Coulter claims Pelosi is not newsworthy

Coulter's column this week is an attack on Nancy Pelosi, soon to be the first female Speaker of the House. The attack is not surprising, as it seems to be a trend in right-wing media this week. A New York Post columnist called her a "shrew," and a FOX News anchor referred to her on the air this week as the "Wicked Witch of the West." This continues a pre-election trend during which — again on FOX News — it was suggested she’d had a botched face lift and Dennis Miller insulted her intelligence.

Coulter begins her column this week by complaining about the media’s concentration on Pelosi. She says she "thought we had moved beyond such multicultural milestones." But then she spends the majority of her column complaining that not enough attention was paid to Condoleezza Rice when she was nominated as the first black woman to be Secretary of State.

Coulter doesn't seem to have done her research very well. She claims that:

There were only 77 documents noting that Rice was the first black woman to be the secretary of state, and half of them were issues of Jet, Essence, Ebony or Black Entrepreneur magazine.

A Lexis-Nexis search for the time between Rice's nomination and confirmation as Secretary of State turns up over a hundred articles, all in major papers like the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle and others. None of these were in sources aimed specifically at African-Americans.

Claiming that media was "ignoring Secretary Rice's achievement" Coulter says:

A New York Times profile of Rice at the time waited until the last sentence to note in passing that Rice was "only the second woman, and the first black woman, to hold the job."

Yet, that very same day, the Times also ran an article that pointed out in the third paragraph that Rice was to be the first black female Secretary of State. So Coulter's claim that the media was ignoring Rice's achievement are simply the result of sloppy research.

Coulter doesn't mention Pelosi again until near the end of her column, when she says that Pelosi's election is a "minor achievement" unworthy of the "breathless" and "gushing" reporting she received. Minor achievement? Pelosi is second in line to succeed the Presidency. It is the highest elected office a woman has ever achieved in this country. Condoleeza Rice, while an accomplished and intelligent woman, was neither the first African-American nor the first female Secretary of State (those being Colin Powell and Madeline Albright, respectively

This column is not Coulter's attempt to praise Rice for her accomplishments; her goal is to denigrate Pelosi, regardless of how significant her election is. The main reason Coulter has a place of favor among the conservative media is that she sticks to the party line, not that she is informative or insightful,. She has only good things to say about Republicans, and only bad things to say about Democrats Her shoddy research and offensive claims show that she is anything but informative or insightful. Coulter's value to Republicans lies in the very fact that she is so partisan and divisive.

Sources:

• "Pelosi labeled 'Wicked Witch of the West' by Kondracke, 'shrew' by Orin-Eilbeck. Media Matters for America. Retrieved November 18, 2006.
• "Condoleezza Rice and 'first black woman' or 'first African-American woman'" for dates between November 1, 2004 and February 28, 2005. Lexis Nexis.
• Purdum, Todd S. "From Behind the Scenes to Stage Front." New York Times. November 16, 2004.
• Bumiller, Elisabeth. "Bush's Tutor And Disciple." New York Times. November 17, 2004.

November 19th, 2006 Posted by Eric | one comment
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