WHERE ANN COULTER'S OLD RIFFS GO TO DIE

Via Steve Benen, I see that Thomas Mitchell, the editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has proposed modifying the Constitution:

... we must repeal the 19th Amendment. Yes, the one granting suffrage to women. Because? Well, women are biased.

Just look at the poll results in today's newspaper.

Men favored the attractive former beauty queen Sue Lowden over the graying Harry Reid by 22 points, while women shunned their gender mate, choosing Reid by a 2-point margin. Which proves women favor Democrats.

Not convinced? Well let's back it up a week and look at the poll results published this past Sunday.

In a head-to-head match among Reid, Lowden and Tea Party pretender Scott Ashjian, the men favored Lowden by 19 points over Reid and women picked Reid by a 3-point margin. Ashjian was in single digits.

But change the Republican option from Lowden to former basketball star Danny Tarkanian and it is a different tale. Men still favored the Republican by 16 points and doubled their support by Ashjian to 15 points. Women, on the other hand, chose Reid by 16 points, proving they’d rather vote for a woman than a male Republican.

Men are consistent. Women are fickle and biased....

Yeah, it's offensive, and no less so because Mitchell followed up with an utterly predictable "I was making a joke! Can't you people take a joke? And besides, you people are the bigots, not me!" follow-up.

But while it was an offensive post, it wasn't an original one.

Ann Coulter has been doing this bit for nearly a decade. She famously said on TV in February 2001:

"I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote. No, they all have to give up their vote, not just, you know, the lady clapping and me. The problem with women voting -- and your Communists will back me up on this -- is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."

She revived this bit in 2007:

COULTER: If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly....

I'm not sure why Mitchell thinks it's good for his career to steal (and slightly modify) material from a wingnut has-been who's been eclipsed as a verbal bomb-thrower by Glenn Beck and as a pinup by Sarah Palin. But some people just like the oldies, I guess. At least he's not still quoting P.J. O'Rourke.