Coulter Channels Joyce -- or a Parrot

Either Ann Coulter ain't what she used to be or I've grown a lot wiser over the years, or a bit of both. In any case, I have noticed myself enjoying her columns less and less. Her tone is shrill. Her jokes are hackneyed for the most part. Her tendency to point out leftist hypocrisy distracts the reader from the fact that she is often passing off foolishness (some even dangerous) as if it were common sense. But today's column, on the Samuel Alito hearings, was particularly bad. Why?

In an aimless, stream of consciousness column over at Jewish World Review, Coulter wanders about, like a certain Massachussetts Senator she likes to parody, from one stupid Democrat trick to another. In rapid succession, she blunders into numerous Democrat follies, real and imagined, old and new -- from Hillary Clinton's plantation remark to Chappaquiddick, and from Senator Robert C. Byrd's membership in the Ku Klux Klan to Ray Nagin's "Chocolate City" remarks. Interestingly, she made not a peep about Nagin's "wrath of God" remarks. Oh well, she is a religious conservative.

Not to make light of the fact that a U.S. Senator may have gotten away with negligent homicide or that another used to be a Kleagle with the Ku Klux Klan, but really, how many times do I have to listen to that? (Polly say Chappaquiddick! Raawwwk! Phweehoo!) Yes. The point is being made that the Democrats are being hypocritical, and that does matter, but only up to a point. But what about this? The real problem with the Democrats' effort to block Alito was not that they were hypocrites. It was that they raised only the silliest objections to Alito, treating the real reason that they objected to him, that he is "pro-life", as if it needed no intellectual defense. Or at least they acted as if the American public would be too stupid to appreciate a systematically-presented defense of a woman's right to her own body enough to pressure a few key senators on the issue. No. They just rolled over.

But then that is the point of Ann Coulter's cliche-salad. Her job is done and now she can gloat. Buried in this heap of aimless invective is the thing she is celebrating.

Besides being stunningly qualified, the characteristics of the current stellar Supreme Court nominee include these:

* His mother immediately told the press, "Of course he's against abortion."

* He had expressed support for the Reagan administration's positions on abortion in a 1985 memo.

* He refused to accede to the Democrats' endless browbeating and tell them that Roe was "settled law."

And the Democrats couldn't lay a finger on him. Sam Alito marks the final purging of the Bork experience.

I think Coulter was holding a pinky finger up to her lip and arching her brow when she said that last line. Gallows humor aside, the court will be more socially conservative now, and there is no effective opposition in place to stop it from becoming even more so.

The left was dying when character assassination ("Borking") of judicial nominees replaced principled objections to them based upon their judicial philosophy. It is dead now. Any opposition to the encroachment of religion into politics will have to come from elsewhere. Coulter certainly doesn't see it coming. Why? Because we have witnessed the "wrong end" of Borking. In a better world, we would have seen the Democrats end Borking by choosing to make principled cases, both in hearings and publicly, against nominees they object to. Instead, the Democrats merely lost their ability to do the same old thing effectively. Borking died only because they couldn't keep making it work.

As an opinion columnist, Coulter lacked a mission in this piece. There was no need to convince anyone of her opinion anymore. Perhaps that is why it is so bad.

-- CAV