While they were winning they didn't care what Coulter said. She didn't suddenly go bad on them.
They still don't care. MM's comment: "We were also inspired at CPAC by many heroes in the conservative movement who will never make the pages of the New York Times," with a link to the Coulter story.
Did you want to see the link to the NYT?
She's an easy distraction. Having problems with incompetence? Coulter will be sure to stand up and call Muslims 'ragheads' or political opponents 'faggots'. Good conservatives get to denounce her obviously crazy comments, and benefit from the distraction.
The only reason it's different this time around is Edwards' move to fundraise more, but I'm not sure what kind of waves that makes outside blogoland.
You get a "get out of jail" card for signing up, with no real cost associated with disregarding what you've signed, apparently. (Cf. Tac's "online integrity" crap.) Why wouldn't a lot of conservatives sign on? And why would it matter one whit?
Also, did they just close the Internet for repairs? I can't get LAT, Google Images, Google News, or many other things. WTF?
Scratch 2. Further down the page, she condemns Ann Coulter. But MM does not cry havoc!!1! and let loose the hyperlinks of war!one! like she did on Dan Rather/SBVT, and she writes a couple of lines that couch "faggot" in terms of a poorly executed, Kerry-esque joke. I bet a lot of Coulter's supporters will link to the open letter to satisfy their apology obligation.
5 - I was just reading a Reason HnR post on CPAC (linked to by the Lawyers Guns and Money putsch), and we've been looking at this all wrong! It wasn't a contentless gay-bashing slur, it' was a daring boundary-pushing joke about free speech. The schmibertarians over there have Ann pegged; she really is the Lenny Bruce of our time.
No, you're right, they're not morally offended by Coulter's words at all. There's no idealism here. The American Mind mentions that Edwards is using her to raise cash.
It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation's premier conservative gathering.
Love it.
To be fair, the people at Hit and Run are actual libertarians, with no religiosity or Glenn Reynolds-style lust for tyranny. That's right, the complete inability to understand the concept of "collective action problem" or "market failure" is found among even reasonable libertarians.
They use Coulter as a convenient proxy. They appear can push her words slightly away without really distancing themselves from her substantive view. They will wink to the homophobes, and then issue statements about bad, bad language. Not the substance, just the language.
The difference in the right-wing reaction to this ("C'mon, we don't actually take her seriously, guys.") versus the Deb Frisch or Ward Churchill dust-ups ("Teh Evil Left won't condemn somebody they've never heard of!") is amusing.
Fascinating that the main problem with Coulter's comments that the letter mentions is "this will not help conservatism". Not "this is amazingly immoral". Reminds me of Farm Hall thinking.
(British interrogators found that, while German officers at Farm Hall were ready to admit "we should not have invaded Poland because it meant going to war with our traditional ally Britain, rather than with the Soviet Union", they were completely unable to follow arguments like "we should not have invaded Poland because it was WRONG".)
Or of Talleyrand's comment about "This was worse than a crime; it was a mistake".
Fascinating that the main problem with Coulter's comments that the letter mentions is "this will not help conservatism". Not "this is amazingly immoral". Reminds me of Farm Hall thinking.
You know, I wondered about that myself. However modern American conservatism has to be classified -- theory, philosophy, ideology, movement, religion, or cult -- liberalism is really not of the same type. Not even counting the ritual, highly stylized theater of "denouncing", there is plenty of honest disagreement by parts of the left with its extremists or wackos, and the fringe has never been in charge anyway, not in my lifetime. But every time I see Ann Coulter or any of the other virulent anti-liberalism demogogues discussed by people who still self-identify as right-wing, the discussion has exactly two sides: those who support them, and those who want them to shut up because they are liabilities. That's it.
The Reagan Democrats, Goldwater Republicans and security moms have already left the Republican Party. In the right circumstances in 2008 and given the usual mudslinging campaigns, enough will come back for Republicans to win some races, but the theocons/plutocrats/Rovians are running things. You might not notice if unless you look closely, but if you do, it's a bizarre, unsettling sight.
Actually, "Farm Hall thinking" is pretty prevalent in American life. Conservatives might be the worst, but lots of centrist political operatives, and apolitical people are pretty predatory.
She'll go away as soon as you stop paying attention to her.
All depends what you mean by 'you', doesn't it?
If 'you' equals collective of rational non-evil people, then no; since recent history suggests a non-negligible percentage of people are non-rational and/or evil.
#21 gets it exactly rightest of all. Coulter's audience isn't only people who dislike her, it's people who want to hear her, too. She won't just go away if we choose to ignore her. It's true though, that the substance of any criticism involving Coulter should never be directed at her--no point there--but at her enablers in publishing, television, and the Republican Party.