(CNSNews.com) - “And then you don’t end up being pretty Rachel living in a beautiful brownstone overlooking Washington Square Park,” said Ann Coulter, reflecting on the fate of real-life women who bear children out wedlock versus the fate of fictional Rachel, who bore a child out of wedlock on NBC’s “Friends.”
 
Coulter sees Hollywood and the news media contributing to various social problems in the United States by approving--even glamorizing--single motherhood, a theme she develops in her new bestseller: Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims and Their Assault on America.
 
Coulter spoke about the book with CNSNews.com Editor in Chief Terry Jeffrey last Thursday.
 

 
Jeffrey: Welcome to this edition of Online with Terry Jeffrey. Our guest today is Ann Coulter. Ann is the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans; Godless; How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must); Treason; Slander; High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and her latest, Guilty: Liberal ‘Victims’ and Their Assault on America.
 
Ann and I are longtime colleagues on the masthead of Human Events—
 
Coulter: Yes, you were a fine editor.
 
Jeffrey: Well, thank you very much, Ann. Thanks for coming in. I appreciate it very much.
 
In your book, you say: “If a child in the womb could choose one fact about his parents—rich, good-looking, intelligent, easy-going, athletic, went to Harvard, black or white—the one factor that would improve his life chances more than any other is that they be married. (Or at least the second choice, right after ‘Mother is not ‘pro-choice.’)”
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: So, what’s the matter with single motherhood?
 
Coulter: It’s a disaster for the children. I mean, obviously some of them can overcome it.  But we now have thirty, forty years of data on this. Eighty percent of the prison inmates were raised by single mothers. About 70 percent of teenage runaways, of juvenile delinquents, and girls who will themselves get pregnant out of wedlock were raised by single mothers.
 
And, most interestingly, and there are a gazillion studies from both the left and the right establishing this.  I quoted one liberal think tank--the Progressive Policy Institute, I think it is---saying that they had a study, and if you take out only the factor of single motherhood, everything else remains the same—the socio-economic status, place of residence, blah, blah, blah--the difference in black and white crime rates goes away. That all social problems come from single motherhood. Apparently, children actually do need a father.
 
Jeffrey:  And yet in your book you print this litany of quotes from newspaper articles where one after another, no matter what the social problem is, the single mother is a hero.
 
Coulter: Oh, yes. No, that’s the issue. It’s just a perfect example of the alleged victim who is really the victimizer. First, of her own children, and then, of course, of society at large which is forced to pay for social programs and prisons and social workers.  
 
Jeffrey: Right, and there is a distinction between a single mother who through no fault of her own ends up in that circumstance, and some woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, or decides to divorce her husband--there’s a distinction there.  
 
Coulter: Right. I separate out widows, which are only six percent of single mothers, divorcees, and then you can’t blame just the mother, you have to blame either the mother or the father, and we’re not sure which. And that is even a smaller percentage than women who give birth out of wedlock.
 
Jeffrey: Okay, if it’s clear that the liberal establishment, particularly the press perhaps, maybe the Democratic Party, raise up single mothers as some kind of hero-victims in our society, why is it that they do that?
 
Coulter:  That’s an interesting question.  That one goes back to my book “Godless,” I think. They hate the nuclear family. It is God’s way. There have been attacks on the nuclear family going back forty years.  From Hillary Clinton’s famous thesis at Wellesley comparing the family to the Indian reservation system and slavery.  It’s a peculiar thing they have.  You know, Gloria Steinem’s a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.  They just hate this idea of the nuclear family.
 
Jeffrey: Do you think there also might be some connection to the fact as you point out in your book single motherhood often leads to dependency not only on the part of the mother but also on the part of the child?   
 
Coulter: Oh, they are creating a lot of Democratic voters out there. Yes. The felons alone.
 
Jeffrey: This is in fact a constituency for the Democratic Party?   The more single mothers there are in the United States, the more kids that are raised by single mothers in those households, the more you are going to have a population that tends to vote liberal and Democratic?
 
Coulter: Absolutely. That’s also why they hate the church.  When people have ties to their family, to their church, to their community, well, then they are less loyal to Big Brother.
 
Jeffrey: Now, you point out in the book--I am sure most of your fans are familiar with the fact that you are an attorney. Right?
 
Coulter: No, I try to hide that.
 
Jeffrey: You attended the University of Michigan Law School, if I remember correctly?
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: And once served on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. 
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: And you pointed out in your book a Supreme Court case that I was not familiar with. It was astounding. I’m just going to quote part of what you wrote about it:
 
“It was only a matter of time before the new rights the Court had accorded to unwed fathers would involve an adulterer claiming rights against the cuckolded husband. In Michael H. v. Gerald D. (1989), the Court acknowledged the concept of ‘marriage’—eighteen years too late—and denied the male mistress rights to the child he conceived with a married woman.  But the opinion rejecting the adulterer’s claims to his biological child was a shockingly narrow 5-4 decision. All five justices who ruled against the adulterer were appointed by Republican presidents.”
 
So, we’re talking about 20 years ago now, the Supreme Court had a 5-4 split where if one justice had gone the other way an adulterer would have been given the same rights over a child as the father.
 
Coulter: Right. The husband would have to clear out on alternate weekends to give the adulterer visitation time with his offspring.
 
Jeffrey: And, yet, in 20 years the balance on the Court hasn’t really shifted much on those sorts of issues, has it?
 
Coulter:  No, it hasn’t. That’s why conservatives are correctly so concerned with the Supreme Court. That’s a big part of what happened to marriage in America. It’s hard to even remember--with all the deadbeat dad laws and divorce laws--it’s hard to remember that a woman, in order to have rights to the father’s paycheck, used to have to be married to him before she gave birth, and if a man wanted rights to his child he had better be married to the mother before the child was born. That was kind of a crucial benefit of marriage. It sets things up: it provides this cradle to transmit civilization to the child. But the Supreme Court, thinking it’s helping out the poor biological unwed father, whose entire involvement with this child is being present in the room when the child was conceived--  
 
Jeffrey: At least, probably.
 
Coulter: --suddenly he has rights to go in and bust up adoptions. That’s when it started, those hideous, hideous Baby Richard cases from the ‘70s. 
 
Jeffrey: So, we threw out this principle that in order to have the rights of a father you actually had to be a husband and a father and there were logical consequences that followed from that that we’re beginning to see played out in our courts and in other places.
 
Coulter: Yes, and now the state courts and the state legislatures are desperately running around trying to recreate what one rule had established. They have these paternity registries so that unwed fathers won’t keep busting up lovely adoptions. Most states now have some form of a paternity registry where, I guess, if you have a one-night stand and you think that you may have scored, you go and register, within like six months of the child’s birth usually, so that you can have rights to the child.    
 
Jeffrey: Because even there the liberals think they might be going too far.  But here you have established pretty clearly that the dominant media wants to raise up single mothers as victims because it fits the social model they want. Perhaps contributes to the power of the Democratic Party, which is the liberal party in America, by breeding dependency. And the courts pursue the same agenda through a different avenue.
 
Coulter: Right. But the glamorization is really the most stunning thing.  I think you wisely do not watch as much TV as I do, so you’re more pure.
 
Jeffrey: I am not sure that’s true.
 
Coulter: But I must tell you, you would be shocked by what comes on TV. I have a paragraph in there of just major feature films glamorizing single mothers.  And also a lot of these sitcoms like “Friends”—it’s a very funny sitcom. The power of Hollywood to propagandize that way with one of the most popular characters on the sitcom getting pregnant out of wedlock and two of the male characters, of three, fall madly in love with her when she’s pregnant out of wedlock.    

Jeffrey:  It’s insidious because these teenagers, they sit down and watch this television show, it’s funny, it’s entertaining, it’s hip, all their friends watch it, but it is in fact delivering a social message that is advancing the same interest that the liberal press is advancing by holding up single motherhood and that the court is advancing.       
 
Coulter: And then you don’t end up being pretty Rachel living in a beautiful brownstone overlooking Washington Square Park, it is.  I think that’s the “Friends” setting—how anyone can afford that working in a coffee shop remains mysterious. No, instead it’s these poor, hapless teenagers up in Worcester, Massachusetts, who have the pregnancy pact, and they’re going to all get married in high school and raise their kids together    and one girl is having sex with a homeless man so she can get pregnant out of wedlock.
 
Jeffrey: That’s the reality of it.
 
Coulter: That’s the reality.
 
Jeffrey: You do write about the Hollywood image. In the book, you say: “At the 2001 Academy Awards, three of the five women nominated for Best Actress played single mothers:  Julia Roberts, who won the Oscar for her role in Erin Brockovich, as well as Juliette Binoche for Chocolat and Laura Linney for You Can Count on Me. …” And then you quote this guy: “‘This isn’t a fad, it’s a trend that reflects reality,’ said Jeff Sharp, a producer of You Can Count on Me. ‘There are increasing numbers of strong, successful women who are raising families and having a career without a partner.’”  So are you saying that this guy is contributing to social delinquency in the United States of America?
 
Coulter:  Oh, yes. That’s the funny thing, people keep wanting to present me with single mothers who are out there struggling.  I feel like I have come out against the tobacco companies and they want to have smokers come harangue me. In a sense, the single mothers are victims of the glamorization—there are some volitional acts that go into getting pregnant, science has narrowed that down now, you can check with any kindergartner in a public school to find out.  But it’s funny, you just read that list and I remembered that it used to be you would win an Academy Award for playing prostitutes, and Julia Roberts has done both.
 
Jeffrey:  Well, there is in fact a party line in the news media.
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: And there is a party line in the courts.
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey:  And there is a party line in Hollywood 
 
Coulter: Yes. Well, it all comes from--
 
Jeffrey:  And it’s the same party line.
 
Coulter:  Oh, it absolutely is. It all comes from the media elites. It’s interesting it creates this impression that that’s what America is like, and as those of us who have visited America know it is not what America is like.  And it’s funny even in--
 
Jeffrey: Ann, I grew up in San Francisco and that part of America wasn’t even like that.
 
Coulter: Oh, okay, so you know the media elites. You grew up with them.
 
Jeffrey: It’s my home town.
 
Coulter:  But even within their little fiefdoms at ABC, NBC, CBS—I hate to give the game away, but hopefully they are all union members--
 
Jeffrey: Card check will take care of it if they are not.
 
Coulter:  The camera men are right-wingers. The makeup girls are right wingers. The drivers are right wingers. They’re all smiling and waving at me.
 
Jeffrey:  As the pay scale goes down in any media organization, the people get more and more right wing. When you get to the guy sweeping out the studio, he’s a hardcore conservative. The guy asking the questions of the politicians is a liberal.
 
Coulter:  But they’re the ones that create the impression—just like “Friends,” the sitcom “Friends”—creates the impression that this is how beautiful, hip people live in New York, all of the hosts on TV create the impression that this what official, sophisticated,  what-everyone-knows opinion is.
 
Jeffrey: And also, people, no matter where they come from--someone may have grown up in Middle American with very much Middle American values—but if they end up at the top of the media they don’t bring those values with them.
 
Coulter: No, that’s right. They won’t end up at the top of the media if they try to.
 
Jeffrey:  In a similar vein, you write in your book: “The other reason people might become liberals is that they enjoy being told how pretty they are. And clever and talented.  And don’t forget brave.  Liberals love being praised for their courage. It’s hard to fit in being brave between being called beautiful, brilliant, and talented, but that’s the advantage of having the entire mainstream media doing PR for liberals.  You never have to actually be victimized to be considered a victim—a brave victim—by the media.”
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: So, there’s sort of an approbation that you are given if in fact you toe the line.
 
Coulter: Yeah, look at how Caroline Kennedy was treated, and then we heard her talk. Wow. Not so smart and elegant after all. Kind of a truck driver.
 
Jeffrey: But she still almost made it to being a United States senator.
 
Coulter: Right. By the way that was an unfair insult to truck drivers. It’s just not as appealing on a female.
 
Jeffrey: But this same temptation to get the approbation of the elite works on conservatives and Republicans does it not?
 
Coulter: Yes, it does.  Look at these guys right now. They’re letting Daschle go through. The New York Times is against Daschle. We have to get the New York Times editorial to tell Republicans to stop it.
 
Jeffrey:  How is it the New York Times got that wrong?  The New York Times actually moved around to the right of some Republicans in the Senate.
 
Coulter: Yes.
 
Jeffrey: Is Tom Daschle a victim?

Coulter:  Yes, he is a classic “victim.”

Jeffrey: Well, in fact he may be a victim of an overly complex and opaque tax code that few Americans can understand.
 
Coulter:  Right. If only Geithner would have pledged to clear up that tax system that was too complicated for him--treasury secretary--to understand.
 
Jeffrey:  Although these are guys who actually wrote our tax code, so they at least ought to be forced to comply with it.
 
Coulter: Yeah, I think so.
 
Jeffrey: How do you think Senate Democrats would have reacted if John Ashcroft had not paid his taxes correctly? You don’t think they would have treated him the same way they’re treating Tom Daschle?
 
Coulter: I don’t think so.
 
Jeffrey: You don’t think so?
 
Coulter:  He had enough that was going against him in being part of an obscure religious cult—Christianity.
 
Jeffrey: You think they would have confirmed Sam Alito if he had not paid his taxes?
 
Coulter: They barely confirmed him and he paid his taxes.
 
Jeffrey: You think Republicans in the Senate would have been critical of Sam Alito had he not paid his taxes?
 
Coulter: Excellent point. Yes, of course, they would have. They always think—as I describe in the chapter on Jack Ryan in Illinois on George Allen—Republicans, it’s the damnedest thing. They think that if we viciously attack our own, liberals will start playing fair and they’ll treat both sides the same. It’s as if Republicans want to bend over backwards to say we will treat ours the same way we treat yours. A: they end up treating Republicans much worse because then you have both Republicans and Democrats attacking a Republican for a minor infraction, but Democrats will never, ever play fair.