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Ann Coulter's Slander: An Analysis Back to Scoobie Davis Online TreasonBlog Articles and links that uncover the lies and misrepresentations in Ann truth about enzyte Coulter's book, Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right. Compiled by Scoobie Davis of Scoobie Davis Online. Posted 9:12 PM by Scoobie Davis New Blog Devoted to Coulter's Book Godless: The Church of Liberalism 12/07 UPDATE: I also created a "non-review" web site for Coulter's lastest book, If Democrats Had Any Brains They'd Be Republicans. Wednesday, April 20, 2005 Posted 6:15 PM by Scoobie Davis Time for Time Magazine to Hire a Fact-Checker If you do a Google search of "Ann Coulter lies," this site and one from blogger Dr. Limerick are the first two sites that pop up. The problem is that both sites document not just errors but numerous outright lies and intentional misrepresentations just in Coulter's book Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right. In fact, it was the work of bloggers who documented many serious and outrageous misrepresentations in Coulter's book Slander that led to an article in the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review on Coulter's deception in the book. The CJR authors cite over twenty items in Coulter's book that "would not pass [a fact-check] without major debate." In addition, the next two sites (click here and here) that pop up on a Google search are articles from the nonpartisan web site Spinsanity that also document Coulter's lies, errors, and misrepresentations. I imagine if John Cloud is reading this, he is feeling rather silly. This is pathetic journalism on the part of the alleged liberal MSM. If you feel insulted by the shoddiness of Cloud's reporting, write Time's editors at letters@time.com On this site, I list some of the more serious lies in Coulter's book Slander. Scroll down to "Ann Coulter’s Slander: The Title is Correct—But for the Wrong Reasons." Also, check out the links section for other sites that document the lies in the book. Enjoy. UPDATE: Eric Boehlert of Salon has more on Coulter's lies and Time's shoddy journalism. Also, read Media Matters and Eric Alterman on Time's Coulter story. The Daily Howler also commented on Cloud's shoddy reporting (Also, check out Daily Howler columns from April 18 to April 29, 2005). One more thing, click here to see another of Coulter's distortions from the book Slander. UPDATE: Media Matters on John Cloud's attempt at backpeddling. Also, on today's The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly referred to Cloud's Time article as "fair." Read this blog and give me your thoughts: scoobiedavis77@yahoo.com Wednesday, January 22, 2003 Posted 10:51 AM by Scoobie Davis Important Note from Scoobie Davis of Scoobie Davis Online Friday, August 23, 2002 Posted 11:57 PM by Scoobie Davis Links Slannderman. This is the most comprehensive list of errors, misrepresentations, and distortions in Ann Coulter’s book, Slander. The Daily Howler did a series of posts on the errors in Slander—most of them in July and August 2002. Check the 2002 archives. Scoobie Davis Online. In addition to this page, I wrote several posts, most in the month of July, on the various misrepresentations in Slander. The nonpartisan Spinsanity did a devastating article on Slander. John C. Cotey did an article for the St. Petersburg Times on how internet writers scooped the mainstream media when it came to reporting on the inaccuracies and misrepresentations in Slander. Scott Spicciati catches Coulter in a contradiction in a Q & A at Florida State University. Click Here for the hilarious transcript. Eric Alterman wrote an article on Coulter and Slander in The Nation. The prestigious Columbia Journalism Review has an article, "How Slippery is Slander" by Michael Scherer and Sarah Secules in its Nov/Dec 2002 issue. The authors indicate that the publisher corrected five errors for the second printing. Also, CJR examined 40 assertions in Slander cited by "liberal columnists and bloggers" as deceptive and found that twenty-one of them "would not pass [a fact-check] without major debate." One of these twenty-one errors mentioned in the article was the claim Coulter made about Frank Rich and the Bush administration (scroll down to the 6/26 post, "Ann Coulter’s Slander: The Title is Correct—But for the Wrong Reasons. by Scoobie Davis"). This article was possible only because of the hard work of the aforementioned "liberal columnists and bloggers"; the mainstream media dropped the ball big time. The reviews for Slander in the New York Times and Washington Post were puff pieces; The reviewer for the Los Angeles Times was a former Bush campaign spokesman (click here and here). Saturday, July 13, 2002 Posted 2:43 AM by Scoobie Davis Important Update Wednesday, June 26, 2002 Posted 1:18 PM by Scoobie Davis Ann Coulter’s Slander: The Title is Correct—But for the Wrong Reasons. by Scoobie Davis A few weeks ago, I heard that Ann Coulter had written a book that would soon be released titled Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right. I was incredulous when I heard that the premise of the book was that the incivility and dishonesty in contemporary American political discourse was entirely the fault of the political left. I thought this was especially the case because I was familiar with Coulter’s writings. Spinsanity did an informative analysis of Coulter’s scurrilities. During the Election 2000 aftermath, I was particularly incensed by Coulter’s libel that “Jesse Jackson is presiding over rioting in the streets” (Jackson’s demonstrations were peaceful and legal; it was GOP operatives who rioted). I also know that Coulter’s columns appear on the web site of two Scaife-funded ideologues, David Horowitz and Joseph Farah. This is especially ironic because a quick search on Farah’s WorldNetDaily web site yields an interesting assortment of articles that include Scaife’s paranoid conspiracies such as the Vince Foster death theories and the infamous “Clinton body count.” Lest anyone misunderstand, Coulter has every right to write for WorldNetDaily; my point is that it is ironic for a WorldNetDaily columnist to complain about the poisoning of the well of public discourse by the left. So I obtained a review copy of Slander though a friend in the mainstream media. I received it last week and began to research Coulter’s claims (I'm still researching them). It didn’t take long to find out that I was correctly told about the premise of the book--on page one, Coulter draws an unambiguous conclusion about the decline in political discourse: “It’s all liberals’ fault.” However, when I sampled Slander’s first few pages (which address the War on Terror), I found that Coulter’s own words devastatingly refute this conclusion; Coulter engages in the name-calling, fabrications, and character assassination that she maintains is the exclusive realm of liberals. Before I go on, let me first say that I enjoyed Slander. Although the book is libelous, nasty, and self-contradictory to the point of being burlesque, I found it an enjoyable read. However, the book entertained me for reasons Coulter didn’t intend. Slander has an amusing blend of bile, conspiratorial thinking, and straight camp (e.g., Coulter’s hilariously gushing 3-page paean to Phyllis Schlafly). I found Slander fun to read for the same reasons I enjoy reading Jack Chick comic tracts (on that subject, I highly recommend Robert Fowler’s book The World of Chick?). The only concern I have is that there are people out there who will believe Coulter’s disinformation. Early in the book I checked the Coulter’s footnotes (actually they're endnotes) and I found something odd. On page five alone, for two columns Coulter cites, the information in the sources of Coulter’s citations did not correspond to their portrayal in the book. In addition, in the first chapter, i noticed that Coulter gievously misrepresented Jerry Falwell's outrageous scapegoating after the 9/11 attacks. I was surprised that I was able to discover multiple examples of intellectual dishonesty so early in the book. The Lies Regarding the War On Terror, on page 5 and 6, Coulter makes the accusations that “[i]n lieu of a military response against terrorists abroad and security precautions at home, liberals wanted to get the whole thing over with and just throw conservatives in jail” and “[l]iberals hate America, they hate ‘flag-wavers,’ they hate abortion opponents, they hate all religions except Islam (post 9/11). Even Islamic terrorists don’t hate America like liberals do.” Two of the sources Coulter uses to arrive at these scurrilous conclusions are New York Times columns by Frank Rich and Bruce Ackerman. On page 5, Coulter writes, “New York Times columnist Frank Rich demanded that [Attorney General] Ashcroft stop monkeying around with Muslim terrorists and concentrate on anti-abortion extremists.” REALITY: I checked the column Coulter cited and found that nowhere in the column does Rich even remotely suggest that Ashcroft curtail efforts against Islamic terrorists. In fact, I checked every post-9/11 Times column by Rich and found that Rich has not made any such demands of Ashcroft. This is one of Coulter’s lies that I e-mailed to Alan Colmes who interviewed Coulter last night (6/25/02) on Fox News’s Hannity & Colmes show. Colmes confronted Coulter with this. Coulter’s response: “that is an accurate paraphrase...” (For a transcript of Coulter and Colmes’s exchange, check the addendum at the bottom of this post). Also on page 5, Coulter writes: “Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman recommended dropping the war against global terrorism (‘declare war at the first at the first decent opportunity’!) and instead concentrate on ‘home-grown extremists.’” |