The Blonde Flinging Bombshells At Clinton
Pundit Is Conservative In Politics Only
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 16, 1998; Page D01
The woman on the bar stool -- long blond hair, short black skirt, spiky
heels, chain-smoking Carltons -- looks like she's waiting to be picked up.
But Ann Coulter is actually waiting to speak to a conservative gathering at
Hunan on Capitol Hill about her favorite topic -- why President Clinton
should be impeached.
She serves up red meat by the slab, calling Clinton "crazy," "like a serial
killer," "creepier and slimier than Kennedy. . . . We're shrugging about this
guy using this woman like a dog. . . . He's behaving like some sort of sultan
or tin-pot dictator." And in case anyone missed the point, "I just want to
get rid of him."
Two years ago, Coulter was an obscure Senate aide. Now she's a fixture
on the shout-show circuit, which led to a book contract, which led to an ad
featuring a sultry-looking Coulter with the headline: "Bill's Last Blonde?"
"Bill Clinton's worst nightmare just came true. . . . Meet Ann Coulter, the
constitutional lawyer turned journalist who finally puts the case for Bill
Clinton's impeachment to bed." So to speak.
Coulter proudly claims membership in the small band of what she calls
"blond right-wing pundits" -- up close, her chemically enhanced mane is a
blinding yellow -- because she says it creates a "market niche" for her
anti-Clinton views. She professes mild embarrassment at the "Last Blonde"
ad, but says nonchalantly that Regnery Publishing has concluded that "sex
sells."
Indeed it does. Coulter's book, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," written
in seven months and bringing her to the verge of a "nervous breakdown,"
has rocketed to No. 5 on the New York Times bestseller list. The book is
a 314-page polemic that combines legal scholarship with a kitchen-sink
review of every charge, from orchestrating tax audits of conservative
groups to supposedly arranging hush money for Webb Hubbell, ever
hurled against the president. And its success has prompted the 34-year-old
lawyer to quit her day job and devote full time to peddling the book, and
herself.
"We thought she'd make a good author for promoting it," says Alfred
Regnery, head of the conservative publishing house. "She's feisty and gets
attention."
While Coulter can toss off references to James Madison's view of
impeachment as quickly as the next lawyer, she delights in going for the
jugular. On "Rivera Live," she said Clinton's use of his secretary, Betty
Currie, "is so craven and cowardly. It's like a hostage holding a baby in
front of him. . . . He would use taxpayer-funded jobs to pay off his little
government-funded brothel."
On "Equal Time": "We're now at the point that it's beyond whether or not
this guy is a horny hick. I really think it's a question of his mental stability.
He really could be a lunatic. . . . I think it is a rational question for
Americans to ask whether their president is insane."
Lunatic? Insane? Coulter's inflammatory style, not surprisingly, has its
detractors.
"She is annoying," says Democratic strategist Victor Kamber, who often
debates her on cable shows. "She's a very opinionated, black-and-white
type person. But I'm as rude as she is. I'll shout just as loud as she will.
With Ann, it's much more of a brawl."
Others refuse to appear with her. "She is entitled to her own style, and it's
been successful for her," says former White House spinmeister Lanny
Davis. "It's not my style, and I just am not comfortable with her style."
But Coulter is more than comfortable. "She's loving being able to voice her
views, to get her message out there," says Dan Travers, a friend since
Cornell University, where Coulter launched the conservative Cornell
Review. "She likes the attention and the fans. She thrives on the whole
thing."
Coulter seems to delight in making trouble for her employers. "I had
vituperative arguments with Regnery that required a number of tantrums to
pull off," she says. She is "still bitter" about the publisher's refusal to use her
favorite chapter title, "Fellatio Ad Absurdum." "They thought it was too
racy. . . . They kept coming up with these stupid titles," she says. (Chapter
headings include "Blasting the Bimbos," "Prevaricator in Chief" and "A
Cancer on the Country.")
She acquits herself of the charge of using her sexuality to hawk the book.
"I'm not, they are," Coulter insists. "I did draw the line at a completely
absurd radio ad they wanted me to read. It was ridiculous. I've written a
serious book. It went something like 'They call me Bill's last blonde, I'm
keeping him up at night.' They begged and pleaded. I crossed my arms and
just said no."
Coulter does more than play a conservative on television. She advised
Paula Jones's lawyers in their suit against Clinton and helped Jones find
new attorneys when the first pair quit. She referred Linda Tripp to her
attorney friend, Jim Moody (Coulter and Moody are both Deadheads who
followed the Grateful Dead to dozens of far-flung concerts, she says).
Coulter says she suggested to Moody that Tripp take her tapes of Monica
Lewinsky to independent counsel Kenneth Starr; he had already thought of
the idea.
On a recent edition of "Crossfire," Coulter was briefly speechless when
asked if she had heard any of Tripp's tapes before the story became
public. She now admits she heard one of the tapes, saying that an
unidentified friend needed her recording equipment to copy it.
"I was a little concerned about the 'right-wing cabal' appearance of things,"
Coulter says. Although Starr is examining whether Tripp lied about how
the tapes were made, Coulter says she's not worried about being
questioned.
Both Coulter and Moody say he was not the source. "She's kind of
annoyed at me for not giving her the tapes so she could put them in her
book," Moody says. Still, he says, "I always enjoy her because she doesn't
pull her punches. We all want to appear dignified and thoughtful and
contemplative, and Ann is just Ann."
A native of New Canaan, Conn., Coulter attended law school at the
University of Michigan, where she founded the local chapter of the
Federalist Society, a conservative scholars' group (or as Coulter puts it, "a
bunch of nerd lawyers interpreting the Constitution"). She did stints as a
Justice Department attorney and appeals court clerk before practicing
corporate law in New York. "Mind-numbingly boring," she sniffs.
When the Republicans won control of Congress in 1994, Coulter moved
here to work for Sen. Spencer Abraham (R-Mich.), a Federalist Society
activist. She says she took a two-thirds pay cut, to $35,000 ("I thought
you got welfare benefits at that level"). Her goal was "to repeal the New
Deal," but her portfolio was confined to such issues as immigration law.
In the summer of 1996, Coulter, who didn't own a TV until she moved
here, became a part-time talking head for MSNBC, the new kid on the
cable block. "I was one of their dopey little contributors," she says. "They
kept firing me, but then they'd rehire me. People just went mental when
they saw a real conservative on TV."
Her cutting comments became legendary. While Pamela Harriman's casket
was being carried off an airplane, she described the late ambassador as
having slept her way to the top. "What she said was so outrageous she was
immediately put on probation, and the next one was even worse," an
MSNBC official says.
Coulter was debating a disabled Vietnam vet when she snapped: "People
like you caused us to lose that war." (She says she didn't know the guest,
appearing by satellite, was disabled.) That ended her MSNBC career.
Coulter later calls a reporter back to share other lowlights from her
MSNBC days. She once indirectly referred to Clinton as "white trash."
And she was scathing after Princess Diana's death, taking on what she calls
"the pathetic loser soccer moms who just wanted to call in and weep about
Lady Di."
"I probably shouldn't be bragging about this," says Coulter, adding that she
was rather upset (and hired a lawyer) at the time.
On the romantic front, Coulter seems to flit from one relationship to the
next. After moving to Washington, she dated a Democratic Senate staffer
whose legislative efforts she opposed. Then she began seeing Bob
Guccione Jr., the controversial founder of Spin magazine, until becoming
disenchanted in March. Now she's involved with an FBI agent.
Having catapulted herself into the television ranks of other blond
conservatives (Laura Ingraham, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Barbara Olson),
Coulter left the Senate to write a column for Human Events and litigate
cases for the Center for Individual Rights. Terry Pell, the center's senior
counsel, says they parted company two weeks ago because "it was clear
she was never going to have the time to come back." But Coulter says she
quit because "the book was a little too hot for them. I was getting too big."
Once the blonde-ambition tour is over, Coulter plans to do more than just
television. "You want to be careful not to become just a blowhard," she
says.
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And I knew her before she was blond! |
