2, 4, 6, 8 — Let’s Eviscerate!

The Mama Shrew of American punditry is back at it. Long, lean, looker Ann Coulter never met a slur she wouldn’t clutch to her breasts for flashing in her next public pontification. It’s presidential election time so the willowy, blonde, right wing hatemonger will be more than out and about. Unless, of course, she stews in her own bile. We can only wish.

Coulter’s latest fusillade targeted John Edwards. In a speech to some conservative organization, Coulter didn’t let the presence of film crews dissuade her from her normal modus operandi. Slander is her game. Unless she’s working for the printed page. In that case, libel is the applicable legalism.

Coulter used the word “faggot” while dancing not so coyly around a descriptor for the Democratic candidate. Cute. Only the Limbaughians didn’t blanch. The rest of the political world no matter the party affiliation was taken aback. Coulter has no shame.

It’s par for the course for a woman who tosses the word “treason” at the left as if it were a nerf ball.

But I’m not here to condemn Coulter. Okay, I’d love to. Frankly, I’d like to smack her in the face. Tell her if she wasn’t so leggy gorgeous, her articulation wouldn’t get her any higher up the food chain than, oh, as a CEO’s loyal, take-care-of-business speech writer somewhere in upper corporata.

But, like I tried to say last paragraph, this isn’t about Coulter. It is about public evisceration. Coulter is the true dominatrix. She knows how to slash the whip.

Truth is my diatribe above on Ann Coulter is what I’m talking about. Unabashed, unequivocal defamation — it’s not an attractive trend. While it feels good to spoon her some of her medicine, I’m not proud.

I love Vanity Fair. Nothing is more entertaining and releases stress better than reading the details of a will fight between spoiled trust fund heirs of middle age. Dominick Dunne and Christopher Hitchens can be so delightfully bitchy. The magazine is a not so guilty pleasure.

In the March issue, there’s a prime example of the disturbing phenomenon that I’m addressing here — run of the mill public excoriation.

Michael Wolff is a regular columnist for the ‘zine. This time he takes on Judith Regan.

She’s the woman, you’ll recall, who wrote book with the “confession” of O J Simpson, the one where he hypothesizes as to how he might have killed his ex-wife. If, of course, he was the killer. Which, of course, he wasn’t. Or so he says. She also had a TV interview with the former NFL star come acquitted-murderer in the can.

Anyway Wolff’s portrayal rips Regan from pillar to post.

Wolff, a former pal of his subject, takes off the gloves. It is an eminently readable yet mean-spirited piece about an equally mean-spirited woman. Is Regan really as anti-semitic and ball-busting as Wolff portrays? Those are points he reiterates ad nauseum. He underscores that she was so manipulative even Rupert Murdoch had enough and gave her the pink slip, pulling the plug on the whole OJ Simpson project.

My point is the Vanity Fair article was a lot of fun to read. I’m thinking, no matter how nasty this Regan might be, this is really a hatchet job. A rusty hatchet at that. And I couldn’t put it down until I’d read every word.

But I’m also wondering is this any different than Ann Coulter, in a condescending and conspiratorial tone, inferring that John Edwards is gay? (Not that it’s a bad thing.)

Anyhow I’m wondering what has become of our 21st century socialization that a mature, bright public would crave such heavy-handed personality bashing? Have we lost our sense of decency? What are the roots of this malaise? Who is to blame?

I don’t have the answers. But I know this. If the trend continues, we’ll soon think of Ann Coulter as some milquetoast, just another braying whisper in a cacophony of stupefying defamation.

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