GOOD GERMANS

Ann Coulter indirectly called John Edwards a "faggot" at CPAC yesterday. I have nothing to add to the massive outpouring of blog opinions except for this:

I'm sick of being told by tut-tutting holier-than-thou right-wingers that Coulter is a desperate has-been who really doesn't speak for them. Yeah, nobody with any sense on the right really respects Coulter. And nobody in Germany ever voted for Hitler, either.

Charmaine Yoest, blogging from CPAC:

Meanwhile, back in the exhibit hall, crowds were wrapped around the room waiting to have her sign her books. It looked a little like a camp-out before a rock concert, with kids sitting on the floor, some of them waiting for hours.

New York Times:

The conference drew thousands of attendees, many of whom waited in a long line out the door for a late-afternoon appearance by Ann Coulter...

Joe Budzinski of Novatownhall Blog, also blogging from CPAC:

I could have gotten in line behind like 400 other people to get the book signed and perhaps a perfunctory few words from her, but after seeing ... the unbelievably long line of fans - and poor Ann gamely keeping the smile and soldiering through the ritual - I just wanted her to be able to get out of there and have a scotch on the rocks.

(Emphasis mine.)

Reality: She is your biggest star. The people you claim to speak for feel she speaks for them much, much more than you do -- and they're right. She is modern conservatism's id -- she's the one who says what the rest of you would say if you didn't feel it would cost you your standing as reasonable, responsible people.

Want to prove me wrong? You cut her off. You boycott the sponsors of TV shows that still invite her on as a guest. You show up at her book signings and campus appearances and hand out flyers quoting her nastiest bon mots. You boycott CPAC next year if she's invited, and demand that others do the same. Or if you have a problem with boycotts as a matter of principle, at the very least urge your fellow conservatives, on college campuses and elsewhere, to stop extending invitations to her, given the profound harm you say she does to your movement.

But you won't do that, will you? In that case, shut the hell up, hypocrites, and acknowledge that while Coulter may be the bad apple in the family, your door is always open to her.

****

UPDATE, SUNDAY: And no, I'm not impressed by the fact that GOP candidates and shocked, shocked right-wing bloggers are now putting distance between themselves and Coulter. So she'll be kept away from candidates (which has, CPAC excepted, pretty much been the case all along), and maybe she won't be at CPAC next year -- but she'll still tour college campuses to turnaway crowds, she'll hang out a bit more in the world of right-wing Christianity, where it's OK to call someone a faggot (she's already a longtime pal of righty preacher Rod Parsley) ... and between now and when her next book comes out, someone on the left -- Michael Moore daring to make a movie? some anonymous blog commenter cheering on a violent act? -- will raise the question in Right-Wing World of why poor persecuted Ann Coulter should be a pariah merely for "jokes" and "political incorrectness." And she'll be back as if she never left (primarily because she won't have ever left).