NEW YORK At least one newspaper has canceled Ann Coulter's column after she implied that Democratic politician John Edwards is a "faggot."

The daily Lancaster (Pa.) New Era, in a note to readers, said it "halted publication of Ann Coulter's syndicated column following her crude characterization of presidential candidate John Edwards as a homosexual at a public appearance on Friday. Coulter's use of name-calling, sarcasm, and overstatement in her columns too often detracts from the arguments she seeks to make. ...

"Lancaster County residents of whatever political view -- conservative, moderate, or liberal -- deserve intelligent discussion of issues. Ann Coulter no longer provides that."

New Era Editor Ernie Schreiber expanded on those comments when reached early this afternoon. He told E&P that Coulter "was hurting our credibility. Our community is largely conservative and Republican. They expect insightful discussion of issues. Ann Coulter wasn't giving us that. We have lots of conservative columnists who do -- Cal Thomas, Jonah Goldberg, Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin, among others."

Schreiber said of Coulter: "I can't defend her antics, and I don't want the New Era associated with them."

The word I used has nothing to do with sexual preference.

It is a schoolyard taunt.

It's early yet. I'll be interested to see if this is still "bubbling" a week from now.

See, to her, this is just the "same people becoming hysterical" and she thinks that the lesson young right wingers "ought to draw is that it's not that scary to attack liberals." Yeah, fag jokes are so funny -- really attack them.

It's all a joke. And, we need to know is that Coulter now speaks for gays and lesbians across America. Verbatim quotes:


And:

(CNN) -- 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.

....

"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."

A Sallie Mae spokesperson said the company was only testing an online advertising agency, and that their ads were not meant to show up on Coulter's site. The company said they planned to pull ads from other political and religious Web sites as well.

A spokesperson for NetBank said Coulter's page "is not the kind of site we want to be on."

[Today in Berkeley,] Edwards said Coulter's comment was "hateful, selfish, childish behavior."

"What I've learned is that if you don't have the courage to speak out against it -- no matter who says it, and no matter who it's leveled at -- then it becomes tolerable," he added. "And it's not tolerable, any more than the language I heard leveled at African Americans when I was young."

Interesting that the story is still bubbling. It took the media a while to actually see the story as news. Why? First, because they think Coulter is a joke, and she is. But she's a joke who was recently on the cover of TIME, who gets paid tens of thousands of dollars a speech, has written several best-sellers, and was the most anticipated speaker at the biggest and most important conservative conference of the year. What she says is bs, but it matters. And it's not the job of the media to decide that Ann Coulter shouldn't be getting this much attention - she is a darling of the conservative movement, represents the values of many core conservative activists, including the religious right, and thus you simply cannot avoid reporting on her excesses as they reflect on the entire party.

Tut, tut. Last time I tested the waters the Dem 'mos all had the pop-poms out for Hillary. A not inappreciable amount of them are leading the cheers for Obama.

What matters is what's in the best interest of the Clintons and the Democrats.

(Washington) Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton told the nation's leading gay rights group in an unpublicized speech that she wants a partnership with gays if elected president.

Clinton also said she opposes the "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military that was instituted during her husband's presidency.

"I am proud to stand by your side," Clinton said in a keynote speech Friday to the Human Rights Campaign. Neither Clinton's campaign nor her Senate office made any announcement that she would be making the Friday address.

Clinton aides said no announcement was made because the group's gathering is traditionally closed to the press. Video of the speech was posted on the group's Web site.

Smith said such annual board meetings have always been closed to the press, but it was the first time he could remember that a speech at such a meeting had been made public afterward.

"There's no contradiction," he said. "The event is always closed to the press and we wanted to make (the remarks) available for people to see."

But the speech is significant in one respect, it seems to me. HRC, the organization, is now fully integrated into HRC, the campaign. It is the Clinton campaign. Clinton calls HRC's executive director, Joe Solmonese a "colleague." She talks of a future "relationship" with HRC in a Clinton administration: "You will have an open door to the White House". Among HRC's victories, she cites the 2006 election turn-out campaign ... for the Democrats.

To her credit, she forthrightly backs gay adoption. And she backs ENDA and hate crimes. But no mention of marriage. She's against it. She also makes no commitment to passing ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) or hate-crimes laws in the current Congress. That's also significant. I have a feeling that they've run the numbers (that's what HRC does when it's not fund-raising for the Dems), figure that employment discrimination could actually be the first gay wedge issue to work against Republicans, and are going to hold off to use it in the presidential campaign. What matters is what's in the best interest of the Clintons and the Democrats.

"Ahhh, who cares? As long as it sounds good, and gulls enough of the fags into voting for me."

And it will probably work quite well.

Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well.... But Coulter’s fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.

[...]

Coulter’s vicious word choice tells the world she care little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas.

[...]

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

[...]

How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter’s invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.

CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.

"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.

Ms Coulter said the comment was a joke and on her Web site she carried the speech with the comment, "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing." She then said Edwards' campaign chairman's main job was "fronting for Arab terrorists."

Mr Edwards, a 2008 presidential contender and the party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, called Ms Coulter's comments were "un-American and indefensible."

"The kind of hateful language she used has no place in political debate or our society at large," he wrote on his website on the weekend.

"I believe it is our moral responsibility to speak out against that kind of bigotry and prejudice every time we encounter it," Edwards added.

First, do we want to combine this thread with the one on Str8 Politics? Just a thought.

I take exception with the notion that it would be a good thing for these types of slurs (or coverage of them) to "dominate" either supposed "side" of the race for the White House.

[...]

And I don't think ratcheting up the use of slurs and name-calling -- or widespread coverage of the same -- is in the best interests of our people. [Emphases mine.]

This wave of head shaking, and murmur of clucking and tutting is rich, coming from a gang of opportunists who are all on the record as opposing equal human rights for our people. None of them have any real problem with bigotry, they just don't think it's good to sound bigoted....

at least until we get our own independent state

All three of the top GOP contenders distanced themselves from Ann Coulter today, including Romney who claimed he had left the room before she slurred John Edwards. Coulter for her part made things worse by saying she was joking, and would never slur gays by comparing them to John Edwards.

This is exactly the kind of coverage Democrats can only hope dominates the GOP side of the race...

But Coulter has no intention of apologizing. "I'm so ashamed, I can't stop laughing!," she says on her website.

"The comments were completely inappropriate and there should be no place for such name-calling in political debate," said Rudy Giuliani.

Romney issued his statement through his spokesperson. "It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect," said press aid Kevin Madden.

John McCain who did not attend CPAC, also denounced Coulter's remarks. "The comments were wildly inappropriate," said his spokesperson, Brian Jones.

While the Political Action Conference and GOP have remained silent, DNC chair Howard Dean called Coulter's remarks "hate-filled and bigoted."

... John Edwards has turned the issue into what his campaign hopes is a positive. On his campaign website Edwards is calling on supporters to "help us raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry".