A Word or Two About the Whole Ann Coulter Plagiarism Blow-Up (Special Saturday Post):
The bottom line is, as always, the bottom line.
By any rationally-held definition, Ann Coulter plagiarized a great deal of her "book," Godless, as well as parts of (at least) several columns. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either profiting off Coulter or delusional or ignorant (willfully or genetically), or some unholy combination of two or three of the above. There's a thousand and one excuses you can give as to why plagiarism occurs, but, at the end of the day, you either did it or you didn't. Coulter did it. If you want a full explanation of how Coulter's "sloppy research" or "confused citations" actually are part of her plagiarism, e-mail the Rude Pundit, and he'll explain.
Her publisher has decided to remain righteously by Coulter's side, as is her syndicate, and, really, unless someone threatens to sue one or the other because Coulter stole from them, there's no reason for them to abandon her. It ain't gonna affect the bottom line, not as long as Newsmax is hawking the piece of shit books for five bucks each, sub-Wal-Mart prices (just agree to get four issues of their shitty magazine crapped into your mailbox for free). And as for any pie in the sky hope that maybe "ethics" or "integrity" would cause Universal Press Syndicate to toss Coulter, well, "integrity" is to Ann Coulter as "cleanliness" is to a dung beetle. Maybe more newspapers will follow the lead of the Cedar Rapids Gazette and drop Coulter because she's bugfuck insane.
The most fascinating part of this whole affair has been the reaction from many in Right Blogsylvania of "well, they couldn't attack her arguments, so they trumped up this smear on Coulter." Goddamn, there's entire websites devoted to attacking Coulter's "arguments," which are something not unakin to the mad bleatings of a psychotic ewe. (As the Rude Pundit has said before, it's absolutely useless arguing with Coulter. She has no real point of view and virtually everything she says is a lie or completely out of context.) As for "smearing" Coulter with plagiarism, well, fuck, how often has the charge of plagiarism been slung at popular right-wing writers, in a way that got traction beyond a blog or two? Not a whole fuck of a lot. Huh, that might mean there's some "credibility" to the charge.
But, no, no. At the end of the day, the vast majority of those on the right would rather cling to the crazy Ann Coulter, as she bespeaks the depravity and hate that underlies their sexually repressed violent urges and craven greed. They will simply ignore even the most basic questions, like "Do you, who judges the morality of so many others, have sex, Ann Coulter?" And they will ignore every intensely dated reference to Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick (there's like one a chapter in Godless - really) and every description of the ways in which various people can be killed or be blown up in a terrorist act. They will circle the wagons around each of their own that fails and fucks-up.
So, while the good, dogged Ron Brynaert of Raw Story will no doubt keep up the hunt (and the Rude Pundit will still spot check), we can be briefly, smugly satisfied that for a few days, Ann Coulter shit cannonballs wondering if she was gonna have to go to a less exclusive salon for her blonde dye job and Nazi-symbol bikini wax.
