Bullshit Artist Makes Good!

I'd be remiss in not calling this to people's attention, since it's garnering a lot of attention on the blogs. As everyone knows, Ann Coulter is on the cover of this week's Time magazine. I can't bring myself to read the piece, although the author claims to have had difficulty finding outright lies in any of her writings (to paraphrase Norman Mailer, "It isn't writing, it's typing").

Here's one: in her book 'Treason,' she cites a prominent New York Times columnist: "Thomas Friedman sniffed that racial profiling was not 'civilized.' He blamed twenty years of extremist Muslim attacks on, I quote, 'religious fundamentalists of any stripe.'"

Friedman's column was printed on December 26, 2001: "If everyone flew naked, not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box-cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalist of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude."

I'd say that qualifies as a lie, and not just 'spin.' It gets worse. One of the photos in the Time article itself propagated a lie. Here ya go-- photo and caption:

Demon and Idol: Protesters blast Coulter at the G.O.P. Convention in New York City last year.











To any shrewd observer, the web address on the poster would suggest that all wasn't right-- 'Communists for Kerry'? That would be because the group consists of enthusiastic college-aged Republicans hoping for just the sort of coverage that Time gave them. Six months after the fact. And when it had become quite obvious that the group was "satirical" in nature. That didn't stop Fox News from taking them at face value either.)

Time has since renamed the caption and included a caveat:

Pro-G.O.P protesters at the Republican Convention in New York City last year

Correction: the original caption incorrectly stated that these protesters were blasting Coulter.

Jeez, can you believe the bias of that darn liberal media? The link at the top will take you to a more comrehensive take on the story, plus some ugly stories about other activities of these fun-loving college scamps.

UPDATE: Coulter has already raised a stink about the cover shot. She frames it as a liberal conspiracy to make her look bad (gasp!), but it really is sort of an unpleasant photo. Dye job, mannish features, lined face. For a middle-aged woman who trades in pouty little girl-isms, it isn't exactly right-wing j.o. material.

It plays out as another member of the committed Stacked Deck Club crying foul over a representation that isn't airbrushed perfection. Bill O'Reilly is a proud member, too, after claiming that Al Franken's publisher airbrushed his photo to make him look bad.