http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1050304,00.html
Ann Coulter and I were well into a bottle of white Bordeaux–and I believe she was chewing her fourth piece of Nicorette–when it happened. From what little I knew of her–mainly her propensity for declamations such as “liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole”–I thought it impossible for Coulter to blush. Many of her fans would later tell me it was her fearlessness they admired, her fully unburdened sense of outrage against liberalism, against anyone left of Joseph McCarthy (whom Coulter flattered in her best-selling book Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism).
But in person, Coulter is more likely to offer jokes than fury. For instance, you might ask her to name her historical antecedents in the conservative movement, and she’ll burst forth, “I’m Attila the Hun,” and then break into gales of laughter so forceful you smell the Nicorette. “Genghis Khan!”
So finally, I asked that she be serious. I wanted to see the rancor that allegedly is her sole contribution to public discourse (that and being a “lying liar,” in Al Franken’s estimation, as well as a “telebimbo” [Salon] and a “skank,” according to a blog kept by Vanity Fair’s James Wolcott). Why, I asked, did she enjoy attacking others and being attacked?
She composed herself and offered a very Ann Coulter answer. “They’re terrible people, liberals. They believe–this can really summarize it all–these are people who believe,” she said, now raising her voice, “you can deliver a baby entirely except for the head, puncture the skull, suck the brains out and pronounce that a constitutional right has just been exercised. That really says it all. You don’t want such people to like you!”