Godless and Proud - The Latest From Ann Coulter

Whenever I used to see Ann Coulter on the news shows or other talk shows - I always wonder to myself what Ann would say if she were allowed to get her point across or even a full sentence for that matter. Well, I picked up Godless at Barnes and Noble and finished it within a week. I had an easier time reading her latest now that I have been seeing her on the news shows. She's usually very sarcastic and a bit jumpy when she gets excited about a point she is trying to make. Reading Godless I can almost hear her voice in my head reciting what I'm reading now that I've got to know her from her appearances on Hannity & Colmes and the like. I've read her book Treason a couple of years ago and I felt a little lost, not realizing that Ann is trying to be funny most of the time. I can understand somebody reading this book and not understanding her point of view right away without the knowledge that she is funny.

So who is this book for? Well, the politically conscience primarily. I would imagine her target audience would be that of the "right of center" crowd, but I understand that people on both sides of the spectrum have read this book.
This book gives a few points of ideas of the liberal ideals, when they take God out of the equation. She gives examples of ideology and practices and perhaps paints a picture of the United States without God. Is it accurate? Well, the reader has to make the choice, I would imagine that groups like the ACLU would find this worldview rather inviting. Ann gives examples of the legal system when it comes to hardened criminals, the teachers union, the political tactics of liberals using "heroes" and the recently grief stricken to tote the liberal slogans to the press, science vs. liberalism, and of course abortion.

So far the most controversial topic of this book, which the Daily News had dubbed her Coulter the Cruel on the front page is what Ann had said about a couple of the women who were widowed on 9/11. Ann went on to say that these four housewives from New Jersey, or 'the Jersey Girls' are "enjoying their husbands' death so much" and had also labeled them the "witches of East Brunswick". At face value these statements are pretty cruel, but if you take them in context these quotes are almost normal rhetoric in the political ring. I mean, if these women were not "victimized" by the horrors of 9/11 and were aimed at George Bush, for example, these quotes would not be horrific in fact, but expected. And this is what Ann was talking about in this chapter. She calls it the Liberal Doctrine of Infallibility - where the far left would utilize victims and war heroes to echo the sentiment of the far left. When Howard Dean would recite the same talking points, he would get hammered for it, if Cindy Sheehan regurgitates the exact same things, it would be bad press for a counter attack against a mom who has lost a son in the Iraq War, or a John Murtha who had served his country in Vietnam. It's pretty smart actually, the opposite side has to shush up and let them speak without daring to answer. I thought it was a riveting chapter and you have to give it to Ann, this was very brave of her to speak her mind about such a taboo subject, but her motive, (which in part was monetary), is also to break the cycle of muzzles on the mouths of conservatives - when these new rash of far left mouthpieces state someone else's pre-penned speech.

Another slight controversy was her chapter about teachers and the teachers union. I say slight due to the fact that this topic did not achieve the front page on major mews papers like the first one did. Ann argues that the teachers within the board of Ed are the most praised profession by liberals in the US. We've all heard the argument that teachers do not get paid enough over the years, and Ann even argues against that slogan.

She goes on to talk about the extreme fallibility of Darwinism, which actually spans a couple of chapters. She also writes about the love and affection that the Far Left feels toward major criminals with long rap sheets. Well, they don't love all criminals, if it is a Caucasian murderer - the Far Left do not usually have too much admiration for them. Well, that's not really the truth about what she wrote, it's more like if you're a black criminal, then there is more sympathy for the criminal. This was one point I had found not entirely true, or if she had just missed the news reports about the very public and popular child molestation/child murder cases that have been in the news the last couple of years. We have seen the Far Left (in these cases, it has been the judges) where the criminal has raped and/or murdered children and the Liberal Judges gives them a slap on the wrist. For example - there is Judge Cashman who allowed child rapist Mark Hulett, a white guy, to basically serve no jail time. Even more recently, there is Judge Ric Howard who is throwing out the evidence of confession (that led the investigators to the body of Jessica Lunsford, a rape and murder victim, who was buried alive) of John Evander Couey because the perp had no legal representation, is another white male. The judge went so far to say that this is not considered just a technicality because this is a bedrock principle in our judicial system. How about it's a technicality because there is no doubt that he did it! Having said that, we'll see how it plays out in the ruling because the girl's body is still considered evidence...so far.

Any cons about the book? Well for me there are a couple - but nothing major. First, is that when Ann Coulter gets into a subject that she's passionate about, she will go on about it, citing example after example - and this leaves very long chapters. I usually read her book before bed, or during other private moments during the day, and a lot of the time I have to stop midway during one of her pages, because she doesn't break until she has expounded her point.
Another con, which is a bit more major than the first is that Ann consistently lumps everybody that is left of center under the umbrella title "liberal". Yet, the "liberal" people that she is describing in this book are obviously the very Far Left. The Far Left can be considered a looney bunch, but the liberal friends that I have in real life would not ascribe to those backwards ideologies. The result is that some "liberals" may feel unfairly slighted by her sarcastic spew about her opposition.

Well, now I know how Ann would sound if she were allowed to speak and complete a full thought process – not so to the point, but to the many points, yet intelligent, and indeed funny, I know that I laughed out loud on more than one occasion reading her book. She is thorough and tries to make her evidence sound and strong while building her case, then again her background is in Constitutional Law, so I guess that makes sense. It was an easy read, and I enjoyed most if it. The part that dragged on a bit for me a little bit was the chapter on the teachers and the Board of Education, but every other chapter just whizzed by. Of course, many to the far left would not be able to stomach this book, but I think more “centralists” wouldn’t really have a problem with it. I liked this book so much, that I bought two more copies for upcoming birthdays.


Recommended: