Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought this film, expecting a good examination of Coulter, her views, and the criticisms leveled against her. The main documentary portion of the DVD is less than 37 minutes long. That's right. Out of 144 minutes, only 37 is the actual documentary. The rest is interviews and video of her speeches and other bits, many portions of which are used *in the documentary itself*. I understand the concept of Special Features, but out of a two and a half hour DVD, shouldn't the main portion be a bit more than just 37 minutes? As for the content, it was obviously no more objective or unbiased than a Michael Moore film, though far less funny and far less biting. That in itself is not surprising, nor is there anything wrong with letting Ann Coulter have her say, since I'm sure there is much exaggeration and venom on the part of those who criticize her as there is coming from Coulter itself (her widely reported statement to a disabled Vietnam Vet being responsible for losing the war, for example), but it really would've been nice if they featured someone with legitimate criticism of her bigoted remarks. The closest it comes is when a clip of an interview with her by Bill O'Reilly is shown, when O'Reilly tells her that she is simply too vitriolic (true, but an odd message coming from someone like O'Reilly). Instead, we're treated to the same tired hatred she spews towards entire groups of people, as when she refers to "liberals" doing this, or "Democrats" doing that, as if those entire groups can be characterized by the actions of a few, accusing them of "supporting Saddam Hussein," and "supporting Al Quaeda", or when we hear her infamous comment about how we should kill the leaders of Arab countries and convert them to Christianity. One puzzling part of the documentary is when Coulter gives her signature praise to Senator Joe McCarthy, who she sees as an "honorable Amercian" and "great American patriot" about whom lies are told this day. The documentary features Coulter friend Bill Maher, who claims that he and Coulter are in agreement on the subject of communism, and on the fact that McCarthy was right that there were communists in the government (though Maher includes the qualifier that it wasn't as many as McCarthy may have indicated or thought), but in addressing the question of whether McCarthy was reckless or ruinous of people's lives, the documentary features only one exchange: Between O'Reilly and Coulter, in which Coulter challenges O'Reilly to name one person McCarthy slandered who was not a Communist, and O'Reilly incorrectly names Dalton Trumbo, who was slandered by the House Un-American Activities Committee, to which Coulter responds that "the reason he is known as Senator McCarthy is because he was in the Senate. Not the House." Coulter is correct in that McCarthy targeted suspected communists in the government, and not the outside of government as the House did, but the film does not follow-up. We don't hear O'Reilly's reaction, and for that matter, nothing at all about how McCarthy himself was a reckless, evasive, blind loose cannon who attacked his targets as much out of personal reasons as for reasons of duty, who berated witnesses, accused the entire Democratic party of "twenty years of treason" (small wonder that Coulter finds him heroic), who never provided evidence of his accusations, and so forth. Indeed, if McCarthy is simply a historical Job, as Coulter seems to think, then why were his methods criticized? Why was he censured by the Senate? Why did he suffer a downfall? The movie never addresses this question to Coulter. It simply rests on the laurels of one edited sound bite in which she apparently wins an exchange with Bill O'Reilly, as if that requires some great intellectual skill. And of course, her deliberate ignorance of important contextual facts is unabated. When we see her speak at Johns Hopkins University on October 9, 2003, she posits the question that even if the Iraq War was a war just for oil, "Why not go to war 'just for oil'? We need oil." Well, maybe we do, Ann, but the Bush administration never said that it was a war for oil, and just maybe, the American people would like their President to level with them when he tells them that he needs to send their sons and daughters overseas to be killed, so that they can decide whether they're for the war. Apparently, the deaths of the thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers are not things that she feels should factor into it. When we see her taking critical questions at this engagement, she doesn't seem to answer them very well: ----------------------------------- Young Man #1: "My question is, in a democracy, in a two-party democracy such as the United States, do you believe that it's healthy for democracy for one side or the other to be portrayed or demonized as traitors?" Coulter: "David Duke descends from the equal rights of, that our nation enshrined, that doesn't make him a hero. Because you descend from your country's war aims, is not necessarily unpatriotic, but it sure isn't necessarily patriotic either." ----------------------------------- I must be missing something here. Where did the guy say anything about David Duke, equal rights, or descent from war aims? Who said anything about descent from war aims being patriotic or unpatriotic? Unless there was some bizarre edit here, I just don't see what Coulter is talking about here. ----------------------------------- Young Man #2: "We've all seen the picture of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam Hussein, we funded Saddam Hussein, um, both in the late 60's and in the 80's, um, we funded, we trained bin Laden, we trained the Mujahadeen..." Coulter: (interrupting) "So what's your point?" Young Man #2: "...shouldn't, shouldn't the people who were behind that training, that spawned these terrorists, shouldn't they be charged?" Coulter: "So consequently, ya know, because alliances switch, an ally can never become an enemy? Um, so, then we don't attack anyone, I mean then you're excluding also excluding Osama bin Laden, so the logic of your position is, in response to the most devastating attack on American soil ever, what American needs to do, is nothing." Young Man #2: "You didn't answer the question! (responding to security guard pulling him away from microphone) Well, she's not answering my question." Coulter: (grinning) "Yes I did." ----------------------------------- I notice that the young man never said a thing about America's response to the 9/11 attacks. He merely asked her if the people who trained the man who is responsible for it should be charged. Again, edits could be involved here, but since the documentary is overwhelmingly favorable to Coulter, one wonders why the editors would cut the exchange in this way if the truth was that she actually answered his question, when in cut shown, she clearly did not. Yet another fallacy: Responding to the Democrats' criticism that Iraq did not attack us on 9/11, Coulter points out that Republicans were admittedly slow to respond to the threat of Hitler during WWII, but that after Pearl Harbor was attacked, and Republicans did not spend WWII attacking FDR because Hitler did not attack us. Again, Coulter omits the fact that Hitler declared war on us after we declared war on Japan (as well as the fact that Hitler had attacked our allies). Neither of these two things were true of Hussein, but then, bringing them up for mention would make the discussion more complex, and Coulter doesn't want that. She also calls into question comparisons of John Kerry's war record to George W. Bush's, remarking that Democrats had no problem electing a pot-smoking draft dodger in 1992, but now all of a sudden, value a military record, when in fact, the contradiction is on the part of Republicans, since it was *they* who made an issue of Clinton's war record in 92, and who now had no problem passing off George W. Bush as Presidential material, despite his drug use, his use of family connections to avoid combat, and his desertion of his post. Coulter adds that Kerry's war heroism would not help him anyway, since only Republicans venerate combat experience and Democrats "don't admire bravery." But one's view of Coulter may be most accurately informed not by the mere truth or logical validity in her arguments, but in what I consider to be very revealing statements she makes about how her view about exposing liberals is to outrage them, how "it's a lot of fun taunting liberals," how she enjoys in "[her] spare time, engaging in invective against liberals," how she likes hate mail, and about how she doesn't care what others think or say about her, and because as a Christian, she has the "net" of eternal life. There you have it. She isn't responsible to the people in this life to be truthful or fair. She doesn't even care if about whether her words are rhetorical. She likes to provoke people. To anger them. To make them crazy. To taunt them for reasons of emotionalism. She is, therefore, a cheerleader. Like Limbaugh and Hannity, she is simply a rabble-rouser at a pep rally. She is not interested in making people think, or in appealing to people on any intellectual level. Her words are all rhetoric, with liberals and Democrats demonized as "feckless idiots," "whiners," and other assorted terms of endearment, but without any serious discussion of the issues involved. But hey, there's nothing wrong with cheerleaders or pep rallies. But I don't think anyone would say that one goes to one to see an intelligent exchange of ideas. Perhaps it's fitting, then, that the movie is only 37 minutes long. It does not aspire to any modicum of depth or insight that would require greater length. Coulter's approach to her opponents is one-dimensional and prosaic. If you're a fan of hers, then perhaps this "documentary" is what you deserve. Me, I brought it back to the store, and got my money back.