Response To Jonah Goldberg's Decision

Jonah Goldberg, in his justification for firing Ann Coulter from the National Review (L'Affaire Coulter, Oct. 3, 2001), begins by emphasizing the fact that Ann Coulter was fired because "she failed as a writer." Of course Coulter is guilty of using an un-PC, in-your-face, offensive, and sometimes racist style of writing. But this is not why Ann got fired from the National Review. In a sense, that is why Ann got hired by the National Review.

Coulter was fired from the national review because, as Goldberg explains, she carried out her job with a lack of professionalism in several areas. First, Coulter's writing is filled and often characterized by shameless self-promotion, as illustrated by her article This Is War. While I may not agree with Ann's use of the word patriot in this article, or her rather implicit condemnation of those other victim's on the same plane as Olson who did not call their husbands in the FBI, there is really no objective problem with this part of the Article.

The first problem with This Is War is that after she finishes describing Olson's patriotic actions Coulter speaks of the fact that the last time she saw Barbara Olson in person "[Olson] had generously praised one of [Coulter's] recent columns, and told [Coulter how she] had really found [her] niche," and that Olson had told Coulter that her husband, FBI exec. Ted, "had taken to reading [Coulter's] columns aloud to [Olson] over breakfast."

By prefacing the body of her article with essentially this "shout out" to herself Coulter frames, either intentionally or unintentionally, every issue she addresses in her article with a sense of shameless self-promotion that serves no purpose at all, except for, well, promoting Ann Coulter, and that has no place in legitimate writing. No writer who follows the so-called rules of professionalism should stray so far from modesty while writing about such a devastating attack. The place in the article's overall order that Coulter mentions Olson's love for her own work is extremely questionable. The reader almost invariably asks whether Coulter is praising Barbara and Ted Olson because they were huge fans of her writing, or because somehow Barbara Olson's phone call to her husband, (who happened to be an FBI exec,) from the hijacked plane on the day of 9/11 really was genuinely patriotic. After all, Olson's call did somehow help authorities on the day of 9/11, right? To confirm what Jonah Goldberg says in L'Affaire Coulter, Coulter's writing indicates that she is in fact "a PR-hungry" writer lacking professionalism.

As Goldberg notes, Coulter is a self described "constitutional Lawyer" who fails to live up to the professional obligations such a title carries with it. For instance, Coulter proclaims that in response to the attacks of 9/11 there is "no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved [in the attack]." It seems as though Coulter fails to even acknowledge Due Process, something America's constitution and legal system is founded upon, in her response. Should America really pay no attention to who is responsible for the horrible attacks on the WTC and Pentagon? Perhaps the one thing America can be prided upon is the rights we give to the accused, and the grand attempts our legal system makes, at least idealistically, at proving beyond a reasonable doubt who is guilty of a certain crime. Surely any self-proclaimed constitutional lawyer or patriot, (while acknowledging that these rights do not apply to citizens of foreign nations), should at least mention or carry in mind these realities when proclaiming to be giving the public the view of a "constitutional lawyer." In his justification for Coulter's firing, Goldberg notes that Coulter publicly equated, on the TV show Politically Incorrect, the National Review's "censoring of her column" to the first amendment being repealed. This absurd comment epitomizes Coulter's lack of professionalism in this area of her work.

The fact that Coulter's writings often contain staunch contradictions further illustrates her lack of professionalism. In This Is War Coulter proclaims that "the nation has been invaded by a fanatical, murderous cult." Five paragraphs later Coulter proclaims that America "should invade their countries, kill their leads and convert them to Christianity." I feel like I am not alone in saying that this rhetoric carries with it a fanatical, murderous tone not unlike that of our enemies. As Goldberg notes, Coulter wrote with such "sloppiness of expression and thought" as to allow her to spout such nonsensical and contradictory remarks that mark her work as un-professional.

As Goldberg points out, the National Review prefers articles that "accord persuasion higher value than shock value," and Coulter more often than not strays from writing persuasively. When Coulter does address valid issues she perhaps has some important points to make about American policy, but she fails to flesh them out and offer any real arguments. If Coulter spent more time analyzing the "airport kabuki theater..." that she sees in the federally managed system of airport security, or if she talked more about the benefits she sees in a policy of racial profiling in combating terrorism I feel like her writing could be seen as more professional and could therefore be taken more seriously as valid political commentary. I think Coulter would do herself a huge service by heeding the advice of Slim Thug in the song "Wamp, Wamp (what it do)" in which he instructively states "Bitch, don't just stand there wit' ya nose up." Perhaps this will be the first step in Coulter's quest to rid her writing of the maladies of un-professionalism that Jonah Goldberg speaks of, any maybe even to get her old job back at NRO.