How to Talk to a Liberal

Ann Coulter is an opinionated woman. But you know what? I think I like her. I've seen a few interviews with her. She comes out with some outrageous hyperbole. But I can tell her hyperbole from the meat of her opinions, and I can tell she knows the difference as well. She does it to be entertaining and wake you up, and it works. And the way she does it is usually by taking a liberal point of view to its outrageous logical conclusion.

So I just bought her new book (How to Talk to a Liberal) looking for the terribly heartless bitch that the Liberals complain about. She's just not there. (Don't the liberals love lamenting "if a woman is opinionated, then she's a bitch". Well, apparently it's only a lament if the woman has Liberal opinions. Otherwise, she's a bimbo bitch.)

When I read, I try to look for the truth behind what someone is saying. In today's politically charged times, I mostly see people (especially in the media) reading to find one inconsistency, one inaccuracy, one outrageous statement and then use that to discredit the whole work if they don't like where its going.

[Oh, I know. You wanna ding me on Dan Rather. Dan held up something as "irrefutable" proof that "W" got preferential treatment. The fact that it was not only refutable but he knew it was refutable at worst, or at best knew that he didn't know it was irrefutable.]

Ann is willing to say things media does not want to admit. Not only does the media not want to admit them, it refuses to let the Ann Coulter side of the topic to be brought up.

The book title mostly refers to Chapter 1. The rest of it is various entertaining and thought-provoking articles she has written over the past year or so.

She's right about the Left's tactics in arguments. No, not the statesmen who have to get normal peoples' votes to elect them (they're usually more careful about actual rhetoric), but the core leftist base. You bring up a fact or angle they don't like, and they haul out the labels. "Nazi" usually being their favorite. Over the last 20 years, that one has replaced the previous favorite of "Facist" which is now down in the #2 spot. Search the web on Ann Coulter and you hear the Left calling her a bimbo because she's got long blonde hair and wears short skirts and heels. "We don't have to address what she's saying. She wears short skirts!" They love to demean her skinny legs, and infer that if a woman has something like a libido and embraces femininity and expresses it -- she must be brainless. And what is this, anyway? I thought we weren't supposed to be holding women to a particular body image.

The other thing she brought up about arguing with a Liberal is also something I've noticed when doing the same myself. It's almost impossible to argue with a liberal at all (no, not because they're right, but) because they keep shifting what the argument is about in some clumsy "slight of mouth" fashion. As she says, "you think you're talking about the war in Iraq, and suddenly they're talking about Nixon and Oil."

Anyway, I'm enjoying the book.