Why Ann Coulter Is a Cunt, Part 1856 - The Plagiarism Edition:
Sometimes beating up on Ann Coulter is about as easy as making a nervous little dog piss itself. One tiny "boo" in the right direction and that bitch is swimming in her own fluids. For surely, in her latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "a stomach-churning, cringe-inducing, bowel-releasing journey into the dark, dank, garbage-stinking recesses of a deranged demi-brain"), Coulter sets herself upon a Tower of Babble teetering so badly that a flea flick would send her screaming, such sweet screaming, plunging onto the rocky ground below.

Coulter uses the recent, narrow (and wimpy and confusing) Supreme Court decision, that displays of the Ten Commandments outside of a larger historical context are overtly religious and are forbidden in courthouses, and attempts to say something about what taxpayers have "paid" for, going into a mad, ranting litany of examples, all of which combined cost your average taxpayer less than a nickel.

What's fun, so incredibly fuckin' fun about this kind of Coulter "logic" is how many different ways you can take it down. Over at Pandagon, Amanda goes to town with the sarcasm. Another approach would be to point out how some of the things she cites as outrageous opinion making are actually true. Check out her statements that she says are quotes from exhibits at the Smithsonian. Or one could make the case that nearly all of her examples are over a fuckin' decade old, at least.

But instead, how about this: Ann Coulter appears to have plagiarized a section of her column by not citing the December 1993 edition of The Flummery Digest. In this edition, the digest is devoted to calling out what it says is "offensive" art that receives public funding. One of its sections in December 1993 lists a bunch of NEA grant recipients, which, on first glance and, hell, even on second, look like Coulter lifted without attribution from this site or from what is apparently Alice Goldfarb Marquis' Heritage Foundation work Art Lessons (perhaps the work became her book of the same title in 1995), which Flummery actually cites as its source (click on the cross in the lower left hand corner of the NEA entry to see the citation).

Here's a couple of examples:
From Ann Coulter, talking about what taxpayers have funded: "A photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open titled to suggest the infant was available for oral sex."
From The Flummery Digest: "The title of a photo of a newborn infant with its mouth open suggested that the infant was available for oral sex."

From Ann Coulter: "A photo of a woman breastfeeding an infant, titled 'Jesus Sucks.'"
From The Flummery Digest: "One otherwise tame photograph of a woman breastfeeding an infant was titled 'Jesus Sucks.'"

From Ann Coulter: "A show titled 'DEGENERATE WITH A CAPITAL D' featuring a display of the remains of the artist's own aborted baby."
From The Flummery Digest: "'Degenerate with a Capital D'...included 'Alchemy Cabinet' by Shawn Eichman, featuring the remains of the artist's own aborted baby."

From Ann Coulter: "Performance of giant bloody tampons, satanic bunnies, three-foot feces and vibrators."
From The Flummery Digest: "[T]he performance art of Johanna Went...relies upon props such as giant body tampons, satanic bunnies, three-foot turds, and dildos." (Hey, Coulter's got a mainstream audience.)

Is this plagiarism? Coincidence? A work by the "American Life League" describes Eichman's work as "her own dismembered second-trimester aborted baby next to the obligatory twisted wire coat hanger," so, you know, there's other ways to state it. Minor shit? Perhaps, but, remember, as Coulter told us we should believe about Bill Clinton (in her first "book"), seemingly minor transgressions point to larger patterns of deception.

Like the Rude Pundit said, like makin' a chihuahua piss, like stealin' candy from a baby, like settin' a passed-out hobo on fire, it's just way too easy to take Coulter apart. But, my, oh, my, what fun bloodsport it is.

Addendum (With an Emphasis on the "Dum"): The Flummery Digest was an online journal that sought to document the "extremes" of political correctness in America. It is now defunct.

Note: We are sooo fucked.