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Ann Coulter's 'perfection' storm
Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Every time Ann Coulter opens her mouth about God or religion, she usually ends up channeling the Whore of Babylon.

"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," she wrote in a particularly memorable column shortly after the 9/11 attacks.

Ms. Coulter was incensed that non-Muslim airline passengers faced the same level of airport scrutiny as young Muslim men. To underscore how much of Jesus' message she had internalized over the years, Ms. Coulter showed how medieval her version of Christianity could get when provoked:

"We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

Because intolerance is as natural to Ms. Coulter as dyeing her hair a mustard-gas yellow, it was only a matter of time before she got around to saying something offensive about another member of the Abrahamic Axis of Eden.

Interviewed on CNBC's "The Big Idea" last week, Ms. Coulter told host Donny Deutsch that the America of her dreams "would look like New York City during the Republican National Convention" of 2004. "People were happy," she went on to say. "They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they ..."

Mr. Deutsch interrupted her: "Christian -- so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?"

"Yes," she said.

Mr. Deutsch pressed her. Asked if "we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians," the tarty Torquemada quickly agreed.

"Well, it's a lot easier," she quipped. "It's kind of a fast track."

Ms. Coulter finally got to the bottom line: "We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."

Ah, yes, the history of "perfected Jews" and others in the heart of the Christian world has been so inspiring over the centuries, hasn't it?

Take the Crusades for example -- please. Those bloody religious campaigns in the Holy Land provided a marvelous outlet for "perfecting" the Mohammedans and the children of Abraham.

The aforementioned Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of Spain and cardinal of the Catholic Church, "perfected" Jews so much that they left the country by the thousands in 1492.

History is one long march of "perfecting" unbelievers. In fact, it's a perfect storm of perfection: Catholics perfecting Protestants. Puritans perfecting witches. Protestants perfecting Quakers and other religious minorities. The crew of the Good Ship Jesus perfecting African "pagans" by carrying them to America in chains where they would experience soul-crushing servitude for an unimaginable 300 years.

What non-Christian could resist becoming a part of a tradition with this kind of history of perfecting others? If we were all to become like the happy Christians who smiled like idiots through the 2004 Republican convention, we would never have to fear another Holocaust, would we?

Judging by the makeup of the "perfected community" with all of its segregation and intolerance, perfection probably isn't all its cracked up to be.

During the commercial break, Ms. Coulter thought it might be a good idea to explain the notion of Jews becoming "perfected Christians" so that irresponsible interpretations like mine wouldn't dominate the narrative.

Mr. Deutsch allowed Ms. Coulter to explain herself, but it didn't help. Insisting that what she said "wasn't offensive at all," it was as if she had suddenly intuited that perhaps Jews were the one group she didn't want to engage in a verbal jihad.

In attempting to dig herself out of a hole, Ms. Coulter sounded even more incoherent the second time around. She'd obviously missed too many Sunday school lessons.

"We'll let the audience decide then, won't we?" the disgusted Donny Deutsch said, wrapping up the segment.

I'm in no position to cast aspersions on the depth of Ms. Coulter's faith despite how much it sounds like a goofy bastardization of the faith I claim as my own. Still, I'd love to know how she'll deal with this interesting tidbit:

"60 Minutes" reported Sunday that Ramzi Yousef, the al-Qaida mastermind behind the first World Trade Center attack, has converted to Christianity in prison.

Can repentant Islamic terrorists be perfected? It's an interesting question, isn't it? Given Ms. Coulter's penchant for demonizing everything Islamic, I wonder if she'll embrace Mr. Yousef's conversion as an example of the muscular Christianity she preaches? Is Ann Coulter truly ecumenical -- or just cynical?

First published on October 16, 2007 at 12:00 am
Tony Norman can be reached at tnorman@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1631.