Coulter: Crazy Like a Fox?
by KTKJune 12th, 2006
Joe Carter, at evangelical outpost, has an interesting take on Ann Coulter. He thinks her schtick is not just a deliberate put-on - it obviously is - but that she doesn’t believe even the general gist of what she’s saying, at least no farther than it serves to sell books and speaking appearances.
[W]hat I wonder is what will her admirers think when she taps out the conservative market and pulls a David Brock-style conversion to liberalism in order to sell even more books. Make no mistake: Coulter is playing you all for patsies.
I don’t know about this. For one thing, Joe seems to be implying that Brock’s own conversion was not sincere, but simply a way to make a name for himself. This seems wrong to me. For one thing, converting from the conservative to the liberal activist ranks is hardly a way to move up in the world. (It seemed to work for Brock, but I wouldn’t recommend it in general. Cushy think-tank jobs for platitudinous psychophants - Hi, Dinesh! - are a feature of the right-wing activism industry, not the left.) And Brock himself seems sincere in his change of heart, not least because what he criticizes most about conservative activism is his own behavior while in its service - again not a trait that seems like a particularly calculating career move.
For another, it suggests that Coulter’s insanity is itself insincere - that she will drop it when it’s played-out, and perform the same act all over again from the opposite direction, thus doubling her income and time in the limelight from her tired one-trick performance. This also subtly insulates the right wing from Coulter’s craziness, since, by Joe’s lights, she’s not a real conservative at all - she just plays one in the media. Since her “crazy conservative” act is fake, there are no grounds for accusing real conservatives of being crazy, or of tolerating (real) crazies in their midst.
But I don’t think that works. For one thing, she really does seem to mean what she says - correcting for hyperbole, stupidity, and craziness, that is. It’s generally agreed that she went fully nutso on 9/11 - but she was clearly conservative before then, and was personally connected to Republican high-ups long before. Nothing about her views seems to have changed, though she has discovered that she gets more press for stating them in outrageous terms. For another, I don’t think it would be possible for her to do a David Brock without a really heartfelt change of views - much like Brock’s own. When Brock got “unblinded”, he not only renounced Republican dirty tricks, he stopped performing them. For Coulter to do a similar turnaround, she would not only have to admit that her policy positions over the years have been wrong (”I see now that we shouldn’t forcibly convert Muslims to Christianity”), but that she herself has behaved reprehensibly in promoting them (”I was an insane fascist. Oops!”)
I suspect that’s a psychological leap much too great for Coulter to manage. The other problem is that, if she did so, what would she then have to offer? She can’t do the same things for the left that she does for the right - the left doesn’t play that game, and wouldn’t want to be associated with her. She can’t simply offer straight commentary and analysis - she isn’t any good at that. I’m sure she could get a book out and make some speeches, but it would basically be confessional, not political. Once she gives up her crazed harpy schtick, she’s over. Which is why she never will. And the right wing, of course, will always be happy to accomodate her.
