T A B L E_.T A L K

First it was Tinky Winky. Add your conjecture in the puppet and toon rumor thread in Table Talk

___________________

Are you a media junkie? Get up to 80% off all your favorite magazines at barnesandnoble.com
___________________

R E C E N T L Y

The Teen Millennium
By Steve Erickson
From 'Buffy' to 'Jawbreaker,' today's culture makes teenagers the battlegrounds of cosmic forces.
(03/03/99)

Bill lettres
By James Poniewozik
Write about screwing your father? Ho-hum. Admit a youthful murder? Been there, done that. But confess in print how much money you make, and all hell breaks loose
(03/02/99)

Inside Outside
By Susan Lehman
Plus: New editor flies into Mother Jones; Janeane Garofalo and her body double
(02/25/99)

Steady hand on the Tilley
By James Poniewozik
The double "New York" issue finds David Remnick's New Yorker sailing smoothly. Maybe too smoothly
(02/23/99)

Pimps without portfolio
By Steve Erickson
Even after the impeachment debacle revealed just how out of touch they are, the Washington media elite are still trying to hustle the American people
(02/17/99)

- - - - - - - - - -

BROWSE THE
MEDIA CIRCUS
ARCHIVE

Conservative pinup battles "arm candy" canard
---|Ann Coulter will write for George. Plus: N.Y. cops get tough
------on the New Yorker; doubloon-or-nothing for Wenner

BY SUSAN LEHMAN

Ultra-conservative lawyer, author, talking head and confessed boy-toy wielder Ann Coulter has a new gig: George magazine just signed her as a monthly columnist.

Coulter, author of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," emerged as one of the most zealous Clinton-bashers on the season's talk-show circuit. Her George columns will run opposite those by George's other new columnist, former Clinton advisor Paul Begala. And we mean really opposite.

"I don't think Coulter and Begala are big fans of one another," says George editor Richard Blow, who is hoping the opposing columns will "generate sparks."

Coulter's columnist job coincides with increased rumblings that she plans to run for Congress. The rumors first arose in the Washington Post's Reliable Source column, which noted that Coulter -- whom Reliable Source called former Spin publisher Bob Guccione Jr.'s "one-time arm candy" -- "obviously wants to be taken more seriously" and, though "she won't say so yet, since she wants to keep working as an unaffiliated pundit," would run for Connecticut Republican Rep. Christopher Shays' seat. (Shays, who enjoys wide support from his constituents, ruffled some feathers with his recent vote against impeachment.)

In a letter to the Post, Coulter said, "I must write to correct a few of the many egregious misstatements in your ... Reliable Source column. I am not, and have never been arm candy for Bob Guccione Jr. The Gooch was my arm candy -- my boy toy -- whom I eventually, and regretfully, had to replace with a much younger man."

Demonstrating the will to be taken seriously that Reliable Source authors Ann Gerhart and Annie Groer reported upon, as well as a cunning blast on her own authorial horn, Coulter went on: "As for your report that I might run for the House in order to be taken more seriously, I am puzzled. Would becoming a member of the House really be a step up from being a New York Times bestselling author? If so, I might start really dreaming."

Denial? Non-denial? Who knows? It should be noted, however, that this month's American Spectator reports that Coulter told colleagues at Eagle Publishing, which publishes her column in the magazine Human Events, that she's planning to run for Shays' seat. At press time, Coulter had not returned calls seeking comment.

All-Monica stations had no problem putting Coulter on the air, despite the fact that she was involved in the anti-Clinton movement. But George editor Blow says running and writing don't mix. "It's not true [Coulter is running] -- not any time in the future," says Blow. "George wouldn't have given Coulter the column is she were in fact running. That would create obvious conflicts."

The Begala/Coulter columns will run in place of former George columns by Naomi Wolf and Tony Blankley.

N E X T_ P A G E | New York cops to protest outside the New Yorker