SUPER-BITCH: ALL ABOUT ANN COULTER

Sharing a table at a New York bar with Coulter, watching the heads turn, you're seized by the urge to test her. Is she for real? Is she making this stuff up, like a comedian doing a shtick? How far will she go? "What if the free market offered Muslim-free air travel?" I venture, by way of bait. Would that be a smart move? "This is my idea," she says brightly, competitive as a child. "I'm way ahead of you. I think airlines ought to start advertising: 'We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs.' "

And how would Muslims travel? "They could use flying carpets," she says, a grinning picture of charm. But worry not: lots of other swarthy ethnic groups would be subject to the Coulter plan for selective security. "You'd be searching a lot of Italians, Greeks and Jews." Intensively frisking just 20% of travellers would make flying quicker for everyone, she says. "Have you seen these lines for getting through? Everyone suffers equally. Which presumably is the dream of the Guardian: modelled after their beloved Soviet Union."

This is what talking to Ann Coulter is like: she flits from one rightwing prejudice to another, taking not so much as a gasp for oxygen. In a couple of sentences, she can play with overt racism, soften it with a line so provocative she could only be kidding, then round off the performance with a sweeping smear of the liberal enemy. Coulter has turned riffs like that into an art form.

And

Even if you can't bring yourself to be an enthusiast, Coulter is worth noticing. For she represents something rather larger than herself and her skill in carving out a starred career. She is the culmination of a trend that has been building on the American right for several years: the sense that they are somehow a beleaguered minority battling a state controlled and run by the left. That will sound like science fiction to non-Americans, who see the US as a land in the grip of corporations, tobacco giants, arms manufacturers and Christian fundamentalists. But the airwaves of talk radio have long crackled with the buzz of a group that sees itself not as America's governing majority but as a besieged, underground movement of dissent - with the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Watergate felon-turned-broadcaster G Gordon Liddy raging against the powers that be. Coulter's book shared its perch on the bestsellers' lists with another by ex-CBS correspondent Bernard Goldberg called simply Bias. Both set out to prove that the US is dominated by a liberal elite that shuts out mainstream, regular, conservative Americans like them.

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For years now the concept known as "politically correct" has been under fire by conservatives--at first glance, this makes partisan, sour-grapes sense; conservative views are among the most politically incorrect (apologies to Bill Maher) on college campuses. These conservative critics, however, have raised some very good points. Right-wing views among university professors are rare (excluding, of course, business schools and economics departments). Some universities, indeed, are hotbeds of liberal activism and identity politics. I have personally seen at least one conservative speaker shouted down at a college lecture, and have read about many other such instances. I remember when I was in college hearing about a friend of a friend who an anti-apartheid protester called a racist because he disagreed with some point about university divesture. There have also been some celebrated campus drives to supress right-wing extremist speech--Holocaust deniers come to mind here. It really does appear that, in some cases, left-leaning dogma and rigid ideology have much more power and influence on campus than in mainstream society. Many of these college activists need to settle down and try to get some victories via fair and honest debate--this could only enhance the left's credibility among the general public.

Even though conservatives raise good points about p.c. supression, it is clear that they care about the issue only in so much as it supresses conservative views. Supression of liberal views in this way, however, is another matter, entirely.

Ann Coulter embodies the new wave of high-tech, right-wing, mass media "politically correct" ideologues. She is utterly self-righteous. She shouts down her opponents. She characterizes any opposing view as either stupid or evil. She has stolen the tactics of the zealous left and gone Hollywood with them, beating snotty liberals at their own game, but on a much larger playing field. Coulter takes reverse p.c. to the big time.

She is very attractive, though.

And she has a gun.

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