American Mind and other conservative bloggers are asking CPAC organizers and sponsors not to invite Coulter to CPAC again:
I can't think that they would even need to do this given what one of the sponsors has said about Coulter: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.
[...]
Within a day of Coulter’s remark John Edwards sent out a fundraising email that used Coulter’s words to raise money for his faltering campaign. She is helping those she claims to oppose. How does that advance any of the causes we hold dear?
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?
[...]
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.
A conservative think tank that helped sponsor CPAC and has raised objections to some of Coulter's comments in the past said that the commentator and author pushed "her offensiveness up a notch" this time.Last night I feel asleep watching a rerun of Miami CSI (the local CBS channel broadcasts repeats of CSI at 12:00 AM) when I woke up, the news was on and they were doing a story about Ann Coulter and how the candidates had to court the "Coulter Republicans" but also had to court the general public. We are now, "Coulter Republicans." That's who the conservatives are, "Coulter Republicans." Great! One more epitaph added to the list.
"I'm sorry to see that Ann Coulter once again made certain news coverage of CPAC would be focused upon her instead of upon the conservative movement's goals and principles," Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research, said in a statement on the group's website.
At last year's event, Coulter used the term "raghead" twice in a speech, triggering accusations of racism.
Ridenour said the NCPPR last year had seriously considered withdrawing its co-sponsorship of CPAC because of the "raghead" comment.
"I had 90 percent decided to stop our co-sponsorship for CPAC 2007, but the sponsor seemed to be taking our concerns about Coulter's 2006 remarks seriously and with what seemed to us to be appropriate sympathy, so the National Center co-sponsored CPAC again this year," she said.
[...]
"It would be better, in my opinion, to not have a CPAC at all than to have one that presents conservatism as a hostile, people-hating ideology," she said. "We conservatives have enough trouble overcoming the false things that are said about us without paying for a platform upon which we shoot ourselves annually in the foot."
