| BRAINLESS The Lies and Lunacy of Ann Coulter Joe Maguire New York: William Morrow, 2006 |
Rating: 4.5 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-06-124350-9 | ||||
| ISBN 0-06-124350-7 | 204pp. | HC | $21.95 | |
Joe Maguire has succumbed to a temptation that I have felt, and which I'm sure many other people have considered. The temptation I refer to is no bad thing — it is a desire to expose Ann Coulter's long string of slander against honorable public servants and treason against rational discussion,1 and to set the record straight. The result is this book, which thoroughly and without invective2 debunks Coulter's arguments (if they can be called that) on subjects including sex, abortion and religion.
Now, writing such a book is a worthy endeavor. Not only is Coulter's output offensive in and of itself, but it exacerbates the partisan disharmony currently obstructing our political process. Maguire has decided she must be stopped, and I support his effort. Still, I worry that it may be like spitting into the wind. He himself says as much:
Part of the problem, of course, is that there's so much malice and misrepresentation that it's difficult to combat it all. Reading Godless is like reaching that level of Space Invaders where the aliens are descending so fast you can't even be bothered to take a shot at the spaceships flying across the top. It's all you can do just to focus on and kill the most immediate threats. – Page 11 |
All that said, Maguire has done an admirable job of deconstructing the fabric of Coulter's presentations. His research was diligent; he has read all of her books, apparently in both hardcover and paperback editions, and many of her columns. He also is familiar with the literature about her, from Time to Nielsen BookScan, as well as more general works, and he cites these sources extensively and accurately. (Truth in citations is always important, but moreso here since deceptive citations are a bulwark of Coulter's method.3) His writing is usually clear and coherent.
Maguire doesn't do a perfect job, however. He attempts to psychoanalyze Coulter, after promising he wouldn't. This is a risky thing to try under any circumstances; it's probably foolhardy for someone whose public persona tends to obscure her true personality (she even lies about her age.) And on page 168, he is IMO too dismissive of the theory of panspermia. In a few cases, his sentences are very convoluted and hard to parse. He has a fondness for alliteration (as on page 93: "the president's Pinocchial proboscis.") I'm someone who likes alliteration, but even I found this instance of it annoying. Then again, he compensates for this with some good one-liners.4 These include a sampling from late-night television. There is also an excerpt from an interview where Coulter is the subject, and some hard-to-find information about the sales of her four latest books.
Finally, the book has some production defects — things like misplaced topic separators, a few sentence fragments which look like they are not what Maguire intended, a space missing before a left-parenthesis. It also lacks an index, which I feel is a major shortcoming. After considering everything, I could not give it my highest rating. Still, this is a good read, an excellent analysis of its subject, and a book which is well worth the purchase price.
To contact Chris Winter, send email to this address.