220 I Can Read You Like a Book D
body language signals her discomfort, and a stream of girly, dis-
missive gestures and nervous laughter follow. These are body
language for “I’m trying to push you away. I’m trying to push your
ideas out of the interview.” She physically leans closer to the con-
servatives in the studio as if to say, “Help!” Even to the casual
observer, her deliberate lean away from Colmes would project that
Ann Coulter’s whole being no longer wants to be anywhere near
this ideological threat.
During her Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown
Forum, 2006) promotion tour, a stop on the Today show also brought
her into conflict with Matt Lauer (whose tiff with Tom Cruise
receives attention later in this chapter). First, her “uniform” for this
interview and many others seems to be a sleeveless black dress
that is the same (or similar to) what she wears on the Godless
cover. Facing Lauer, with two-thirds of her long legs showing and
the tips of her blonde hair brushing her breasts, her presentation
made the point that body language includes choices of dress and
grooming. It was obvious that she was doing something analogous
to what she accused the widows of 9/11 of doing. Their dead hus-
bands are assets in making a political point, and they used them.
Ann Coulter’s assets are legs, hair, and wit, and she used them.
She inserted her points effectively in the interview until Matt
Lauer made one unsettling comment. Coulter had insisted that the
reason these widows served the liberal cause well was because
they couldn’t be challenged; that would come across as mean and
inappropriate. “Well, apparently you are allowed to respond to them,”
he said simply. She suddenly became a supplicant, with hands in an
almost begging posture. “Well, yeah, I did,” she responded.
