CAA Savagely Dumps Homophobic Shock Jock While Coulter Raises Cash for Edwards

Last week was a big one for gay-bashing, as conservative pundit and author Ann Coulter is being excoriated for implying that Democratic candidate John Edwards is either a homosexual, British slang for a cigarette, or a bundle of firewood. Coulter’s comments at this year’s Conservative Political Action committee gala follows her performance last year in which she tarred the people of Iran as ‘ragheads.’

Reaction from the left and right blogosphere was quick and mostly harsh; Ed Morrissey of the conservative blog Captain’s Quarters has issued the following open letter, reprinted at a number of conservative blogs and excerpted here:

Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter’s fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.

At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as “ragheads.” She is one of the most prominent women in the conservative movement; for her to employ such reckless language reinforces the stereotype that conservatives are racists.

At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a “faggot.” Such offensive language–and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it–is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation’s premier conservative gathering.

The legendary conservative thinker Richard Weaver wrote a book entitled Ideas Have Consequences. Rush Limbaugh has said again and again that “words mean things.” Both phrases apply to Coulter’s awful remarks.

As ThinkProgress (among others) have noted, Coulter cultivates controversy fo economic as much as political reasons. As a result of her slur against Edwards,

The media networks are racing to get Ann Coulter on the air, proving that no beyond-the-pale right-wing comment is so outrageous that it disqualifies you from receiving TV publicity.

This afternoon, CNN gleefully announced:

Ann Coulter joins Paula Zahn with her side of the story, that’s tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. Don’t miss it.

Also, last night, Sean Hannity heralded:

Don’t forget. Tomorrow night, Hannity & Colmes. Ann Coulter will be our guest.

Glenn Greenwald commented on Friday:

Last year at the same event, she warned Arab “ragheads” about violence that would be done to them and called for Supreme Court justices to be murdered — and received standing ovations. Everyone knows what a rancid hate-monger she is, yet (or rather: “therefore”) she continues to be invited to the highest-level “conservative” events, be drooled on with admiration by presidential candidates like Mitt Romney, and have little right-wing warriors wait in line around the corner to get her signature on their copies of the books she wrote.

But that’s all fine. There are much more important topics to discuss — like the anonymous commenters at Huffington Post and the bad words said by the bloggers hired for low-level positions by the Edwards campaign. Those are matters of the gravest importance meriting the most solemn condemnation and righteous outrage from all decent people. Those HuffPost commenters have uttered terrible thoughts, and that shows the anger, venom and hatred on the left, among liberals. It is cause for great alarm — and for headlines.

But the single most prestigious political event for conservatives of the year is a place where conservatives go to hear Democrats called faggots, Arabs called ragheads, and Supreme Court justices labeled as deserving of murder — not by anonymous, unidentifiable blog commenters, but by one of their most popular featured speakers.

And after she does that, she is cheered wildly by an adoring conservative movement that has made her bigoted and hate-mongering screeds best-sellers, all while they and their deceitful little allies in the media, such as Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post, write idiot tracts about how terribly upset they are by the affront to decency from HuffPost commenters [in between writing obsequious, tongue-wagging profiles of Coulter’s most radical ideological allies, such as Michelle Malkin, who penned a lovely defense of the internment of Japanese-Americans, for which even Ronald Reagan apologized (but, I believe, she never cursed while doing so, which is what matters most)].

Coulter, who seems to have realized that backing down from smearing Edwards could only hurt her book sales, fired another round off over the weekend at the former senator’s campaign by further accusing his staff of colluding with terrorists:

Ann Coulter, fresh from implying that John Edwards is a “faggot,” now has a statement on her Web site saying Edwards campaign manager David Bonior “is fronting for Arab terrorists.”

Coulter made the homophobic slur about Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate married to a woman, during a Friday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Soon after, Bonior announced he was sending out a fund-raising letter seeking “Coulter Cash” to “show every would-be Republican mouthpiece that their bigoted attacks will not intimidate this campaign.”

A copy of Bonior’s letter was posted on Coulter’s Web site, with this note underneath: “It’s always good to divert Bonior from his principal pastime which is fronting for Arab terrorists.”

Bonior was elected to Congress half a dozen times in Michigan, and served in Vietnam.

Universal Press Syndicate distributes Coulter’s weekly newspaper column. A spokesperson there told E&P today that Universal would not comment about something Coulter said outside her column. The syndicate also declined to comment on what steps it might be taking if Coulter had used the “N” word instead of the “F” word.

Coulter’s Friday remark went as follows: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”

Audience members at the conservative gathering initially appeared startled, but then many of them laughed and applauded Coulter’s slur.

Speaking of CPAC and Ann Coulter, Lydia Cornell reports the story of Daniel Borchers, a conservative activist whose relentless dogging of Coulter (exposing her plagiarism and frankly ‘un-Christian’ hate speech) seems to have gotten him forcibly ejected from CPAC:

Two of these goons claimed they were CPAC security, but Borchers recognized the most hostile one as Coulter’s longtime bodyguard. It appeared that they staged the whole thing, for they were following him with a camera. During the altercation, they cut Borcher’s hand, tried to pry his name tag and credentials off his neck, physically WRESTLED him out of the hotel, and shoved him. Why? Borchers couldn’t get a straight answer out of the four guards, except “you are not permitted to be here.”

Borcher’s crime: asking a question of another author (Mark Smith) about Ann Coulter’s involvement in the Paula Jones case. Borchers spent money, bought expensive tickets, took time off work and traveled from Maryland as he does every year, to be at CPAC. Lisa DePasquale, the head of CPAC and Human Events, sent Borchers his tickets and wrote him a nice letter welcoming him to the conference. He is a lifelong Republican, a conservative military veteran, whose only crime is being morally offended at the way conservatism has been ruined by people like Coulter, who claims to be a Christian, but indulges in hate-speak and amoral, felonious behavior. He believes it is his moral obligation to bring attention to this, and that “evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

Meanwhile, Coulter’s compatriot Michael Savage, one-time herbalist turned reactionary right-wing radio host, was dropped from Creative Artists Agency, one of the most powerful agencies in Hollywood (if not the universe) within days of his announced signing with the company. TMZ.com reported on March 1st at 1:26PM:

Hollywood powerhouse talent pimps, Creative Artists Agency, has signed nationally syndicated homophobic radio host Michael Savage for representation in all areas.

Savage, whose real name is Michael Alan Weiner, hosts the conservative radio program “Savage Nation,” and just this week, he lashed out against breast cancer survivor/Oscar winner Melissa Etheridge — for thanking her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels and their kids during her Academy Awards acceptance speech. Savage said, “I don’t like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it’s child abuse.”

He further commented on homosexuality saying, “There are people who are sexually confused, who think that they’re men when they’re women. They’re not normal.”

But turned around at 6:58PM and reported:

ust two days after announcing they were representing him, CAA has given homophobic radio host Michael Savage the ax! Adios, hater!

As TMZ earlier reported, on the heels of being signed to the high-profile talent agency, Savage made disparaging and homophobic remarks aimed at fellow CAA client Melissa Etheridge. Well, that didn’t fly at the agency, because, according to Planet Gossip’s Marc Malkin, CAA is no longer repping the conservative hate-monger — and has unceremoniously dropped him from their client list!

Looks like Savage will now have something beside the private lives of A-list Oscar-winning lesbians to whine about.

CAA confirmed to TMZ that Savage is no longer their client.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Ann Coulter is nothing more than an overrated fu**ing wh*re with a limited vocabulary and an IQ to match!

There *is* a good reason for exposing these and other media whores — The Fox People and their Talk Radio buddies — and that is so that people will know that they are not the harmless people they appear to be. And they CERTAINLY WILL NO GO AWAY BY IGNORING THEM.

Guess who talks to many Republican groups and Republican sponsored groups? Guess who are dinner guests of the Bush Administration? Guess who interviews Bush and Cheney on the air?

All of the Right Wing TV and radio “personalities” that’s who!

These vocal Right Wing “agitators” on the air are within the inner circles of power!

Only by exposing them and what they — and their “bodyguards” do — will the public notice what is actually going on.

Faggotto is also the Italian name for Bassoon, maybe that is what she was fefering to.

One definition of “toxic behavior” is as follows: “a consistent pattern of behavior that makes others feel devalued, inadequate, angry, frustrated or guilty.” It is important that hate speech be exposed for what it is, because it is poisoning our social discourse and rational, calm, tolerant evaluation of complex political issues. I appreciate the discussion here exposing Ann Coulter’s and Michael Savage’s hate language. Historically, conservative ideology justified slavery and denying women and children civil and human rights. Now the next historical battle for civil rights is to remove gender and sexual bias and prejudice that aims at disenfranchising another group of people. This prejudice toward homosexuality is institutionalized by some religious traditions and by some statutes of state law but that does not make it “moral” or right — it simply is an archaic out-of-date belief system rooted in fear and hate which must give way to a higher moral calling for tolerance and care for all human beings. Just as slavery and denial of women’s rights were condoned and institutionally enforced for thousands of years — and yet now are universally rejected as morally reprehensible, it is especially important for persons of conscience to speak out against an archaic values that portrays itself as “righteousness” but whose behavior is in fact hateful and damaging. Ms Coulter and Mr. Savage are toxic to listen to. Most people of intellect and morality are offended by hate speech. I was happy to read about the conservative Republican who found such hate language offensive. I applaud him. We are all members of the same human family.