10 Questions For Ann Coulter

By Lev Grossman

When Ann Coulter published Slander last year, she didn't just score a surprise No. 1 best seller; she also discovered an entire new audience hungry for her notoriously sharp-tongued, unabashedly right-wing rhetoric. Now she's back with Treason (Crown Forum; 355 pages), and as TIME's Lev Grossman discovered, she has in no way mellowed with age.

SO WHAT'S THE NEW BOOK ABOUT? The idea of the book is that liberals have a tendency to take the position most disadvantageous to their country. This isn't anything new. They have taken patriotism off the table as a topic for political debate. And they've done that by invoking McCarthyism, a myth of their own creation.

ARE YOU PREPARED FOR PEOPLE TO FREAK OUT WHEN THEY REALIZE YOU'RE TRYING TO REHABILITATE JOSEPH MCCARTHY? On the basis of doing my research, I've noticed that liberals have been hysterical about McCarthy for 50 years and no one's been arguing back. So now that someone's arguing back, yes, I'm expecting candlelight vigils.

IN TREASON YOU SAY, "LIBERALS' PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE WAR ON TERRORISM HAS BEEN TO BILL THEMSELVES AS A CORRECTIVE TO 'JINGOISM.' THEIR REAL GOAL IS TOO APPALLING TO STATE OUT LOUD." CARE TO STATE IT OUT LOUD? They are rooting against America. I don't think there is any other way to explain hysterical claims of a civil-liberties emergency in this country every time John Ashcroft talks to a Muslim. No serious person thinks that we are in the middle of a civil-liberties crisis. We have just seen thousands of fellow Americans slaughtered by legal immigrants to this country. And John Ashcroft has detained several hundred illegal immigrants?

YOUR TONE CAN BE A LITTLE SHRILL SOMETIMES. DON'T YOU THINK THAT WHAT WE NEED RIGHT NOW IS UNITY, NOT MORE ACRIMONY? What we need now is to fight the war on terrorism, and liberals don't want to. I think it's more important long term that we have two parties, both of which want to defend the nation.

DO YOU SEE A WAY FORWARD FOR AMERICANS TO COME TOGETHER POLITICALLY, AS A COUNTRY? Oh, yes. I do. The Democratic Party has got to go away. It's got to just hang up its stirrups. I really think it has functionally gone the way of the Whigs, and it's just a matter of enough Democrats figuring that out. Can't both parties agree on the defense of America? I mean, it was not like this in World War II. The Republicans were not constantly taunting F.D.R., "Well, he doesn't have Hitler yet! He doesn't have Hitler! Where are these alleged death camps?" The country pulled together! Both parties!

ARE YOU CONCERNED THAT PRESIDENT BUSH MAY HAVE EXAGGERATED EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION IN IRAQ? No. People who love their country ought to be more concerned about what happened to those weapons. Are they in Syria? Are they in al-Qaeda's hands? Are they going to end up in New York? And instead, all we get is female taunting from the Democrats.

DID YOU SAY FEMALE TAUNTING? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN EXACTLY? [Laughs.] I think your readers will understand it.

TREASON CAME OUT SHORTLY AFTER HILLARY CLINTON'S BOOK. WHOSE IS GOING TO SELL BETTER? I was not happy to find out that her book--her three ghostwriters' book--was coming out a few weeks before mine. But I'm completely confident that among real readers, in any fair fight, I could beat her. And also that more people will actually read my book.

WHAT'S YOUR TAKE ON THE SUPREME COURT'S RULING THAT ANTISODOMY LAWS ARE UNCONSTITUTIONAL? Gay sex may well be a mystery of life, but I'll be damned if I can find it in the Constitution.

DO INTERVIEWERS TRY TO PROVOKE YOU INTO SAYING OUTRAGEOUS THINGS JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE ANN COULTER? No. I do that on my own.

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COLOR PHOTO: SHONNA VALESKA FOR TIME