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May 08, 2009
"Being Ann" ~ by Lisa De Pasquale
Being Ann
by Lisa De Pasquale
When Ann Coulter was a little girl she wanted to be “head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with a Republican president.” Or a “fairy princess.”
Instead, Coulter became the Rush Limbaugh of the printed word. She is author of six (soon to be seven) New York Times best sellers, a nationally syndicated columnist and one of the most popular speakers among young and old alike. Coulter has become the most successful conservative writer working today, with more than 3 million books sold. No 21st century conservative writer—male or female—comes even close. Like Limbaugh, her audience keeps growing. When a new book is released, liberals and delicate self-proclaimed conservatives say that “this time she’s gone too far” and predict the end of her career. The book then sells better than her last. She drives the Left into a sputtering rage, and she loves it.
I first met Coulter at the 2000 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C. Following the success of her first book, “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton,” Coulter was given CPAC’s Conservative Journalist of the Year Award. That year she also spoke at Young America’s Foundation’s journalism lunch. She has remained a favorite of young conservatives for her tenacity, wit and accessibility. Like many of them, she became active in the conservative movement during her college years.
During a time when famous people brag about their difficult childhood and airing family secrets become a badge of honor, Coulter doesn’t apologize for having a normal childhood in New Canaan, Conn. She says her parents, John and Nell, were “immeasurably important” in shaping her beliefs and career choices.
After years of boisterous political discussions with her parents and brothers around the dinner table, Coulter would blossom in the liberal stronghold of higher education. As one of Coulter’s close friends told Time magazine, “For a younger girl with two older brothers, you’ve got to learn to mix it up, stand up for yourself. Older brothers are not going to cut you any slack. If you say something stupid, you figure, next time, I’m going to be better at it.”
Coulter left Connecticut to attend Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. She said, “During my first few years of college, I was a community organizer of sorts—I went to sorority and fraternity parties, met lots of new friends, played lacrosse, went to church, chatted in the library and danced at Ujama House parties.”
It wasn’t long before she started making waves on campus. Cornell, which continues to be a breeding ground (or cemetery) for liberal thought, was the perfect environment for Coulter: “My junior year I became more of a think-tank- type political activist upon noticing I was at a world class university and hadn’t really been taking advantage of it.”
Coulter co-founded the conservative Cornell Review, which still exists today. She then went on to the University of Michigan School of Law. “I founded the University of Michigan chapter of this kooky, radical fringe group that believed in individual rights, the rule of law, and the Constitution of the United States of America, known as ‘the Federalist Society.’”
One of the highlights of her time in law school was bringing in Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia through the Federalist Society. Much like she does when faced with a hostile crowd or commentator, Coulter thrived in the liberal campus atmosphere. “To quote Bill Ayers,” she told me, “I don’t regret one minute of my student activism. In fact, I wish we had done more.”
A few years ago, I met the niece of Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce, who also attended Cornell around the same time as Coulter. Though they didn’t know one another, Luce’s niece was the photographer for the Cornell Review and other campus publications. Like Coulter, Ambassador Luce reached the height of success within the conservative movement. She was a playwright, managing editor of Vanity Fair, staunch anti-Communist, ambassador to Italy and congresswoman from Coulter’s hometown district. While at the University of Michigan School of Law, Coulter became a fan of Ambassador Luce and her smart-aleck writing.
One summer afternoon in 2000, Coulter and I spent hours in the Manuscript Room of the Library of Congress, combing through some of the more than 800 boxes of personal and professional papers that had belonged to Ambassador Luce. Coulter was keen on finding a biting line she remembered then-Congresswoman Luce saying on the House floor to a liberal congressman. She found the line and quoted it in her weekly column a few months later.
Coulter loves finding a tidbit of information or unknown fact. Though it goes unnoticed by right- and left-wing commentators alike, many of Coulter’s “outrageous” statements tend to become conventional thinking. “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” impeached a President. “Slander” busted the elite media. “Treason” vindicated Sen. Joe McCarthy and put Democrats’ patriotism into the public square. “Godless” shed light on the religious cult of liberalism. Her newest book, “Guilty,” goes a step further to expose the phony “victims” propped up by the Left.
On March 23, 1999, Coulter gave her first college speech for Young America’s Foundation (YAF) at Brandeis University. She has since spoken on more than 60 college campuses and is YAF’s most popular speaker. The foundation also says that their Ann Coulter poster is the most popular in their poster series. It graces the walls of campus dorms, military barracks across the world, and my office.
This is a wonderfully written 2 page article on Ann Coulter, to continue reading PLEASE CLICK HERE.
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Wild Thing's comment.......
I am glad we have people like Ann on our side. What a huge difference in the two parties, we just need to make the gap wider like it used to be.
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....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at May 8, 2009 05:40 AM
Comments
I have all of her books except her latest and that has been ordered. As far as my favorite conservatives: Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
Reagan of course being number 1 and Rush and Ann being numbers 2 and 2A and not always in that order.
Posted by: Mark at May 8, 2009 09:39 AM
I love Ann's sharp wit and biting retorts when she is confronted in live interviews by hostile hosts. She smiles as she attacks. I will never forget her agile dodging of the pie thrower at a college event.
Even though it is fun observing her wit at work, she is also very logical in her debates. She doesn't spew blind rhetoric or lies. She quotes history and facts and puts them in perspective in her debates.
Ann and Sarah Palin would certainly be a formidable ticket in 2012.
Posted by: TomR at May 8, 2009 12:45 PM
The operative word being conservative. Not progressive, not centrist, not liberal which are all words to masquerade the fact that the rest are socialists(Communist Light)or hard line Democrat Party. I'd vote for Ann of Sarah preferably on an independent Conservative platform, sans the Rockefeller GOP. Glad we have them out there in the media countering the lies of the SP.
Posted by: Jack at May 8, 2009 01:25 PM
She's a fun girl. I think those who don't like her don't understand her wit. They forget that she is just a commentator and author--if they don't like her then why do they watch her and read her books? Jealousy maybe? I think they do like her but to admit that in front of family and friends is like saying something terrible to them. Ann is such fun.
Posted by: Lynn at May 8, 2009 02:06 PM
