The Coulter case

Ann Coulter had an idiosyncratic reaction to the prime time GOP candidates’ debate at the Reagan Presidential Library this past Wendesday. Israel came up too frequently to suit her taste. She somehow found it fitting and appropriate to tweet the comment below. Coulter has stood by her comment, as in this Hollywood Reporter story.

I’m wondering if Ann’s usual acuity hasn’t been dulled. Here is how she characterizes those who have taken offense to her tweet in her Hollywood Reporter interview: “The hypocrites who are mad at me are the ones who support anti-Israel college professors, who refuse to condemn Islamic barbarism, who supported the overthrow of Mubarak for the Muslim Brotherhood, who spread the deadly libel that Jews in America are only successful because of ‘white privilege.'”

I’m sure the description fits some of those who have taken note, but I’m a former fan who identifies with none of the views she attributes to her critics, and my view is that she can go to hell. I also think I’m in good company.

Lee Smith is the Weekly Standard senior editor and author of The Strong Horse. Lee doesn’t fit Coulter’s profile of her critics. He takes a characteristically elevated view of the case in “The degradation of our discourse.” Lee finds Coulter guilty of degrading our discourse along with President Obama. The elevated view can be harsh in its own way.

Binyamin Jokolvsky is the proprietor of Jewish World Review; he doesn’t fit Coulter’s profile of her critics either. He has run Ann’s column at JWR for the past 15 years. He finds her comment unsavory as well. He told the Daily Beast: “She could have been drunk, she could have been high, I don’t know, I have to give her the benefit of the doubt…but I don’t have to delude myself,” Binyamin said. “Pandering to Jewish money is about as anti-Semitic a stereotype as you could put forth. Her ‘eff-ing Jews’ comment is not identifying Israel—it’s identifying Jews, plural, and all Jews. There is no excuse for that. You can’t just wiggle out of something that vile and hateful.”

I’m with Binyamin.

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