Cutting Coulter's Cashflow

CNN says that several companies are dropping Ann Coulter's website as an advertising destination following her speech at CPAC.

What should really be interesting to watch is whether the party faithful on the right have finally tired of her inane stabs at humor and quit booking her for speeches. It should be clear to everyone that she advances no one's cause (except, increasingly, those of her targets) so maybe we can look forward to a Coulter-lite future.

I can't imagine that Sean Hannity will ever be able to say no to Ann, but I think the rest of us can use that as a barometer for seriousness. Serious people don't book Ann Coulter. If you see Ann Coulter on a television program, you know immediately that nothing serious will be discussed, no solutions will be identified, and nothing important to America will be advanced. Period.

Incidentally, Howard Kurtz has a column up today that tries to play up the "anti-gay" angle of her remark. Coulter is quoted (from a Hannity appearance, naturally) as saying, "the word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference. It is a schoolyard taunt."

Yes, and yes. The media--everyone really--needs to avoid the trap that this was some kind of assault on gays and focus on what it actually was: a sincerely juvenile bit of name calling at a high profile confab for the national conservative movement. And that movement cheered this bit of schoolyard bullying.

These people--Coulter and those who cheer her--aren't serious. And on the whole, they aren't homophobic, but they're eager to exploit any divisions. What they share is a desire to destroy anyone they consider an ideological enemy. They are poison in the body politic, and that's the angle that deserves focus.