Oh, no, wait, that was another show.

No - what this one was, was none other than our own Madame Pele, the Aphrodite of the Righties...

The excitement had been building for days. This is the teaser for Ann's next book - I'm not sure if it was telling you to be doing anything beyond getting really, really full of anticipation:

For the other sessions, 25 percent of seats were always available. For Ann, the standing room was jam packed out to the service areas.

This caption was my initial reaction amidst the sea of sweaty conservative bodies:

Heh.

To be honest, I LOVE Ann Coulter. My only regret is I did not have a chance to get my photo taken with her while she was signing calendars at the Clair Booth Luce booth, because I know my wife would have wanted that for me. I can only hope my disappointment is sufficient for both of us.

Now, Ann is catching a wee bit of flack for a couple remarks she made today.

For one, she used the term 'rag heads' several times in one of her riffs. During the Q and A afterwards, a conservative Muslim- or Arab-American said "please don't say 'rag heads' because it makes it harder to convince people to join our side when they otherwise might be inclined to."

Ann's response was firm: "It was a joke. They killed 3,000 Americans; I made a joke. I think we're even."

Another audience member put a slightly finer point on it, asking "When are you going to move on to insulting Asians, Jews and African-Americans."

Again: "When they start flying planes into buildings and killing people."

She made a few other statements that, when isolated from the rest of her talk, will sound controversial. I'll get to some of her other points below.

But here is my take on Ann Coulter:

1) Life is visceral. Things happen in the world which engage our emotions or inflame our emotions. This is as true for for the calm, cool intellectuals as it is for us redneck idiots.

You might get excited about cars speeding on the street in front of your house; or about your kid fumbling around in the tool shed; or money issues; or health issues; or anything having to do with public affairs locally, nationally or internationally. I'm probably leaving a bunch out, but the point is: It is our nature to attach emotional significance to some of the details of our lives.

Why should discussion of matters of war be stripped of emotional symbolism? Or rather, HOW CAN such discussion be disinfected of emotion?

2) 'They' insult 'us' all the time, and fifty times worse. Whether the 'they' is domestic liberals, foreign Muslim 'extremists' or domestic Muslim 'moderates,' there seems to be a perpetual open season on American Christian conservatives (mix and match those terms in every possible way). This should be so obvious it is a truism.

Even with regard to the preeminent 'moderate' Muslim organization in the U.S., a reasonable conservative might review their issues and action items and say: "They sure are pushing kind of hard."

So why not push back occasionally?

3) We're in a war. The argument could be made that the appropriate stance for those who intend to WIN a war is one of stern, unforgiving, unsympathetic determination. This does not mean going 'overboard' with the hate-thy-enemy mojo. It simply means 'we view this as a fight to the death.'

The argument also could be made that Americans on the whole have not yet fully comprehended the ramifications of being at war. Peacetime niceties may have become entrenched so deeply in our manners and attitudes that we are in danger of losing because we are not prepared to face the true nature of the struggle.

If the American public's attitude is too soft about the nature of the threat, then the types of things Ann is being excoriated for saying may be the types of things that need to be said. In a few contexts she made the statement we can't be "pussies."

In the big picture, that is not such a silly thing to say.

Maybe everything will turn out peachy for all of us and the idea our civilization is under attack will be revealed as paranoia. That would be nice. But if everything is not, in fact, getting better and better in every way, I think the argument can be made that Ann Coulter is a gem.

Here are some more snippets from Ann's speech:

-If the attack in the Danish Embassy in Lebanon was sponsored by Syria, there is this little provision whereby the NATO countries should have been in full attack mode by now.

-RE Rioting, 'bipolar' Muslims: This should make us take Iran a little more seriously. "What if they have one of their bipolar episodes while they have a nuclear weapon?"

-RE The successful elevation of Justice Alito to the Supreme Court: "Democrats aren't that scary."

-RE George W. Bush's mention in the State of the Union address that Bill Clinton is one of Papa Bush's favorite people: "I wonder how Juanita Broderick enjoyed that part of the speech...who is his other favorite person, Harry Belafonte?"

-"We're the party that doesn't need to be coached to convince the public we believe in God."

-"Don't listen to the Washington weenies when they say we've got to run a pro-choice Republican if we're gonna beat Hillary. That's not our party!"

-How to get rid of the RINOs? "When you go to the polls in the primary, you want to vote for the guy who's the right wing lunatic and 'unelectable.'"

-RE 'moderate Republicans:' "They're like rats that just keep coming back. Phyllis Schlafly has been fighting them for 50 years. If we want to win elections we have to keep trying to stamp them out."

-RE the spectacles of Paul Wellstone's funeral, Cindy Sheehan, Coretta Scott King's funeral: "We have to teach Democrats how to grieve."

-Cindy Sheehan has dropped her bid for the California Senate seat, but "There's still hope to get her to take Howard Dean's position."

-Questioner: What will it take for libertarians to be elected by conservatives? "We would take them more seriously if they'd stop talking about legalizing drugs all the time...there are some slightly more important issues. 'Libertarian' is a label that sort of sounds like 'liberal,' so it makes them less threatening to the mainstream and distance themselves from conservatives....If you're going to be a conservative in America, you can't be a pussy."

-Questioner: What do I do when the GOP machine supports a RINO and attacks me for supporting a conservative Republican? "Never give money to the RNC. You should give to the Club for Growth (or other conservative advocacy groups)."

Ann Coulter is a serious individual. Her remarks tend to provide a treasure chest of sound bites which have been used to paint her as a freak. I would submit that she is a voice of reason, and an extremely valuable voice for getting the conservative message out to young people whose ears, much more than those of us old, jaded codgers, are very attuned to the ring of truth.

UPDATE: Commenter Joe notes:

The one conservative publication that writes anything worth a damn, intellectually, is the National Review.

Ann Coulter got fired from the National Review.

QED?

It is a great publication, I'll agree, and it has been for decades. And she certainly was banished, for making a statement similar to those made yesterday.

However, this fact does not eo ipso say anything definitive about Ann Coulter (although in my opinion it sheds light on National Review.)

National Review was also pressured to quit selling a book called 'The Life and Religion of Muhammed' at their bookstore.

Pressure from CAIR, by the way.

In my opinion, despite all their really smart folks, National Review is not always right.

Commenter The Oracle adds:

She was not "fired." She never worked for them. They simply stopped running her syndicated column. She calls things as she sees them. She may add a shock factor, but she is intelligent and witty. The left hates her because she will not be silenced or defeated in argumentation. They can only hurl insults at her. Of course, that's what they do to everyone. When the left, in their typical petty fashion, villifies her for using certain words, they simply underscore her point that modern liberal political discussion has devolved into a whirlwind of mindlessness. Instead of discussing ideas, we now use the playground tactic "Ahhh, you said a bad word...I'm tellin'"

Commenter Hub of the Universe opines:

Ann, you go girl.

F-ck the ragheads. And the n-ggers and the gooks, while we're at it.

So, there. I can do right-wing with the best of 'em. Even with me eyes closed.

My reply:

Hub of the Universe, well howdy. Thanks for writing.

She didn't say any of that - it certainly was not the insinuation of her remarks. She used the term 'raghead' with reference to Islamic-fascist leaders and terrorists. I suggest you don't have the remotest understanding of the 'right-wing' and what you think you know is a caricature created by angry leftists.

That being said, I can see both sides. I suppose a parallel could be drawn with the Beltway snipers. If anyone had made a remark about 'those n-ggers...' it would have been outrageous, obscene.

The reason this is - to me - different is 'raghead' connotes the religion or culture, not the race. More like if there was a derogatory term for the Shinto religion while the kamikaze attacks were in full swing during WWII (although I recall some of the Warner Brothers cartoons of that era were not very racially sensitive).

It was a 2-second sound bite from a 40 minute appearance which was very largely humorous, albeit with a few eyebrow-raisers which have been blown out of proportion by people who did not hear the entire speech.

Even a very tiny remark belittling someone else's culture can be viewed a hurtful, I'll grant you. My view is, the world is full of hurtful things.

Plenty of prominent conservatives have criticized Ann's statement. Most of them, it seems like. So I'll point again to your misunderstanding of the right.

It's a big tent we have here: Plenty of room for the regular conservatives on one side, and me and Ann Coulter on the other.

Jeez, with all the vile stuff that comes from the liberal side - like this, this, this, this, and this zinger, I'd think the threshold of indignation would be a tad higher.

UPDATE II: There's a good debate over the bombshell remark in the comments here.

UPDATE III: Visit Donkey Cons for some REALLY interesting background on Ann and why she skews 'extremist' on issues related to Islamic fundamentalism.