Even friends of mine who don't like Edwards love Elizabeth.  She's the greatest asset he has, and to his credit he seems to understand that.

and her comments deserve no formal response like the one that was issued.  The Dems need to stop being so wimpy!!!  Fire back across the bow at the wench.  Honestly - the response sounded so contrived, too politically correct.  Issue a scathing statement directed at her so the public undertands what a real wing nut she is.

Dems need to get angry in instances like this and put people like Ann Coulter in her place. 

We are all sick and tired of anyone supporting or applauding or introducing hate words into the national dialogue, tired of people thinking that words that cause others pain are fair game. And we are sick and tired of people like Miss Coulter thinking that her use of loaded words about the homosexual community in this country is remotely humorous or appropriate. 

I'm sorry, I don't find that either wimpy or contrived or politically correct.  Aside from calling her a head-case fruit loop there's not much else that can be said.

Nicely done.

It looks as if Republicans and the media will give Coulter another pass.  I don't know why Republicans allow someone like her to speak at their gatherings. 

What we know is that when she spoke, they cheered.  Since she spoke, the Republicans have by in large chosen to remain silent. 

Their inaction and silence speaks volumes. 

NBC has Coulter on shows like the Today Show on a regular basis.  This goes directly to Matt Lauer.  Anytime he goes anywhere, somebody should ask our pal Matt if he thinks John Edwards is a "faggot" and if not, what the hell is he doing with David Duke in Drag on his show all the time?

I don't know why I'm quoting Michelle Malkin, but here it goes.  From her website--her quick hit diary on CPAC events:

Ann Coulter just finished her riff on Al Gore, tossed out some cute jokes ("You can understand why Hollywood is concerned about global warming. You know what heat does to plastic."), and ended with a cheap one-liner about John Edwards being a "faggot." (Paraphrasing) She said she would refrain from commenting on Edwards because "if you say faggot, you have to go to rehab."

A smattering of laughter.

Not from this corner.

Crickets chirping.

Flashback: Last year's bomb about "ragheads."

Maybe cheap joke isn't much of a criticism, but then I went to her criticism of the previous year's joke: http://www.michellem...

Ann used the term "raghead" when describing what our homeland security policies should be: "I think our motto should be post-9-11, 'raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.'"

Ann says many deliberately provocative things. This one was spectacularly ill-chosen and ill-timed. I want the young conservatives who attended CPAC--particularly young conservative Muslims--to know that not everyone uses that kind of epithet.

I don't. Not in public. Not at home. I have no ill will towards peaceful people who happen to cover their heads for their faith.

My problem, as I've made clear on this blog, is with radical Islamists at home and abroad who threaten our existence. I don't care what they wear on their heads. ***Ann's comment gives cover to smug liberals in denial about their own pervasive bigotry (I'll show you 100 liberal hate mails and blog posts referring to me as a "gook" or a "chink" or a "filipina whore" for every 1 "raghead" controversy on the right.) Worse, the remarks reduce fundamental debates about national security profiling to epithet-marred, one-line jokes.

Interesting comments and food for thought.

and that's just who she is. But what pisses me off most is how media outlets humor her with paychecks, speaking engagements and book deals. I mean, when the Klan comes to town, you don't sit down with them and have a chat!

The fact that the liberal media has been reporting that the hard right has NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO CARRY THE BANNER. THAT'S RIGHT, NO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TO CARRY THE BANNER.  Bush is term limited, Cheney won't run, Allen, well Webb fixed him, 2006  mid term losers still in shellshock and the Northeastern Republicans dominate the ring. They actually are moving rightward.  However, for an exercise in fun I say, Romney, Rudy should still be for gay rights and abortion. Not because its the right thing,though that is good, but just to seehow many neo and theocons will be begging for their nomination. Apparantly Sam Brownbeck gets the conservative crowd, he also gets just small pickens of supporters. It'll be fun, just like the old days when Reagan ran, and the new right didn't like his Roosevelt leaning but they were desperate all the same.  So I think the slur is put out there to bump this juicy story out of page 1.

I cite it in my comment below -- lots of attitudinal polling as well on specific issues vis a vis the candidates.

First of all, the CPAC poll coincides with a Newsweek poll giving Rudy a big lead over McCain and Romney.  http://www.nypost.co...

The CPAC Straw Poll can be linked to at the website of the American Conservative Union.  http://www.conservat...  I had gone there to see if there was a way I could e-mail David Keene and give him a piece of my mind for paying Coulter to speak.

What's interesting is that while Romney won the "first choice" straw poll, Rudy got 17% to Romney's 21%.

And if you go to Power Point slide 14, you'll see the interestiing chart of first and second choices totaled.  There, Giuliani is actually ahead of Romney, 34% to 30%.

According to my wife, who wrote her PhD dissertation on voting systems, the type of voting system where one ranks the number one and number two choices is a better indication of actual preference.  (Also, as long as there is no widespread cheating, i.e., you don't vote for your actual second choice to make your first choice appear stronger.  But this is a concern only for less than 500 votes, and there were 1,705 in this pool.)

Also note that most of the attendees were young -- good for activism, not good for raising money.

My read -- in the early going, voters don't seem to care about Giuliani's messy marriage history (that's in the Newsweek poll).  But do they know about his social liberal past?  And he seems to have strong support from rank and file Republicans (Newsweek poll) and CPAC types.

They knew she was going to be incendiary - look at PM's comment quoting her using "raghead" last year, a term used to slur millions of people in dozens of religions. Write to the sponsors and complain!  Aside from the usual suspects who aren't going to care, there's
Entertainment software,
NCC Cable,
NRA,
a PR firm for among other things, insurance companies,
a polling group
National "Right to Work" foundation (hi, James Young!),
a direct mail company

Here's the whole list:  http://cpac.org/spon...

Dick Cheney is related to a homosexual. Edwards defended her. Cheney likes to talk tough, but he wasn't tough enough to stand up to Ann Coulter in public when she smeared his family.

The list of co-sponsors is a great resource. Many of them are linked to one another -- they're owned by the same or related people.  Example -- Grover Norquist's American for Tax Freedom is what he co-founded with the Islamic Free Market Institute. Norquist got seed money from Abdurahman Alamoudi, whom the feds sent to prison a few years ago for terrorist links.

IRONICALLY, Coulter made this statement on her website in order to deflect criticism:  "IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO DIVERT BONIOR FROM HIS PRINCIPAL PASTIME WHICH IS FRONTING FOR ARAB TERRORISTS."  Bonior is John Edwards' campaign manager.

She's referring to the fact that Bonior (and several other Dems, including James Moran) took campaign contributions from the same person that financed Norquist, Abdurahman Alamoudi.  Here's the Post story on Moran and Bonior taking money from Alamoudi.  http://www.washingto...  But Norquist, a prominent CPAC sponsor, is well known for his same ties to the guy. 

Here's a Michelle Malkin pieced on the terrorist supporter,  :

http://michellemalki...

WHAT SAY YOU NOW, GROVER NORQUIST?
By Michelle Malkin  ·  July 30, 2004 08:46 AM

The Washington Post reports that Abdurahman Alamoudi, once embraced as a "mainstream" and "moderate" Muslim activist who courted both the Clinton and Bush administrations, will plead guilty today to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from Libya in violation of U.S. law and attempting to hide it from the government:

  Abdurahman Alamoudi has agreed to admit guilt to three counts, including one related to the mysterious movement of $340,000 he allegedly received in a London hotel room from a charity funded by the Libyan government, sources familiar with the case said yesterday. The other two counts cover tax violations and lies on his immigration forms...

  Court documents to be made public today will trace in rich detail an explosive allegation that Alamoudi made in plea negotiations with prosecutors -- that Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi plotted to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah, de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia...

  ***
Despite this defiant public declaration of support for terrorists, Alamoudi was welcomed in GOP elite circles at the behest of power player Grover Norquist. Insight magazine reported:

  Norquist was Alamoudi's most influential Washington facilitator, authorities believe, noting that Norquist reminds friend and foe alike that he is close to the president's powerful political strategist, Karl Rove.

  Norquist, who previously has denied any suggestion that his work facilitated any wrongdoing, not only introduced Alamoudi to Washington GOP power circles but also Sammy Al Arian, whom prosecutors arrested earlier this year for alleged terrorist activities. Federal law-enforcement sources say they are focusing on some of Norquist's associates and financial ties to terrorist groups.

  Alamoudi ran, directed, founded or funded at least 15 Muslim political-action and charitable groups that have taken over the public voice of Islamic Americans [see sidebar, p. 34]. Through a mix of civil-rights complaints, Old Left-style political coalitions and sheer persistence, Alamoudi helped inch the image of U.S.-based Islamists toward the political mainstream and induced politicians to embrace his organizations. He sought to secure the support first of the Clinton administration in seeking to repeal certain antiterrorist laws, but when Bill Clinton failed to deliver, Alamoudi defected to Bush, then governor of Texas. Alamoudi and other Muslim leaders met with Bush in Austin in July [2000], offering to support his bid for the White House in exchange for Bush's commitment to repeal certain antiterrorist laws.

  That meeting, sources say, began a somewhat strained relationship between the self-appointed Muslim leaders and the Bush team. Some senior Bush advisers voiced caution to Rove, who is said to have disregarded such concerns, seeing instead an opportunity to bring another ethnic and religious group into the GOP big tent. A photo of the Austin event shows Bush with Alamoudi standing over his left shoulder, flanked by the former head of the Pakistani Communist Party, several open supporters of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups and other individuals Insight is trying to identify.

  Canceled checks obtained by Insight show Alamoudi provided seed money to start a GOP-oriented Muslim group called the Islamic Institute, which Norquist originally chaired and now is led by former Alamoudi aide and former AMC staffer Khaled Saffuri. A White House memo obtained by Insight prepared for coordinating Muslim and Arab-American "public-liaison" events with the White House shows that the Islamic Institute was instrumental in establishing the connection. The memo, from early 2001, provides lists of invitees and the name, date of birth and Social Security number of each. Norquist, as the first chairman of the Islamic Institute, tops the list.

  Alamoudi and others, including Norquist, tried to keep critics at bay by branding them as "racists" and "bigots."

(More here from Frank Gaffney, "A Troubling Influence." See also Mona Charen, Kenneth Timmerman, Insight, The American Spectator, Cal Thomas, Malkin, and Debbie Schlussel.)

Norquist owes a public apology to fellow Republicans whom he has smeared as bigots for raising fundamental questions about Alamoudi and the Islamist-supporting apparatus in America. More importantly, Norquist owes answers about why he partnered with a known terrorist sympathizer, whether or not he now defends Alamoudi, when he plans to stop hiding behind the race card, and what exactly he plans to do to disavow Islamist influences.

(In her piece she shows copies of two checks from Alamoudi to the Islamic Institute, which Grover changed to the Islamic Free Market Institute)

So, if she's accusing Bonior of having "fronted" for terrorists -- when what he did was accept some campaign contributions, she should rethink the accusation.  Alamoudi had a close relationship to Norquist.  (If you're further interested in the Norquist-terrorist link, the links provided by Malkin are a good place to start.)

This is now twice in the past few days I've linked to Malkin in a praiseworthy way.  But I think she's not as bad as Coulter, and I recall she complained about the "dirty book" accusations against Webb.  So she sometimes has clear thoughts.

Just go to the link --