Ann Coulter on The View (VIDEO)

Remember that crazy woman in Pittsburgh who carved a backwards "B" into her own cheek and then claimed that rampaging black men had assaulted her because they saw a "McCain-Palin" bumper sticker on her car? Well, Ann Coulter's routine on The View this morning proved that she's just as crazy as the Pittsburgh woman (although, unfortunately, more politically influential).

Ann Coulter shills for a right-wing political movement dedicated to shredding the social safety net designed to provide assistance to poor working mothers by savaging these same single mothers as the scourge of society for rearing "70 percent of rapists, murderers, and other criminals." She then weaves this diatribe into being part of a gigantic "Liberal" conspiracy to destroy everything that is wholesome, pure, and good in Coulter's version of Norman Rockwell America.

She claimed today that "forty years of social science research" backs up her Dickensian, "Are there no workhouses?" worldview. But, whoa, does she leave out a lot! Little things that tend to undermine her "argument": like forty years of social science scholarship documenting the feminization of poverty. But no one should expect Coulter to bother to Google Barbara Ehrenreich or Katha Pollit or Susan Douglas or hundreds of other scholars and researchers on the subject. Coulter's "free market" prescriptions for addressing the feminization of poverty via draconian reductions in social spending contradict her whole take on the meaning of "victimization."

Coulter's pure, unalloyed, crystalline hypocrisy was on full display on The View when she kept whining about being "attacked" because a couple of smart women asked her to explain some of her bogus assumptions. Coulter, like Sarah Palin, is used to being surrounded by a gaggle of star-struck horny white Republican men who lob her soft balls and nod in agreement with all her übermenchen social theories.

What was most astonishing about her appearance on The View today was her shtick whereby she tries to cast herself as some kind of "moral authority" hurling stern judgments on other women's lives. Sheez! Give it a rest already! Whoopi Goldberg summed it up as the segment was tossed to a commercial. She said to Coulter: "You can dish it out but you can't take it."

I'm glad Goldberg asked Coulter if she has any children or stepchildren. That is a relevant question. If someone is going to indict an entire group of women who struggle each day to pull together a livelihood for their children she should be prepared to answer personal questions about her own circumstance regarding children in a public forum. The women of The View asked Coulter about widows and women who left abusive relationships; do these women too provide fodder for Coulter's attacks? Of course they do!

I wish Ann Coulter would just go away. And I wish she would take Joe the Plumber and Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and the whole Republican "movement" carnival act with her. But I know that will never happen. These right-wing corporate media darlings have access to piles of money to circulate their "ideas" in the public discourse as promoted through "books" and A.M. talk radio shows. Their authoritarian, racist, "eat the poor" ideology serves the interests of ruling corporate elites; so these barren, windswept notions will be shoved down our throats no matter how many Barack Obamas we elect. "Global warming doesn't exist!" "Labor unions are evil and corrupt!" "Liberals coddle single mothers and single mothers raise children to be criminals!" "Cut corporate taxes and regulations and prosperity will 'trickle down!'" "Ketchup is a vegetable!" "Trees cause pollution!" And so on, and on, and on.

WATCH:

Comments

[Jo Manning]

She's a crazy dirtbag.

[carsntrucks]

Here's my thing: I don't particularly care for Ann Coulter, and I don't agree with a lot of what she has to say, but this was a little silly by the View panel. I always have hated when people start with their dislike of someone and work their way back. When she mentioned the stuff about single mothers, I mean, she was just presenting what research has shown. You may not like her conclusion, because typically it's presented in a sympathetic kind of way. Ann thinks it's political calculus. I don't think you can entirely fault her for that, because it's not just her, and it's not just Republicans who feel that way.

[CanadaStan]

It's difficult to raise a child with two parents, why would anyone think it would be easier with one parent?
It' aint rocket science to figure out that single mom families are going to have children with more problems.
And Hollywood and popular culture do glorify the single moms.

'Single motherhood is not good for children'
Once again Ann hits the nail on the head.

And Joy, the media did a huge pile on of Sarah Palin.
Google ' CBC Heather Mallick Sarah Palin '

[wreckinball]

Who knows if this will make it through but I find it interesting how liberals always claim to be opne-minded but are really much more hateful than Ann Coulter.

1). "Bury the IRS tax code and advance a flat-rate consumption tax" );
( don't we all consume government, then all should pay, of course welfare recipients will always vote for more welfare which of course is paid by others)
2). "Offer young workers private investment accounts for Social Security" (a government ponzi scheme is preferable to individulas choosing how they wish to invets THEIR money, come on)4). "Restore budget discipline" with a "supermajority" necessary to pass tax legislation (we cannot incur trillion dollar deficits, you have to cut )
5). "Offer school vouchers" (destroying public schools); (God forbid parents choose where their kids go to school, especially poor inner city parents who wish to escape horrible schools) 6). "Make the capital gains, dividend, and income tax cuts permanent" (newsflash, the rich are our employers, benefiting them spurs invetsment and job creation) 7). "Abolish the death tax" ( are you kidding, the death tax is immoral, my mother saved all of her life and she gets to give her estate to the government, despicable)8). "Expand IRAs" (once agian expand individual control over THEIR money) 9). "Offer health savings accounts" (maintaining failed private health care system); (yes, and government run anything works se well, lets make the largest government monopoly in thistory , more Medicare, great)

[elsa12]

Great post Wreckinball!

I agree with you on every count!

[LeoMarvin]

Ironic that you'd complain about hateful, closed-minded liberals before preaching your right-wing catechism of the infallible marketplace. If nothing else, one might have hoped for a little humility from the true believers watching the havoc their unregulated markets are wreaking in the real world of real people who suffer real consequences when ideologues are empowered to make policy.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

These policies were the Bush policies and look where the country is today. Bush did everything the Right wanted regarding the Stephen Moore Club for Growth Grover Norquist ideological assault on working people and the middle class and look where the country is today.

[SheriLynBush]

This is such junk...really!!!! Why is there this Bush Slaughter going on...the country went to hell in the last two years...remarkably when the house became completely democratic, under Pelosi. Pelosi has made some of the biggest mistakes with my tax dollars, such as not monitoring where it is going....the country became in turmoil with the democratic change...period. If you want to blame someone blame your own party.

[stagebandman]

1) Every tax expert in the country says this is undoable and a terrible idea.
2) If Social Security had been privatized 4 years ago, it would no longer exist, and everyone would have lost their money.
3) oops, can't count.
4) It was the Bush administration that created the deficits and lost budget discipline.
5) And just how are these inner city students going to get to these magic schools, and where are they? Who's gonna teach? You obviously don't want any public school teachers in them. If you think the dropout rate is bad now (and it is), just wait 'til this plan takes hold.
6) newsflash, these tax cuts have been responsible for a lot of the mess we're in right now.
7) It's not a death tax, it's an inheritance tax, and it's not that hard to figure out.
8) expand to what? You can have all kinds of IRAs.
9) (okay, not really 9, but you went off-topic) The health care system we have right now stinks. The government asked not to take over, but to standardize the system, and the insurance companies (our countries largest industry) said no. Standardization would streamline everything from making forms easier to fill out, to less time at the pharmacy, the dentist, the doctor, and especially the ER.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for setting the record straight stagebandman!

[phantom74]

1. What is a tax expert? Expert at stealing our money, no doubt? Who are these con men who have such concrete evidence about what the best way to steal money is? You trust a thief to give you advice on how to keep your money?
2. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme totally dependent on the greater fools theory. It cannot be anything else...it is based on the perpetual increase in M2, a totally unsustainable amount of leverage. They have cut the interest rate to 1.005 in the hopes of slowing down the damage of compounding but it doesn't matter. GDP is shrinking, so the only way for monetary policy to accomodate that would be "reverse interest", aka, deflation.
3. What a smart ass
4. It doesn't really matter. The Clinton era just happened to coincide with an economic expansion. The anomalously high tax receipts dried up pretty quick though. Bush inherited many trillions in national debt from Clinton.
5. School choice is better than no choice.
6. Couldn't have anything to do with spending money we don't have?
7. Inheritance requires death last I checked. It's evil, quit defending it.

[phantom74]

8. What people need is a safe place for money. Clearly government cannot be that place, since if they get it they spend it like a drunken sailor.
9. Like the DMV? I've never waited hours to see a doctor, but to turn in a scrap of paper I have to stand in line and watch AA recipients meander around their office like arthritics in a geriatric word. Then they'll complain to each other in front of customers about how much work there is. If the government takes over health plan administration, it will not only be more expensive, but have no incentive to be efficient.

[lbhart]

I was most glad to see that Coulter admitted to having no offspring of any kind.

If she had admitted to raising a child, I would suggest that those of us with the ability to do so, donate money to their required therapeutic bills in the future.

Coulter needs to get off of her soapbox and open her eyes. Although it's cutesy and nicey nice to quote statistics, her obsessive need to criticize others for her own monetary gain is quite transparent. Once she is confronted with a fact off of her talking point sheet, she stutters and trips over her own feet.

[Principaldad]

HuffPost's Pick

Coulter has a point. I also have a broken wristwatch that shows the correct time twice a day. It doesn't mean that the wristwatch is telling the time.

Statistically, single parent homes do correlate with higher incidence of social issues. Crime is among them. There are tons of reasons for this, including income issues, but in the end very few people would argue that one loving single parent is better than two loving parents.

Coulter arguments remind me of the generalizations and misrepresentations that conservatives made about "welfare moms". She gives some credit to widows and the like, but paints a picture of single mothers as women who are sleeping around and getting pregnant (sometimes on purpose).

Almost all of the single mothers I know did not start out that way. Most were married, had kids, and later divorced. More often than not, the divorce was the result of a husband who did not care to stick around (or who was unfaithful). Most of these women are doing the best that they can in a bad situation.

I have seen Coulter react to this with blame, not solutions. I don't hear her speaking of ways to prevent divorce or to deal with the social issues that tend to accompany single parenthood. The main solution I hear her offering is "don't get pregnant". Preventing unplanned pregnancy is a laudable goal, but it certainly doesn't address the countless cases of a husband who just decides to bow out.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Yes, this reminds me of a book on Ronald Reagan I was reading lately by Gil Troy, a historian, and he denigrated divorce as a social malady and indirectly blamed the feminist movement, but regarding Reagan's divorce, which predated 2nd Wave feminism, he very forgiving and understanding, as I assume Coulter would be of McCain's and Gingrich's and Limbaugh's and any other Republican's divorce -- so it's all situational for them.

[elsa12]

Any good conservative would point out to you the great truth about Reagan's divorce from Jane Wyman....he was a Democrat at the time! LOL!!!

And you are making assumptions about what Coulter might do or say. That is simply meaningless. Get a quote to back up your assumptions and you may have a theory.

[elsa12]

There certainly are a fair number of dead beat dads out there who decide to "bow out" as you say. But there are plenty of women who do as well.

Again, this issue is about the deterioration of morals and ethics in our society.

One way to avoid divorce is to take marriage vows seriously and to take the ide of an intimate relationship seriously. But then we might have to go down the "morality road" to discuss that, and heaven forbid we dare talk morality!

[phantom74]

Contrary to your personal experience, the actual data shows that most single moms are never married, particularly strong correlation with age.

[Ergon]

Let's be honest here. A quarter million views obviously means that there's some resonance with her views, however much you can disagree with her. I wish she'd articulate her argument more efectively or intelligently, but she does have a view, and for every right wing cliche she trots out, left wingers can't resist piling on her, not even bothering to refute her without personal attacks.
But that's the essential dishonesty of our political discourse, that we create a dialectic of permanent opposing forces that are always in conflict.
I believe in dialogue and debate, not this three ring circus that is anything but.

[Principaldad]

Yes Coulter has a point, badly made, regarding this topic. The problem is that it is difficult to take someone seriously whey they have so often been found to distort the truth, constantly ignore information that doesn't support their arguments, and often outright lie. She is the Conservatieve Who Cried "Liberal".

The thing is that even in making a somewhat valid point, Coulter still mischaracterizes much.

[ckt]

Can someone answer this question....How is it that AC continually rates the A-Grade Circuit for touting her tripe? There are plenty of genuine, respectable, and intelligent authors out there who would be much more worthwhile to listen to on these shows. We don't send porn authors around the morning news and late night talkies, so why/how does AC manage to get there?

[imagine0594]

The mistake people always make with Ann Coulter is to try and catch her in a lie. (It's like trying to convince a skeptic that UFO's exist... It's not going to happen unless you actually bust out an alien)

Coulter is trying to assign blame; she is trying to get people so angry at single mothers that they don't want to help them. But I don't really care whose fault it is: a single mother needs help. So, while I love Whoopi, it might have been more effective to just ask: Do you want to help single mothers? If she says yes, great, she agrees with you; if she says no, it shows how heartless she is.

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Coulter's just making a lot of money milking media attention by throwing out shocking and fascist ideas -- Michelle Malkin and Glen Beck are in her wake, Monica Crowley is a more acceptable and reasonable version of Coulter -- E.D. Nixon on Fox was trying to be Coulter when she talked about "terrorist fist bumps." It's a cottage industry on the Right -- they do not do anything, head a government department etc. unless they can make a pile for themselves and therein lies the Republican ethic: get in, get out, rip off as much as you can as fast as you can and then leave the wreckage behind for others to deal with -- just like the Housing- Financial meltdown or Bernie Madoff or Jack Abramaoff or Duke Cunningham or Ann Coulter. She has the added usefulness of appealing somehow to working class white men with little education whose daddies lynched people in the South.

[MurrayAbraham]

You just fell in the trap the ladies masterfully avoided, namely conflating Coulter with the Right and/or Republicans. They kept their cool, confident in their achievements and wouldn't let themselves be dragged in a fake debate by a spoiled brat. (Did you notice that imagineo594 didn't talk about political parties?)

Another of Coulter's pundit "tricks" is to site a whole list of "examples" unrelated to the topic to make your point. Here again you fell in the trap these ladies avoided:

1/Making your pile and leaving the mess for others is not a Republican exclusivity (Blago is just the latest example of corrupt Democrats).

2/ People such as Bernie Madoff and Jack Abramoff don't have any ideological motivation, they basically will deal with whom is in power to get to the cash.

The first step in making pundits such as Coulter irrelevant is to stop claiming they speek for anyone except themselves.

[ladyrefined2000]

yeah, right.....­.........s­he is more successfull than you, makes more money than you, is more relevant than you, is more reconizable than you, is more fun than you.......­.......LOL­LOLLOL....­..........­..........­...you're a loser.....­.......LOL­LOLLOL.

[Lovableloser]

Interesting post. Ah, Ann...ya gotta appreciate the way she get's us talkin'! Look, I'm as repulsed by her antics as anyone, but on THIS topic, I do agree with the basic premise. The bottom line is, in 2009, with the exception of divorce or death, single motherhood in America is a choice. Even if you live in the extreme south, where abortion and birth control education are shamefully difficult to find, there is still adoption. And, as much as I hate to admit it, Medicaid abuse does happen, and it gives young women with no self-esteem an "excuse" to just "give up" on any career aspirations and become a mother, for some short term validation.

Ann's point about celebrity media's glamorization of young, single motherhood is also valid, and I agree that it is toxic.

As always, though, her message gets tossed out like the baby with the bathwater because of her style, which sells her books but sadly, probably leaves her with few real friends in that Eastside penthouse. And she remains one of the most shrill, hypocritical, vile, destructive humans on the face of the earth.

Why someone doesn't write a tell-all, no holds barred biography of this lady is beyond me. We're all dying to know what REALLY goes on in her strange little life...

[moxieink]

You're making the mistake of generalizing, much like AC does. I didn't choose to become a single mother. My exhusband didn't stick around to see his daughter's 1st birthday. He hasn't seen her since she was 18 months old and she'll be 16 soon. She was raised by me without a single dime from him (owes $98,000+) or a single dime contributed by tax payers.
I worked my way up through a company and made almost 6 figures. Not all single mothers take advantage of the system. Not all single mothers raise criminals. My daughter ranks top 20 in her class, volunteers at the local dog shelter, takes photos for the yearbook and can't wait to have a career of her own. Oh...did I mention she is bi-racial, just like Barack Obama and Halle Berry?
I am remarried to a man who was a single father. His son is not a criminal either. We are hard-working parents who imagined we would always be married to the people who vowed to love us forever the first time. Should we have put our babies up for adoption as you suggest?
I don't know your situation, but I know that AC isn't married or a mother. It takes a special person to pick it all up at the end of a marriage and do it all on their own. AC doesn't have a clue or the chops to be a single mom!

[phantom74]

Again, the mistake you are making, which is what Ann pointed out, is generalization from your personal experience. Which is true, to you. It is not true, overall.

Not all single moms raise criminals, and that was never the point. The point was that single mother homes are a common and causative factor in criminal behavior. It is not wacky, it is fact, so deal with it.

[arabianway]

I think Ann Coulter is an emotionally disturbed person whose increasingly shrill appearances on TV
are designed to sell more of her books. What is unbelievable to me is that she sells so many of them. I also think that on The View she was outgunned for once. Actually momentarily speechless
at one point.

[GwenElle]

HuffPost's Pick

I took particular exception with Coulter's derision of the choice of Barack, Halle Berry and Alicia Keyes to identify as Black.

Halle’s white mother (in an effort to protect her daughter from a racist society) raised Halle to identify with the African American community.

Barack’s mother (and his experiences in a race-conscious society) influenced his choice. It is a psychological fact that children long for the parent who is absent. The very fact that he did proves Anne's points about the importance of a two-parent family; but she is so busy seeing things through her racist prism and spewing her intellectually dishonest venom that she doesn’t get that.

Clearly Anne is so attached to the privileges and presumed superiority of *whiteness* (though she would never acknowledge that such privileges exists) that she cannot imagine nor accept that anyone who could lay claims to that privilege would choose not to.

History lesson . . . up until the 1960s one of the ways in which Blacks were oppressed in America was by white people defining who was not white. One drop of black blood meant you were black. Seems Coulter wants to retain vestiges of white oppression by now flipping the argument. Please!

As an African American, who grew up in the segregated South, conditioned by law and custom to believe in the inferiority of Blackness, I am particularly proud that Barack, Halle and Alicia are saying to the world otherwise. Their meesage is in their choice.

[k1dork]

I'm black, yet I understand where Ann is coming from. I can see how a white person who is not racist (Coulter isn't racist) would be confused by the militant blackness of bi-racial people who were ABANDONED by their black parent.

Sure, that's their choice, but I think a better choice would be to transcend race and NOT lean militantly one way or the other.

[GwenElle]

Thing is k1dork, we do not get to choose what is a better choice for others. Noone has a right to that, though for hundreds of years in this country white people assumed the right and exerted the power of choice over blacks and other peoples of color.

Whatever choice a person makes for themselves, I am willing to accept it; though I do not feel obligated to admire or respect it (as in value it).

Furthermore, I fail to see how a *b-racial person* (half-blacks in Coulter's vernacular) making a choice to identify as black (African American) is an act of militancy. If that is the case, then America just elected its first militant president. Hardly.

[elsa12]

Where in Ann Coulter's argument does she use race as a factor?

Coulter's argumement is based in the issue of human behavior. It has nothing to do with race.

Try again.

[bluehand]

Race is usually woven in some where in a Coulter "arguement", either on the surface, or hidden in between the lines, and you are either delusional, or consciously ignoring it. Coulter stretches, bends, twists, stomps, and murders facts, while making a ton of money doing it. You sound like one of her gullible marks.

[GwenElle]

I have spared myself the displeasure of reading Coulter's book; however in an interview AJ Hammer of Headline News' Showbiz program questions Coulter about the chapter in her book in which characterizes *half-blacks* as capitalizing on their victimhood.

On The View, the women focused on the sections of the book dealing with single women, though at one point Coulter made reference to her issues with *half-blacks*. For your convenience, I took the liberty of transcribing part of the exchange:

Whoopi: I want to reiterate, no one was putting you down or attacking you . . .

Coulter: Halle Berry's Academy Award acceptance speech went on and on about how she was doing it for the blacks. That is identifying with her black father. I'm talking about what they do and say in public.

I searched the HLN Showbiz site for the Coulter interview, but regrettably the full interview is not on the website. (though most of it is). For a taste of what AJ Hammer discussed with Coulter and what she was alluding to on The View, you can visit the link below. Third bullit down on the page is an actual excerpt from what I presume to be Coulter’s *blacks as victims chapter*:

http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/books-ann-coulters-guilty-offensive-as_04.html

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, yes, sure, Coulter never, ever uses racist stereotypes and codes to make her points, that's why she has so many black friends and black and Latino supporters.

[phantom74]

"As an African American, who grew up in the segregated South, conditioned by law and custom to believe in the inferiority of Blackness, I am particularly proud that Barack, Halle and Alicia are saying to the world otherwise. Their meesage is in their choice."

Well the blacks have a done a bang up job to dispel that myth, haven't they? Is the message "if you're black, don't give up hope - you might be the lucky few percent who get to live a fantasy celebrity or superstar athlete lifestyle, or attend a prestigious university and ride the gravy train of white guilt to a high position.

Yes, that is some message.

[fan4truth]

I think the major difference in the approach that liberals and conservatives reason the ways of the world are starkly different, as evidenced by Coulter.

Liberals tend to see things as varying shades of gray, with little things being black and white. Conservatives have a "morals" guided view of life, and see everything as black or white.

Liberals view conservatives as close-minded, insular , provincial racist @#$holes. Conservatives view liberals as loose, tree-hugging, hippie, commie, overly secularized heathens.

Once again, Coulter is doing her part to continue the polarization of the two sides.

[carsntrucks]

She wasn't exactly up there arguing with herself, though.

[Skye1er]

I hope Sarah Palin chooses Ann Coulter to be her VP running mate in 2012. You just thought Saturday Night Live was a hoot this election.

[Metzeman12]

If I am black like Micheal Steel or Alan Keyes or a female like Sarah Palin and Condoleeza rice or Indian like Bobby Jyndal how can I be a republican? These people are not white men. Hmmmmm.......I guess their not republicans.

I want to address the following quote:

"Their authoritarian, racist, "eat the poor" ideology serves the interests of ruling corporate elites; so these barren, windswept notions will be shoved down our throats"

I want you Mr. Palermo to explain to me how the republicans are Authoritarian, racist and "eat the poor"

[nubret2008]

Well you could hear racial epithets at McCain/Palin rallies but not at Obama rallies, prove enough?

[Joseph A. Palermo - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, to illustrate the "eat the poor" ideology of the "modern" Republican party one only needs to turn to Stephen Moore's 2004 book titled: "Bullish on Bush: How George W. Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger," (Madison Books), which is graced with a forward by Lawrence Kudlow of CNBC and blurbed on the back cover by Fred Barnes, Joe Scarborough, and Arthur Laffer. Moore, who was President of the Club for Growth writes: 1). "Bury the IRS tax code and advance a flat-rate consumption tax" (which benefits the richest people); 2). "Offer young workers private investment accounts for Social Security" (giving their pensions to Wall Street); 3). "Muzzle the trial lawyers" (so corporations go unchallenged); 4). "Restore budget discipline" with a "supermajority" necessary to pass tax legislation (the gutting of social programs); 5). "Offer school vouchers" (destroying public schools); 6). "Make the capital gains, dividend, and income tax cuts permanent" (again, the richest people benefit the most); 7). "Abolish the death tax" (ditto); 8). "Expand IRAs" (Wall Street again); 9). "Offer health savings accounts" (maintaining failed private health care system); 10). "Lower trade barriers to expand global markets" (NAFTA etc. puts working people in America in competition with workers abroad who make $.30 an hour). (pp. 7-10) All of these proposals have one thing in common: They all benefit the ruling class and will have deleterious effects on the wellbeing of the poor.

[k1dork]

I'm a black guy, and I'm still waiting to see the racism in that. It may be classicism, but it's not racist.

I think false accusations of racism are just as despicable as blatant racism. The stigma of racism is horrible, and liberals throw the word around lightly to demonize those who they oppose.

It causes people to side with them without even seriously looking at the issues.

Lib: Hey, those Republicans are racist!
Voter: I haven't looked at the issue, but they're racist, so they have to be wrong.

[phantom74]

The Ownership Society was a liberal creation that began under Clinton. Bush simply gave it a buzzword. Hey, how are those subprime CDO's working out for you?