The Baltimore Sun's Jonathan Pitts
interviewed HUMAN EVENTS Legal Affairs Correspondant Ann Coulter in Sunday's magazine. He writes,
In Godless, Coulter argues that the left, with its generally secular worldview, has adopted a de facto religion of its own. The adherents of this faith, liberalism, treat those who question its "sacraments" (abortion, evolution, public education) as heretics.
Do the very ideas enrage you? If so, Coulter may be pleased. "Provocation is the essence of persuasion," she told The Sun three years ago.
Jonathan Freedland of the British newspaper The Guardian concludes that she may, in the end, be less about politics than the sheer, American magnitude of her spectacle.
"She has a magnetism that sets her apart from the bulk of the talking-head industry," he wrote. "Once you see her, it's hard to look away. Like a train wreck or a prize fight, something about Ann Coulter makes you sit up and look."
In the Q&A, Pitt's incisive questions allow Coulter's wit and wisdom to shine. Some highlights:
You often speak and write in a way that seems calculated to press the buttons of your audience. What are the pluses and the downsides of this approach?
My thinking is that only trauma produces intellectual breakthroughs. The plus side is watching liberals get hissy; the downside is - there really is no downside.
Your books and columns attack liberal thinking, but what, in the long run, are you trying positively to assert? What would Ann Coulter's America look like?
I'm exposing liberal ideology for the pack of lies it is. What people do with that information is up to them, although one would hope it might come in handy on Election Day. My ideal America would have no liberals and 7-gallon flush toilets in every bathroom.
You're often described as "divisive" and "mean-spirited," yet you describe yourself as a serious Christian. Is this a contradiction?
I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it. You know who else was kind of "divisive" in terms of challenging the status quo and the powers-that-be of his day? Jesus Christ.
Does polemical writing like yours widen the Red State-Blue State schism?
The imminence of conservative victory has driven liberals to insanity. Have I contributed to this? Gosh, I hope so.
How'd you develop your writing style? What are your daily writing habits?
I do what comes naturally. I write the things that would cause belly laughter among my right-wing friends when having after-dinner liquor. I usually get up at noon, check the Drudge Report, carefully read the Treason Times, do a little writing, chat with my friends until midnight, write for another three hours and then collapse into bed at 4 a.m. Book tours completely ruin this idyllic schedule.
