More responses to Ann Coulter, comedian extraordinaire

The NY Times blog has a post up about the Coulter affair from yesterday afternoon. John McCain's spokesman said:

The comments were wildly inappropriate.

Romney's said:

It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.

Edwards's campaign manager said:

John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power. Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter's resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion.

And the CPAC frontpage as of five minutes ago:



Speaks for itself.

That's it so far. I'm not going to update anymore on this until Monday, unless something huge happens.

But a few things about this whole incident. First, I'm not surprised and honestly don't care what Ann Coulter said. Really. I've stopped caring about anything that this woman says because she focuses on being shocking instead of being informative, as evidenced here or when she called Gore a fag or suggested that both Hiillary and Bill Clinton were gay or called Helen Thomas a security risk for being "an old Arab" or.... The list goes on and on. That's not the point. The important part is the reaction of the people attending. This wasn't a far-right fringe crowd - this is the mainstream conservative movement. Cheney and almost all the potential GOP presidential candidates were in attendance and a whole lot of people in the audience laughed. Who can say whether or not any of presidential candidates were laughing at this "joke"?

Moreover, Coulter basically did the same thing last year when she referred to people of Middle Eastern descent as "ragheads". At the same conference. She can't be surprising anyone on the Right by going over the edge; inviting her to speak at anything is a known risk. Yet the conservative movement continues to ask her to speak at their events. One can only assume that they not only agree with her comments, they value them as insight.

Second, while McCain responded (even though he wasn't there) and Romney "responded" (What does he think about the fact that she endorsed him in the same speech? Will he put himself at risk for losing her "constituency" or will he do what's right?), we still haven't heard anything from the coordinators of the CPAC, the leadership of the American Conservative Union that put the whole thing together, the other potential candidates there, the leadership of the GOP, or vice president Cheney. If they answer on Monday, just know that they were calculating their response. This should be a no-brainer, but when a good part of your party thinks that what she said was not only funny but the spot on (Edwards should be labeled as gay because he is progressive, being gay is bad, using the word faggot to attack someone is A-O-K), you've got to navigate your way around this carefully.

I don't mean to say that the entire Republican Party agrees with her, just that a very large part of them does. So when these specific Republicans who were there and yet have not responded ask for your votes, remember that they are worried about losing votes for thinking about you as anything more than a faggot.

Third: Come on, Mr. Cheney, say something. Coulter was attacking your daughter....

(Crossposted to bilerico)

Coulter calls John Edwards a "Faggot", shines as conservative star

Y'all know how Republicans whine so much about how reliably Democratic GLBT folk are? Well, maybe it has something to do with the Conservative Movement's sweetheart. Ms. Coulter said:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot', so....

Don't worry, she was at some small, fringe crowd, introduced by a no-name, and was booed as a result.

Oh, wait, what's that? She was at the CPAC conference? And she was introduced by Mitt Romney? And everyone laughed and cheered?

Kagro X at DailyKos said:

Click here for video of Romney walking out in protest.

Oh, wait. There is no such video.

Video at and h/t to Crooks and Liars.


UPDATE: The HRC responds:

"To interject this word into American political discourse is a vile and disgusting way to sink the debate to a new, all-time low," said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese. "Make no doubt about it, these remarks go directly against what our Founding Fathers intended and have no place on the schoolyard, much less our country's political arena."

[....]

The Conservative Political Action Conference was attended by 2008 Republican Presidential candidates: Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and former Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA). Vice President Dick Cheney also attended the event.

'nuf said.

UPDATE II: Media Matters has more. Coulter endorsed Romney in that speech too. I'm sure that makes him happy. But also this was interesting to show how out-of-touch with reality Coulter is:

Well, you know, screw you, I'm not anti-gay. We're against gay marriage. I don't want gays to be discriminated against. I mean, I think we have, in addition to blacks, I don't know why all gays aren't Republicans. I think we have the pro-gay position, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money, and they're victims of crime. I mean, the way -- no, they are. They should be with us. But the media portrays us.

Besides the fact that she's flat wrong on her claims about queer incomes, she plays the big, bad media card in the same speech where she calls John Edwards a faggot.

I'm updating this story a lot tonight because this is starkly honest compared to the majority of conservative rhetoric on gay and lesbian people. Here we have, at the largest conservative conference of the year, one of the most if not the most prominent conservative commentators of our time calling another prominent figure a faggot in front of almost all the potential presidential nominees of the GOP and the Republican vice president, and not one of them has repudiated what she said. Media Matters already did. The HRC already did. Governor Dean already did. Even Michelle Malkin did... well, kinda sorta mentioned it and implied that she thought it wasn't cool. It's not that hard to put out a press statement on the matter. I've put out this whole long post this evening and I went to the gym and ate dinner and listened to Nas and watched Las Vegas all since Coulter's comment (great Friday night!).

So if they come out with a statement tomorrow or next Monday, remember that they needed time to calculate their position. That's the only thing that could be causing this delay. And if they never denounce her, then they should at least have the decency to stop playing the media bias card when people call Republicans anti-gay. But I won't hold my breath.