along with her much-quoted statement: "How do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling they'd better hurry up and appear in Playboy" — has rankled Republicans and Democrats alike.
There’s a flaw in Ms Daum’s analogy. Swift was satirizing the upper-class English and Irish wannabes at the time who held the native Irish, particularly the poor, in low esteem. That is, his sympathies were with the poor who were unable to find enough food for their children, not with the insensitive rich who were letting them starve by doing nothing. If the analogy were to hold, Coulter’s sympathies would be with the 9/11 widows and liberal critics of the Bush Administration. From the tone of the comment quoted, along with other quotes of Coulter’s work cited by Daum, I gather that Coulter’s sympathies are with Mr. Bush, not with his critics.
I must be an old fogy with no sense of humor, because I can not see Coulter as a satirist. I certainly can’t see her as funny, even though Daum quotes one person as declaring that Coulter is funnier than Bill Maher and Al Franken combined. Instead, I see her as a mean-spirited conservative ideologue, in the style of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly, but meaner and more vicious.
