I’m genuinely torn about even mentioning Coulter’s name; it’s probably a waste of pixels to give her the attention she craves. On the other hand, Coulter, much to my dismay, has become an important part of the political landscape, elevated by a conservative movement that she not only helps lead, but helps represent. To ignore she bile is, in some way, to let the right off the hook.
And right now, it’s worth noting that reality seems to be catching up with her, at least a little.
At least three major companies want their ads pulled from Ann Coulter’s Web site, following customer complaints about the right-wing commentator referring to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards as a “faggot.”
Verizon, Sallie Mae and Georgia-based NetBank each said they didn’t know their ads were on AnnCoulter.com until they received the complaints.
A diarist at the liberal blog DailyKos.com posted contact information for dozens of companies with ads on Coulter’s site after the commentator made her remarks about Edwards at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday.
“One of the best ways to communicate one’s distaste for Coulter’s repeated incidents of hate speech is to respectfully but firmly let her advertisers know you are deeply troubled by their indirect support of bigotry through their advertising on Coulter’s Web site,” the blogger VolvoDrivingLiberal wrote on DailyKos.com on Sunday.
The companies involved said the ads were placed on a variety of sites by a third party, and there’s no reason to doubt that. The important thing is that they became aware of it, and did the right thing. “Per our policy, the networked Web site ad purchases are supposed to be stripped of certain kinds of Web sites,” said a Verizon spokesperson. “This one could be considered an extreme political Web site, should be off the list, and now it is off the list.”
Coulter and others like her believe, with some justification, that there are no consequences for their lunacy. It doesn’t matter what they say, who they threaten, or what they do to the public discourse — just as long as the checks keep rolling in.
I don’t want to exaggerate the significance of these pulled web ads; they probably represented a very small part of Coulter’s income. But if people stop paying her to be insane, we’ll all hear less of her insanity.
Of course, Coulter is confident that she’ll emerge from the current flap unscathed.
Coulter was scheduled to appear on CNN last night, but cancelled and retreated to Fox News, where she boasted that the conservative movement would stand by her.
Fox News host Alan Colmes repeatedly pointed out that some conservatives have reacted to her Edwards remark with calls to shun her from the movement.
Coulter shrugged it off disdainfully, and insisted that conservatives will continue to embrace her. “This is the same thing we go through every six months. I say something, the same people become hysterical, and that’s the end of it. I mean I think the lesson young right-wingers ought to draw from this is: it’s really not that scary to attack liberals.”
Maybe. There are plenty of conservative bloggers this week who no longer want anything to do with her. But what about the right-wing establishment?
David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, which co-sponsors CPAC, issued a statement which not only refused to condemn Coulter’s specific statement, but more important, say whether she will be disinvited from next year’s event. “ACU and CPAC leave it to our audience to determine whether comments are appropriate or not,” the statement says. Also tonight on Fox News, Michelle Malkin, who has condemned Coulter’s remarks, acknowledged her positive role in the movement: “She is very popular among conservatives. I have been a longtime admirer of much of her work. She has done yeoman’s work for conservatism.”
I get the distinct impression that Coulter will go right on disgusting people for the foreseeable future, with nary a word from the movement for which she speaks.