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Edited on Thu Jun-15-06 09:14 PM by MN Against Bush
As I am sure most of you have noticed Ann Coulter has been in the media a lot lately. I am sure most of you are sick of seeing her spew her hate on what passes for "the news" these days, and I am getting quite pissed off whenever I see her face as well. Yet while it disgusts me to see her, I am glad she is getting all the attention she is.
You may think I am crazy for thinking such a thing, and I personally don't blame you if you do. It takes a great deal of restraint to look at Ann's face on the television and not want to smash a hole in the screen sometimes.
I can understand why some people would just want to ignore her and hope she will go away, but I am telling you I think that is a mistake. Sure if we ignore her her book sales would probably drop, and she probably would not get as much screen time, but we have to ask ourselves are her book sales really hurting us or are they helping us?
When Ann Coulter hits the top of the best seller lists it says a great deal to the American people. Everyone who knows anything about Ann Coulter knows who her audience is, and they know very well that it is not us buying the books. It is the Republicans who are embracing her so heavily, and when she can sell more books than any other Republican out there that shows that she is the person that represents them better than any other.
And what does it tell you when the most heavily embraced Republican pundit is a person who tells us that 9/11 widows enjoyed their husbands' death? What does it tell you when Republicans embrace a person who openly called for the assassination of Bill Clinton while he was President, called for the assassination of a sitting Supreme Court justice, and said her "only regret" with Timothy McVeigh is that he did not blow up the New York Times building?
It tells you that the Republican's top pundit endorses terrorism, and that says a great deal about the Republican Party in general. What do you think the typical voter is going to think of this? Ann Coulter is extremely unpopular among virtually every non-wingnut who has the misfortune of hearing a single word spew from her vile mouth, she can not possibly be an asset for the Republicans.
So my advise is don't ignore her but instead point her out to everyone, and make the Republicans explain why they embrace someone who has openly supported Timothy McVeigh and called for the assassination of a sitting President.
Now don't get me wrong I don't like the idea of putting someone on TV who openly advocates terrorist attacks. The problem however is that her fan base is the only group of people who would actually follow her advise on such a tactic and they are going to hear her anyways. Even if we ignore her she will still probably keep writing and she will still probably have a lot of exposure on right-wing talk radio. We can not just allow her to spew her hate in such an unchallenged environment, instead we have to shine a light on her and say "look here, this is what the Republicans are endorsing". Once people are outraged enough, and believe me after those comments about the 9/11 widows the outrage is starting to spill into the general public, they are going to demand the Republicans denounce her. And when that happens the Republicans are going to be in a very bad spot. They will either have to embrace a known terrorist sympathizer, or they will have to denounce her which certainly has consequences of its own for them.
Ann Coulter may be one of the best weapons we have to defeat the Republicans, and she is too stupid and arrogant to even realize it. I say we give her more attention than she ever wanted.
(Edited to fix minor grammatical errors).
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