Jonah Goldberg will be replacing Ann Coulter at the Democratic National Convention as the conservative convention columnist for USA Today.
I’ve never been a fan of Ann Coulter, and her latest work has been bombastic, gratuitous, and lacking in substance. There’s a difference between being snarky and dropping ad hominems all over the place. Coulter is rapidly entering into Michael Savage territory, and that kind of reactionary bombast doesn’t help the cause of conservatism one little bit.
Goldberg has a much better balance of pop-culture humor and substance, and will make a fine counterpoint to the three-ring circus at the Fleet Center. Still, I’d be more than a little uncomfortable with being compared to the pompous anti-American gasbag that is Michael Moore…
UPDATE: On the other hand, it’s clear that the editors at USA Today seem to be unable to grasp the concept of sarcasm themselves. Considering that Coulter’s sarcasm is as subtle as a MOAB, saying "I don’t get it" in regards to her column doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the reading skills of USA Today’s editorial staff…
USA Today has some ‘splainin’ to do.
First, the paper hired Coulter and then got exactly what it hired, but that apparently wasn’t what they wanted. Why hire her in the first place? I don’t buy into the assertion at USA Today that they were familiar with her work.
Second, if Coulter is too controversial, then what about Moore? Moore is even more inflammatory than Coulter, and lies to boot. In fact, it’s interesting how Moore is getting the red carpet treatment at the DNC Convention…apparently, they love this anti-American propagandist. Yep…that’s the face of the DNC these days…Michael Moore. It’s also interesting that he totally overshadows their nominee, Kerry.
Not the greatest article ever but i thought the jokes were easy enough to understand. If those comments did really come from an editor, wow.
Goldberg and Coulter are essentially the same person. USA Today is trading one right-wing hate monger for another. Nothing worth reporting there.
Of course, according to Mark all conservatives are “right wing hate mongers.” This from a guy who supports Michael Moore, the guy who has spewed hate and vitriol towards even our own soldiers…
Mark has probably never read a column by Johah Goldberg, or he would know how different in tone and style Goldberg is from Coulter.
Goldberg’s style is very different from Coulter’s… I can stand to read the former. Goldberg may be snarky, but at least he has a good sense of humor and sarcasm, unlike Coulter, who seems to lack both… I’ll probably enjoy his coverage of the convention.
Another Thought, I’ve read dozens of Goldberg’s columns. My local newspaper has been running him for the last two years, after dumping a much more entertaining conservative columnist named R. Cort Kirkwood.
On the surface, Coulter is more vicious than Goldberg, but in both cases there’s a noticeable underlying hatred towards their political opponents. Yes, it’s the same hatred that exists in the heart of Michael Moore, and probably myself as well, towards Republicans. If Coulter, Moore and myself are three wheels of hyper-partisanship, Goldberg could serve as that fourth wheel as well as anyone else.
Mark: apologies for my assumption that you were not familiar with Goldberg’s work.
I don’t know that I would characterize Goldberg’s brand of sarcasm as having an underlying hatred to it, though. I’ve seen him on TV many times and he doesn’t seem to have such a hatred.
However, on both our parts, we can only speculate what is in the mind of Goldberg when he puts forth his commentary.
Jay,
I suppose there’s no point debating Ann Coulter’s merits or faults as a commentator — I think she’s wonderfully witty and incisive (if occasionally over-torqued or plain wrong); you don’t. Fair enough. But wow, you’re letting USA Today off easily.
They hired Coulter to write about the Democratic convention. Surely they were familiar with her style: as the author of three books and numerous columns, she’s not exactly an unknown quantity. So she writes her first commentary for them, which is no more acidic than what she turns out week after week for other media, and they promptly spike it and cut her loose. (Somehow I don’t think they’ll do anything similar to Michael Moore even if he writes that George Bush has sex with comatose underage drug addicts collected for him by a secret army.)
It was both quasi-unethical and cowardly to give Coulter the push. But I’m sure USA Today will continue to run editorials that affirm the importance of vigorous debate in keeping democracy running, the pious hypocrites.