With her latest CPAC stunt, Ann Coulter has officially positioned herself as the Bill Clinton of conservatives.
Let me explain - conservatives enjoy making fun of Bill Clinton because of his gargantuan ego. We say that he "sucks the oxygen out of the room" every time he makes a public appearance, so great is the effect of his personality upon fawning audiences.
Now Ann Coulter is doing the same thing. For two years in a row now, Coulter has managed to scuttle the entire content of the annual CPAC conference, save for her own verbal bombs.
Coulter is a lethal satirist. She enjoys twisting verbiage around and using it to deflate her ideological opponents.
Her barb at John Edwards was obviously calculated, playing off a recent dust-up between Gray's Anatomy cast members and mocking Edwards' own choice of two misandrist pottymouths to run his official campaign blog. And there is his unnatural obsession with his hair, too.
She is very good at these types of things; however sometimes she uses words that shouldn't be spoken in public by such a well-known figure. Apparently her desire to shock and to hear herself talk has begun to outweigh her common sense. For this reason alone, Coulter should not be invited to speak at next year's CPAC.
So now that Ann has uttered an "unspeakable" word, should she apologize?
When you think you are "right" about these kinds of things, apologies are difficult. Liberals (and virtually all conservatives) excoriated Coulter for her remark, yet liberals are no less guilty of expressing hate-filled sentiments, not to mention using the "other f-word" abundantly when it suits their own interests.
Several months ago I wrote some comments about the abundance of cigarette smokers within the gay community. I made a lame joke about "fag" being British slang for cigarette. I defended myself by pointing out uses of phrases like "fag hag" in pop culture, and noting that gays jokingly call each other fags, similar to the way blacks call each other "nigga." I guess you could say it was my Ann Coulter moment.
I got a brief surge of traffic when I made that post -- nothing draws curiosity better than controversy. But upon further reflection, it occurred to me that some kinds of controversy aren't worth the attention that they bring. I don't use that kind of language even around my closest friends, and certainly not around my children. And like it or not, if someone searches this blog in the future they are probably going to ignore everything on the blog save for what they consider to be examples of "hate."
I am truly sorry that I made that lame joke. I want to stimulate thought with my writing, not insult people with cheap shots. Likewise, Ann Coulter owes a sincere apology to gays, conservatives, and anyone who considers her to be a "role model." Sadly I fear that she is more interested in fame and money than in doing the right thing. Until she apologizes, I am not interested in hearing another word from her.
Comments