Wednesday, October 06, 2004

 

Talking Back to Ann Coulter and Crown Publishing

Yesterday was the release date for Ann Coulter's third book with Crown Publishing, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. I tried to get an advance copy of the book but couldn't (thanks to those who tried to get it for me), so I haven't had the chance to check it out yet.

One thing I noticed about the cover was the word "to"; one could surmise that Coulter wants to talk to liberals, not with them.
However, I'm willing to cut Coulter and Crown some slack and assume that the book's intention is to invite dialogue with people of differing viewpoints. Accordingly, let me start off with an open letter to Crown Publishing:

An Open Letter to Crown Publishing

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for publishing How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. I haven't had the opportunity to check out the book, but based on the title, I'm assuming that you and Ms Coulter are looking to open dialogue with the political left. I am stoked about being given the opportunity to discuss issues with you and Ms. Coulter. I'll check out the book very soon. However, it's just as well that I haven't read it yet because there is some unfinished business regarding the two previous Coulter books published by Crown. For the sake of brevity, I'll list a few short questions for you:

1. The Columbia Journalism Review did a content analysis of Coulter's book Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right and found 19 instances in which there were troubling errors of fact in the book. Did anyone from Crown Publishing contact the authors and assess their findings? If so, what actions were taken? Note: I brought up the topic of the CJR article to Coulter and she didn't want to address it.

2. One of the errors CJR cites is Coulter's characterization of a column by Frank Rich. Coulter claims on page five of Slander that in the article, Rich "demanded that [Attorney General] Ashcroft stop monkeying around with Muslim terrorists and concentrate on anti-abortion extremists.” Can you tell me where in Rich's column, he wrote anything even faintly similar to Coulter's representation? If not, why was the characterization not retracted in the paperback edition of Slander?

3. In Coulter's book, Treason, she portrays Joe McCarthy as a heroic character who was victimized by treacherous liberals. Do you agree with Coulter's assessment?

I look forward to more dialogue with you.

Sincerely,

Scoobie Davis



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