• Legal Issues
• Controversial Statements

Legal Issues

• Questions have been raised about Coulter's age, and, thus, whether she was old enough to vote in some races she has voted in. Coulter's driver licenses have stated two different ages for her, one claiming that she was born in 1961, one stating that she was born in 1963. The 1963 license was issued later. Coulter claims that the later license is correct. If that is true, Coulter would have been 16 when she voted in the 1980 Presidential election, which is a voter fraud. (Franken 8) Coulter claims that she will not reveal her age because she has a stalker. (Wikipedia)

Controversial Statements

• A number of statements Coulter has made throughout her life have drawn criticism. Generally, Coulter makes many offensive remarks in order to gain notoriety. Such commentators are often referred to as "Shock jocks."
• In Slander, Coulter sought to criticize her nemesis The New York Times, Coulter claimed the newspaper did not cover the death of Dale Earnhardt, an issue that would have been important to conservatives, until two days after the race car crash that caused his death. In truth, the Times did run a story about his death the day after the accident. Coulter's claim was retracted after insistence from her publisher. (Franken 6)
• On Canadian national television, Coulter claimed that the Canadian Government sent troops into Vietnam, a statement that is innacurate: Ten thousand Canadians voulnteered for service with American armed forces in Vietnam, but the Canadian government did not send any troops of its own. Coulter defended her assertion as a minor discrepancy. (Wikipedia)
• In another assult on the New York Times, Coulter claimed that the newspaper linked the Christian faith to Nazism. Coulter backed up this claim with two quotes. The first quote, "Did the Nazi Crimes Draw on Christian Tradition?" was the headline of a book review. The Book's thesis revolved around that claim, and the Times disagreed. The second quote Coulter used to prove her point, "The Church was co-responsible for the Holocaust," came from an discussion page and was not the opinion or journalistic work of the Times. (Franken 14)
• In her book Godless, Coulter attacked four widows whose husbands had been killed in the World Trade Centers for their endorsement of John Kerry for President in 2004. She implied that the women were using their husbands' deaths to their advantage, and proceeded to question the soundness of the widow's marriages. Her comments in Godless included "I've never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much," and "[H]ow do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?" (Wikipedia)
• Coulter took another shot at the New York Times in an interview with George Gurley of the New York Post. She said that "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is that he did not go to the New York Times building." While, according to the interviewer, she demanded that he turn on a tape recorder to record that comment, that she was taken out of context. Later, when asked if she regretted the statement, she said, "Of course I regret it. I should have added, 'after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.'" Later, the syndicator of her column defended her comments as satire. (Wikipedia)
• Coulter has drawn criticism in response to controversial views she holds in racial profiling in airport security.
• Coulter has, on numerous occasions, written and said numerous things offensive to Muslims. Noteably, a comment made in her syndicate column read, "...I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about 'camel jockey'? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?" (Wikipedia)
• Coulter made the following well-publicized statement about John Edwards: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm - so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions." Numerous people said that Coulter was using the term, offensive to homosexuals, to characterize Edwards. In response, Coulter implied that she felt that such a comment would be insulting to homosexuals. (Wikipedia)
• Coulter has made controversial statements concerning women's suffrage. Most shockingly, she stated in a May 2003 interview with The Guardian that "...It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted." (Wikipedia)
• Recently, on The Big Idea, Coulter stated that "Jews need to be perfected." Coulter, while she did defend that statement, did not unequivocally stand behind it as she had some of her previous controversial comments. (Wikipedia)
• Coulter also makes the following comments in Slander, according to Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: "Liberals hate America" "Liberals hate all religions except Islam." "Democrats actually hate working-class people." "Liberals hate society." "Even Islamic Terrorists don't hate America like liberals do." "Democrats...will destroy anyone who stands in their way. All that matters to them is power." "Liberals can't just come out and say they want to take more of our money, kill babies, and discriminate on the basis of race." "Liberals seek to destroy sexual differentiation in order to destroy morality." "That's the whole point of being a liberal: to feel superior to people with less money." "Liberals are crazy." "Political 'debate' in this country has become insufferable."

Works Cited

• Franken, Al. "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right." New York: Penguin Books, 2004
• Wikipedia: Ann Coulter