For more than two decades Ann Coulter has been playing a game herself, but not one that involves hard scores, referees or physical exertion, unless dodging a pie in the face counts.
Aside from being grossly inaccurate about a multitude of mentions in her recent soccer-and-everything-else-bashing article http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-06-25.html it did serve Ann Coulter well because she got precisely what she strategically sought out – attention, which equates to adoration from some and hate from others, but attention it is nevertheless.
For as long as she has been a political author and commentator, she has been a self-proclaimed pot-stirring polemicist, someone who is a defiant arguer who goes out of her way to make nonsensical claims about social and political issues, attacking something in such a way that she could be likened to a crazy woman using a hammer to swat a mosquito. Sorry, Merriam-Webster. I made this up myself.
American politics gets old for us all, right? There is a reason we use the term politics as usual, and not sports as usual. So we tune out of it and into something more exhilarating and true, with clear winner and losers. Without the spotlight on her prized field of expertise and worship, Coulter had no choice but to go where the proverbial limelight was – soccer.
I do not hate Ann Coulter, but know that many do. As neither a Democrat nor a Republican, not a football fan of either Europe’s or America’s versions of the game, I am going to approach my comments about this without a spoon or a pot. I can find any number of politicians on all sides and have my say about their character.
Since the Clinton Administration years, Coulter has made it rather loud and ridiculously clear she is conservative, but according to my childhood understanding of the word, her mouth and pen are anything but. Of course, I am wrong because Ann is always right.
The organization of her commentary is as if she was given two minutes on a radio show – spewing out one comment after another, bitter and biased. She seems like an angry woman who needs to do yoga. Her audience is anyone who so chooses to be offended, and who will help her book sales and speaking engagement prospects. Even if you hate her, you are helping her with this mission, especially if you react to her (as I am now, come to think of it).
Was she successful at being satirical? No. But that was never her intention. The only humor is how “much” she seems to know about a sport she knows nothing about. “Individual achievement is not a big factor in soccer,” she wrote. Really? Tell that to Tim Howard, lady. And then while you are at it, tell me how much individualism there is in American football, the sport you insist is the only football – which also only involves feet when being punted down the field to a TEAM of athletes who the proceed to use their hands for the remainder of the play.
She exaggerates and uses ridicule, no doubt. But her words steer clear of satire because they lack intelligence and sophistication. Some people are angry at the world so they meditate; take trips to the mountains or exercise vigorously. Ann Coulter just tells the world how much she hates it, or at least part of it.
The only existing irony is that she is a mouthy conservative who many times over embarrasses Republicans for her lewd, rude and often uneducated comments in the media, her favorite place to tout her supreme knowledge.
The tone is one-sided and self-righteous. I believe she is an intelligent person when not speaking, but how boring it would be if she just said nice and reasonable things. Yawn. It would be game over for her then. No more book deals, no invites on talk shows, no ability to pay for her lifestyle probably wearing designer clothes from Italy and driving a German-made car.
She isn’t participating in a REAL sport, not one that deserves a name. But she has been playing one that has well outlasted any soccer game this year or century even. She has risen to the top of the political commentary game, as a star – an individual even.
My next article will be titled “America’s Favorite Pastime: Hating Politicians and Commentators who love themselves.”
A cranky and cynical view of American culture 