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INTERVIEW
Breaking Down the Myths and Lies of the Liberal Left
CBN.com – Ann Coulter is a top political commentator and author whose recent best-selling book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, challenges many accepted claims of the liberal Left. Gordon Robertson spoke with Coulter about her research into typical liberal accusations and the myth of the Religious Right.
GORDON ROBERTSON: Is the news media more critical of conservatives, like President Bush, than they are of liberals? Our guest today says yes. Joining us now by satellite from New York is political commentator and author Ann Coulter, whose new book is called Slander:
Liberal Lies About the American Right. The book is a hot seller. It debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Ann, it's a pleasure to welcome you back to The 700 Club.
ANN COULTER: Thank you, it’s great to be here.
ROBERTSON: You say that political debate in this country is impossible, why?
COULTER: Yes, and just to clarify, I only have one chapter in my book on the media. And the rest of the book is about liberals, it’s a much bigger subject. Conservatives, and every stripe of conservative including Wall Street Journal Republicans, Libertarians, traditionalists, Christians, are debating among themselves all of the time and arguing furiously and coming up with new interesting public policy ideas. But you try arguing with a liberal and it’s like talking to Linda Blair in The Exorcist. All you get is [called names] "racist," "sexist," "homophobic." What new interesting idea has the Left come up with in 20 years other than to raise taxes.
ROBERTSON: You’ve got a good point about the conservative movement coming up with the most exciting public policy ideas in certainly the past decade. Why do you think that is? Why do you think the conservative movement seems to be generating more ideas that are serious in the terms of welfare reform and that kind of thing?
COULTER: Well, it’s amazing how productive debate can be when one is not constantly being called a racist. And that is why I think this is a problem for the country, that you can't argue with liberals. I think the reason liberals don’t want to argue and prefer invective to engagement is because they realize if the American people got a good look at their ideas they would be appalled. The typical liberal response to a principled conservative argument is to accuse the conservatives as sort of planning a second Holocaust. The idea is to warn the public: don’t listen to these people, they’re dumb, they’re stupid, they’re crazy, they’re racist, sexist, homophobic, et cetera, et cetera.
It’s really stunning how the Left is afraid of allowing an articulate statement of a conservative position to escape into the world. And I must say, one of the most
shocking discoveries I made in researching this book, and I really did think it was only going to be about five or six pages on the "Religious Right." I knew the Religious Right was some sort of totemic
symbol for the Left, but it really is uncanny how Orwellian it is. Every time you try to figure out what exactly is meant by "the Religious Right," the target keeps shifting. And I note how you never hear
about the atheist Left. It’s only the Religious Right that seems to be this closely held corporation with dues-paying members.
ROBERTSON: I read with great interest your chapter on the Religious Right. One of the points you brought out was that, it seems like every two or three years, [liberals say] either the Religious Right has been killed off in America or it’s in absolute, complete control of everything that happens within the Republican Party.
COULTER: That's right.
ROBERTSON: Why is that? Demagoguery is the word I put to it. But why do the liberals do that?
COULTER: It really is stunning how it is exactly out of George Orwell’s 1984, this is the Emmanuel
Goldstein, the apocryphal figure the masses are trained to laugh at while reflexively hating. And attacks on the Religious Right, its occasional defeat only to somehow rise again and start oppressing the masses
again. It really is just a mythical symbol to inspire liberals in the absence of an inspiring ideology.
But going through the past 20 years of how the quote "Religious Right" would be spectacularly defeated and then rise again, it is just amazing – it’s in
it’s out, it’s in it’s out, and the way it is described as this scary band of religious fanatics trying to oppress other people and impose their will on others. Like I say, you can never really
quite figure out who the Religious Right is, on the New York Times definition it seems to be anyone who believes in a higher Being and wants taxes cut.
The descriptions for how the Religious Right, this appalling group of bullies, exercises its amazing influence is through money, substantial financial resources, and block
voting. Well, you know, when you actually look at these things, and I’m sorry I can't summarize the whole chapter in a sound bite, that’s why I had to write a book, but compare the block voting of
Christians, no matter how you break it down, even to evangelicals, it’s about evenly split, maybe 60-40. And the definition is Religious Right. Meanwhile, blacks, Jews, unmarried women, certainly the editors
of the New York Times block vote substantially more than any definition of Christians do. But somehow it’s only the Christians who are attacked for that infernal block voting.
And, moreover, while Christians are simultaneously portrayed as toothless hicks preaching for a nickel in the Ozarks, somehow they’re also Howard Hughes money men
expertly manipulating the system through their use of money. And once again I say, once you look at the cold, hard facts, Christians don't actually give that much to politics, certainly not compared to the
Hollywood money, certainly not compared to trial lawyers, certainly not compared to unions. This is just a complete myth that the masses are trained to hate and laugh at. And it can be switched to whatever cause
happens to be at hand, as when Attorney General John Ashcroft was nominated. There were all of these lunatic articles about how he was the highest member of the Religious Right in the Bush administration. Well, I
don’t know, how about the President, what about the guy who appoints the Attorney General, isn't he a Christian? What does this stuff even mean?
ROBERTSON: Why is it that the Religious Right, to use the phrase, has been so demonized that people are afraid of the tag. And even what I consider dedicated Christians, when they act politically, want to then make sure that everybody realizes that they are not part the of Religious Right. Why is that?
COULTER: Yes, I found it stunning. I literally started researching every mention of the Religious Right just to figure out what it is, and who they are talking about? And the only references I have to it is the entire mainstream press viciously denouncing the Religious Right and then a bunch of conservative Christians saying, "No, I’m not a member of the Religious Right." That isn’t surprising since there’s no such thing as the Religious Right, there aren’t membership cards, it’s not an incorporated entity, and there really isn’t any block voting. So, like I say, that’s part of what makes it this apocryphal entity. Liberals seem to be on red alert that there may be Christians in the country, perhaps the country's coarseness could be removed. It really is amazing that through constant repetition and through the use of propaganda the Left can turn believing Christians into this scary totemic symbol.
ROBERTSON: And they’re also saying that any interjection of Christian belief into the public square is somehow an indication of horrible Holocaust on the way — that somehow or other, anytime religion gets involved in politics. And they completely ignore the religious beliefs of say George Washington who said Christ inspired him during our own Revolution. So it seems like we’re having an Orwellian event in the past 20 years in the national media where any Christian thought is labeled as somehow bigoted or hate speech or that kind of thing, and it’s a real doublespeak.
COULTER: Absolutely. What the Left says about believing Christians in this country is more totalitarian than anything they even impute to the Christians. But once you create this scary, apocryphal organization, apparently with membership cards — and George Bush seems to be behind on his membership dues whereas Ashcroft is totally paid up and consequently he's the highest member of the Religious Right to achieve office in the Bush administration — after having created this mythical enemy and created mythical aspects to the enemy, it isn’t that much of a step for the Today show host, Katie Couric, to blame the dragging death of James Byrd on conservative Christians. That was one of the most hateful statements noted in my book.
ROBERTSON: Let’s talk about one leader of the Religious Right, my father. You rendered Jim Carville speechless on a program by saying Pat Robertson was a moderate. How do you do that?
COULTER: Well, my point is that it shows the ideological insanity of these people and how they are terrified of anyone who believes in a Being even higher than the New York Times. When you try to figure out what the Religious Right is, essentially my conclusion is that it either comes down to one man, Pat Robertson, or 80 percent of Americans, anyone who believes in God and wants his taxes cut. When you look at Pat Robertson’s positions, they are really quite moderate positions, as one would expect from a Yale Law School graduate. I may not agree with him as a conservative, but my point is they are trying to demonize Pat Robertson as some sort of horned conservative. If he didn't believe in God and go on TV and talk about it, he would be Jim Jeffords, he would be Christie Todd Whitman, I mean just in his political positions. It really shows how crazy these people are. They really are terrified of believing Christians.
ROBERTSON: I don't know about how Michigan Law School graduates are considered conservative. But I’ll give you a pass on that one [laughing].
COULTER: I beat the system [laughing].
ROBERTSON: One last question. Why do you think liberals get the free pass? You mentioned several instances of liberals getting away with a variety of things, why is that?
COULTER: Because they control the mass media. That is one important chapter in the book.
This book is about liberals and all their little tricks. One of their tricks is their hegemonic control of the media, which is why TV stations like this one, Fox News, the
Internet, talk radio and books are terrifying to liberals, it allows conservatives to communicate with one another. Things are a lot better now than they were 10 or 20 years ago. But it is through the endless use of
repetition, until more schoolchildren children can identify George Bush as having stumbled would over a single syllable and said "subliminibal" than can place the Civil War in the correct century. But
meanwhile, radio silence on all of the word stumbles and the really rather stupid things that Democrats have said, which I recount in my book, by the way.
ROBERTSON: You do Ann [laughter]. I encourage you, if you are interesting in getting a documentary, if you will, of all of the slant in our major media, they have a monopoly on this, although there are a few conservative talk shows, this show, Fox News and others getting the message out. But if you want to get a copy of it, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, it is available in bookstores around the country, and again, it’s number one on the New
York Times best-seller’s list. Ann, thank you so much for being with us.
COULTER: Thank you.
For More Information:
www.anncoulter.org
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