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In the Crossfire

Coulter on what she really means

(CNN) -- Author Ann Coulter turns her guns on the liberal left in her new book, "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right." In it she labels "Today" show host Katie Couric the "Eva Braun of morning television." To defend her claim, Coulter steps into the "Crossfire" with hosts James Carville and Tucker Carlson.

CARVILLE: Well, Ann, let's go to the screen here and put something up -- a picture or two of people that you talk about in your book. All right, now you recognize one of the people as Katie Couric. You may not recognize -- oh, there's a woman named Eva Braun who was Adolph Hitler's mistress and then on the last day of their lives got married and then committed suicide together. You might call that the ultimate shotgun wedding.

Ms. Coulter, in your book you say the "affable Eva Braun of morning TV" authoritatively informed President George Bush, 41, that the Republican Convention had relinquished too much time to what some term the radical religious right. What is it that Katie Couric and Eva Braun have in common?

COULTER: Well, again, I have to recommend the entire book or at least these entire paragraphs to the viewers. I had just quoted Katie Couric blaming the dragging death of James Byrd on Christian conservatives, a quote which is in full in footnotes only partially in the text. You can look at it on page 238, which I think is an astonishing, an absolutely astonishing statement. So yes, the point I'm making by referring to her as the affable Eva Braun of morning TV right after that, really, I think, rather ugly quote about Christians ...... is to say that she hides behind her Girl scout persona in order to systematically promote a left-wing agenda.

CARLSON: But one of the points you make in the book, and I agree with it wholeheartedly, is that liberals are embarrassingly quick to compare the right to the Nazis. It's appalling and you hear it all the time and here you are doing it. Now Katie Couric, you know, may be annoying. Sure, she's a liberal, but Eva Braun, I mean that's over the top and it's self-discrediting, isn't it? I mean that's not fair to compare to Hitler's wife. I mean if she's, again, if she's annoying or too liberal or whatever, but isn't that a liberal tactic to compare her to Hitler's wife? I mean please.

COULTER: No, I think it is not a liberal tactic at all, though it is a liberal tactic to be -- pretend to be -- absolutely humorless, Tucker. The quotes I used for liberals comparing conservatives ...

CARLSON: ... you are calling me humorless Ann? Come on.

COULTER: No, I'm saying -- I'm merely -- I'm saying what I'm saying. I don't know why I'm always having people say, are you trying to say -- you know what you can do if you want to know what I'm saying is listen to what I'm saying. What I'm saying is what I said ...

CARLSON: I tried that ........ I couldn't understand. Come on Ann.

COULTER: That is a liberal tactic to pretend not to understand irony, hyperbole, sarcasm. The quotes I have of liberals calling Republicans Nazis or comparing Republican policies to the Holocaust of bringing back slavery to throwing women and children off the -- off the -- whatever it is -- they're always being thrown off something ..... Those are not said in humor. They are not meant to be funny. They are meant to frighten people.