A Unified Front Against Coulter

How would you like to have these guys united against you?

Sean Hackbarth, The American Mind
James Joyner, Outside the Beltway
Scott Schmidt, Boi From Troy
Joy McCann, Little Miss Attila
Kevin McCullough, Musclehead Revolution
Fausta Werz, Fausta's blog
Patrick Hynes, Ankle Biting Pundits
Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters

Owen Robinson, Boots and Sabres
N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Michael Demmons, Gay Orbit

By now, you probably know they all issued a politely worded and compelling letter this morning asking the American Conservative Union and the sponsors of last week's CPAC to stop extending speaking invitations to Ann Coulter. Her reference to John Edwards as a "faggot," following last year's reference to Muslims as "ragheads" is the genesis of the request.

It's worth noting that the signatures of many prominent bloggers, including PowerLine, Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt, are all missing from the letter -- but not the controversy.

Power Line's reference was passing:

The other big news from the meeting was the deplorable word Ann Coulter used in attempting to make a joke about John Edwards. Always the huckster, Edwards is trying to use the remark to raise money. But Edwards is the guy who wouldn't fire a blogger on his campaign staff who attacked Catholicism.

Malkin digs in with a serious protest:

Her "faggot" joke was not just a distraction from all the good that was highlighted and represented at the conference. It was the equivalent of a rhetorical fragging--an intentionally-tossed verbal grenade that exploded in her own fellow ideological soldiers' tent.

There are countless conservatives who bring their children to CPAC. ... We expect CPAC to be a place where conservative role models speak with clarity, passion, and integrity. There are enough spewers of mindless filth, vulgarity, and hatred on TV, at the movies, and in the public schools. We don't expect our children to be exposed to that garbage at the nation's preeminent conservative gathering.

I was in the back of the ballroom and did not see any children in the audience during Coulter's speech. But what if there had been?

Would you want your children hearing the word "faggot" spoken in such a casual and senseless manner? Would you like your first-grader or three-year-old running around the halls of CPAC singing "faggot, faggot, faggot?" Not me. Not anymore than I'd like my toddler singing "gook, gook, gook" or "sambo, sambo, sambo"--favored epithets hurled at conservative minorities by leftist haters groping around in their empty intellectual quivers. There were hundreds of young conservative college students in the ballroom. Would you be proud of your college-age daughter spewing such epithets in her campus debates with leftists?

With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees.

Hugh called for an all-out Coulter ban, going beyond CPAC:

Ann Coulter is a political comedian who, like Michael Moore, often offends, and sometimes crosses the bounds of decency.

Yesterday she entered the territory where Michael Richards went when he employed the n-word to abuse a heckler. When Coulter employed the f-word to abuse a candidate, she made herself radioactive because the word is a simply invitation to hate. It was repulsive.

I cannot imagine Coulter being invited to any panel or television appearance on which I would want to appear. Colleges and universities must also stop inviting her to appear as a representative of the conservative movement in America. She is not. You want smart, accomplished and funny conservative women? Ask K-Lo, Laura Ingraham or Carol Liebau to appear, or chose from scores of others. But not Ann Coulter --she represents only a snarl and a deep need to be noticed.

With each of these outbursts of the outrageous, does Coulter expand or contract her audience? For a while, it worked for her, but the trouble with relying on outrage is that it's an escalating game. Re-using last year's outrage curries little favor with those who like such things.

So she's left with using the word "faggot." One wonders what level of condemnation she would have received if she had called Edwards "gay;" probably less, perhaps none. But that's not the point; it's the combination of ad hominem attack and disgraced word that Coulter chose for her speech and both are below the ideals of the conservative movement.

It's also below the ideals of Christianity -- something she should think about as the author of Godless.

Perhaps the right is hankering for an obscene blog to go up against the potty-mouth lefties. If so, Coulter's found her calling, much to the detriment of America.