The best PR firm in NYC

Ann Coulter has always had it in for the New York Times -- once suggesting Timothy McVeigh's real crime was not parking his truck outside of the paper's Manhattan office. Luckily for Coulter, McVeigh stayed in fly-over land and the Grey Lady survived to plug Coulter's brand new "political" tome four times in the last week.

The flurry of activity can be attributed to comments Coulter directed towards a group of Democrat-supporting 9/11 widows, calling them "Harpies" and "The Witches of East Brunswick," while accusing them of "enjoying" their husbands deaths.

Not very nice, but well-timed.

Today, The Times hit Coulter with a salvo titled Deadly Intent: Ann Coulter, Word Warrior (check local listings for theaters near you.) It details her rhetorical crimes, mentions the nasty things the other kids are saying about her, and explores the possibility Coulter might not believe everything she says!

The article's author, David Carr, clearly having a great time of his own, gets to use "weaponized language" such as:

It is just one in a series from a spoken-word hit parade that seems to fly out of her mouth uninterrupted by conscience, rectitude or logic.

You don't get to write that everyday -- even on the media beat.

The article includes illustrations, I guess so Coulter's perceived audience can follow along. It's a whole bunch of fun, until the end, when Carr gets all conscious-y and decides to point the dirty finger at the rest of us:

Without the total package, Ms. Coulter would be just one more nut living in Mom's basement. You can accuse her of cynicism all you want, but the fact that she is one of the leading political writers of our age says something about the rest of us.

Speaking for the rest of us, I never thought of Ann Coulter as a political writer (or as having a mother) until Carr brought it up. It makes sense now, and blurry images of a thin blonde woman scowling from a book jacket pervade my mind. But still, I really think of Coulter as a talking head and a cream pie dodging speaker who deliberately spews over-the-top arch-conservative bile, and is blessed with the ability to be quick and clever when doing so. (Take away arch-conservative and I could be describing Al Sharpton.)

In other words, Coulter is an entertainer who uses the medium of politics to ply her craft.

She is an entertainer like Michael Moore, Al Franken, Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh are entertainers. Or John Stewart, Jay Leno, and Steven Colbert are entertainers. Or maybe even Dave Chappell and George Carlin are entertainers.

Some of these "entertainers" don't realize that's what they are (O'Reilly and Moore, I'm looking at you) but for the most part these pop polemicists and satirists do, and the folks that buy their books and watch their shows get what they want and nary a mind is changed.

From what I know of her TV appearances and a cursory glance over her columns (less clever than she is in person, but not bad*) Coulter has no illusions about the role she is well paid to play.

Not so the Paper of Record, labeling her one of the leading political writers of our time.

Is she one of the leading political writers because she has managed to sell a little over a million copies of five books, or is it because the New York Times, with 10 million plus unique web visits a day, has granted her a nice section-to-section book tour?

It's obviously the latter. Or it would be if she was really a leading political voice. But the New York Times doesn't need to ignore her and make her go away. They can have fun with her and rip her apart because it's easy and it's what she deserves and loves.

They just need to keep the dirty finger pointed inwards when they do.

*It is possible my perception of what is funny and clever has been temporarily damaged by a "sitcom" I watched on HBO last night called Lucky Louis. Very, very painful. It followed Entourage which was good as always and Deadwood, which needs to be subtitled.

** I just realized I used "Cream Pie" and "Ann Coulter" in the same post. Dirty-minded google users everywhere will be disappointed when they click on my blog.