Ann Coulter's Latest Book

How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must) : The World According to Ann Coulter by Ann Coulter amazon

I've finished reading this one, and I think it's a pretty good book, although with a couple flaws. First off, before getting into the book itself, I don't understand why people get so up in arms over Ann Coulter. Sure, she has strong opinions on the subjects of liberals and liberalism in general and she doesn't pull any punches when she talks about particular liberal politicians (most notably Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton.) But I don't see people on the other side of the aisle pulling their punches or getting critically hammered in the same way. Is Al Franken somehow more friendly to conservatives? I think not.

The biggest downside to the book is that some 80% of the content is available on the web in the form of Coulter's articles published in places like Townhall.com over the last three or four years. For regular readers of Coulter's work, the most likely people to buy one of her books, that means there's far less new material to read than you would expect. I'd probably already read some 80% of the articles available online prior to buying the book. Coulter mentions that some of the articles as printed here are longer versions of what was previously published, but I only found two or three times where I realized that I'd read the shorter version previously.

With that downside out of the way, let's look at some of the strengths. Unlike the last book of Coulter's I read, Slander, this one is clearly organized topically. Slander read more like a stream of conciousness that simply opens the spigot on page one and closes the spigot on the final page. If you want to pick and choose amongst topics, How to Talk... let's you jump to the parts that are interesting to you. A great example is the chapter on the Elian Gonzalez incident. I ended up with a better understanding of what went on through that whole series of events from a factual basis than I ever got from main stream media reports.

A common attack on Coulter is that she plays fast and loose with the facts. I really just don't see it. The references to LexisNexis, the constant poring over everything she says by a whole troupe of aggressive, anti-Coulter "fact-checkers", and her strong convictions on moral issues really don't add up to someone making stuff up. I don't think she needs to make stuff up, as there are plenty of crazy people in the world who provide all the material an author needs.

The best parts of the book are the tribute article to John F. Kennedy, Jr. and the last chapter of articles never previously published. The JFK, Jr. tribute is touching and shows that Coulter doesn't automatically despise liberals. He was from about as liberal and famous a family as we've ever had in America, and yet she speaks very highly of him. The reason is that they could discuss topics from opposite viewpoints and agree to disagree while letting each other express themselves. That Coulter had articles printed in George magazine is explained by that relationship.

Similarly, the last chapter has articles that were never printed elsewhere, plus both the rejecting publisher's and Coulter's deconstruction as to why. An article on feminist legal theory was, in my opinion, well done but rightly rejected by National Review as it didn't fit the style of that magazine. An article about what a particular proverb means to Coulter that was rejected by Good Housekeeping and the deconstruction after it were deeply insightful into Coulter's character as a strongly moral and conservative woman unafraid to speak her mind and practice what she preaches. In the end, she's more human and more likeable to me after reading this book.

I would give this book 3.5 out of 5, and would have gone to 4 out of 5 had there been more new content. Good job, Ann!