The Britney Spears Of The Right
By Cliff Kincaid
March 5, 2007
The political equivalent of Britney Spears shaving the hair off her head, Ann Coulter made headlines at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) by calling Democrat John Edwards a faggot. Wearing a leather dress and a Christian cross around her neck, Coulter must be a liberal infiltrator whose purpose is to give conservatism a bad name.
I really felt sorry for those Republican presidential candidates who attended CPAC and were forced by the liberal media to respond to Coulter's remarks. It's guilt-by-association, but Coulter had to know that making such a remark would put those candidates in an uncomfortable, even embarrassing, position. As a former staffer and contributing editor of Human Events, I can't understand why this conservative weekly publication continues to feature her on the masthead as a "legal affairs correspondent" and puts her columns on page one. Jed Babbin, the new editor, must be sick to his stomach. Coulter's columns are anything but legal analysis.
In contrast to Coulter, Michelle Malkin, who was the recipient of one of the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media awards bestowed at CPAC, is an example of a conservative woman who can be provocative while making legitimate points. At our heavily-attended CPAC event, Malkin told me a fascinating story about how she managed to show some of the controversial Mohammad cartoons on Fox News, when the channel had made an editorial decision to avoid them because they were deemed insensitive by radical Muslims. Malkin had a poster of the cartoons at her feet that she suddenly pulled up and showed on the air when the producers didn't expect it. A Fox News contributor who regularly appears on the O'Reilly Factor, Malkin can be counted on to keep the channel honest. Her associate, Bryan Preston of HotAir.com, delivered a compelling presentation on the CPAC panel on Internet freedom about the efforts of such giants as Google and YouTube to suppress material critical of radical Islam.
AIM's other award recipient, Mark Alexander of the Patriot Post, is someone who has been a thoughtful contributor to the public dialogue. His on-line journal advocates individual liberty, constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, free enterprise, a strong national defense and traditional American values.
The challenge is to make this kind of presentation, which is essential to our survival as a free and democratic republic, just as fascinating and attractive as Ann Coulter's bizarre behavior and utterances. Coulter had assumed "rock star" status on the right, but her latest performance may mean that the rock is sinking fast. AIM has announced that it will be discontinuing sales of books by or merchandise promoting Ann Coulter. We hope that other conservative groups follow our lead.
This columnist led the conservative criticism of Coulter when she maliciously referred to a group of 9/11 widows as women who enjoyed their husbands' deaths. I wrote that "An apology would be consistent with the Christian cross that Coulter frequently wears around her neck." No apology was forthcoming, but Coulter still wears that cross around her neck.
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