None Dare Call It Stupidity

A great conservative/libertarian attack on Ann Coulter.

This is the woman who wrote that Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta is "burning with hatred for America" because of his opposition to racial profiling in airport screening. This is the woman who said, at a 2002 conference of the Conservative Political Action Committee, "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals by making them realize that they could be killed, too."

For years, Coulter's admirers have excused such statements as satirical hyperbole or acid polemical wit. Her new book, it seems, has made some of them realize that she really means it. But even if she deliberately exaggerates her points, what is the purpose of this kind of "satire," except to demonize the opponent?