Book picture not hyperlinkedSlander: Liberal Lies About the American Right
by Ann Coulter
Crown. 256 pp.
Among the recurring characters on NBC's acclaimed show The West Wing, the most improbable is a sharp-tongued, right-wing lady lawyer who, having bested a top White House staffer on one of the political talk shows, is invited to join the Democratic administration. Young, blonde, and beautiful, she hates taxes, loves guns, and considers liberals smug and patronizing—yet, when the President calls, she feels duty-bound to serve.
What is improbable in all this is not the basic profile. The character is a composite of such real-life media personalities as Laura Ingraham, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, the late Barbara Olson, and, of course, the queen of the fair-haired, conservative fire-breathers, Ann Coulter, all of whom rose to prominence as cable-TV talking heads during the Clinton scandals. What makes the character on The West Wing utterly incredible, nothing more than the fantasy of an overimaginative screenwriter, is the idea that any of these women, least of all Coulter, would be tolerated for a moment in a den of hungry liberals—or would allow herself to be so easily tamed.
