Repudiation

Fasten your seatbelts...we're flying into the 2008 presidential elections, and it's going to be bumpy.

So, naturally, that darling of right-wingnuts, Ann Coulter, is already astride her broomstick doing what she does best--snarling, smearing, slandering slavering, and spewing her poisonous brew of hatred, lies, and venom.

By now we've all heard of her latest public vomiting escapade--at the Conservative Political Action Conference this past Friday, 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 I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”

What is this, junior high? You can't actually think of anything intelligent to say about--or against--someone, so, like any good schoolyard bully, you move straight to name-calling. Calling someone a "faggot" is especially good.

Funny, is it not, how conservatives keep insisting that they're such swell Christians?

Of course, the GOP candidates were quick to "repudiate" Coulter, to use the word that the news media have been employing...though it's a curiously watery type of "repudiation":

McCain (who was not there): "'The comments were wildly inappropriate,' said his spokesman, Brian Jones."

Giuliani: "The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate."

Romney: "Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mr. Romney, said: 'It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect.'"

Yow! One wonders how Coulter even survived such blistering "repudiation" from members of her own party! I mean, "inappropriate"..."offensive"...these guys are pulling no punches!

Note to the GOP contenders: What you meant to say, what you would have said if you had any sort of integrity, what someone with sufficient spine to risk offending the good "Christian" conservatives who suck up Coulter's putrescence like it was mother's milk would have said is this: "Ann Coulter is a reprehensible, hatemongering harpy whose childish, slanderous, foul-mouthed mud-slinging represents neither me nor the party with which I choose to identify."

See? That's repudiation. Not so tough, was it?

In the absence of such repudiation, the GOP candidates--and the other leaders of their party--are simply winking at Coulter's "naughtiness," and tacitly agreeing with her smear tactics.

And the witch herself? "Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: 'C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.'"

Ha ha ha. Did I say "junior high" up above? Turns out I meant "grade school."

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The quoted material above is from today's New York Times article, "G.O.P. Candidates Criticize Slur by Conservative Author."

The clip of Coulter's slur is all over the internet, of course, especially YouTube.

Hal Boedeker, "The TV Guy," wrote this oh-so-accurate piece in the Orlando Sentinel, "Ann Coulter: Forget soul-searching with her.

In the California Majority Report, Jason Kinney opines "Ann Coulter isn't Funny Anymore." I would quibble with the "anymore" part.

And finally, over in Australia, The Age hits the nail on the head: "Short on heroes, US conservatives start slurring."