Tuesday, March 06, 2007

It gets worse for Ann Coulter...

You know, I almost agreed with Ann last night as she tried her best to defend herself and blow off any thoughts or claims that she may have hurt her career. I certainly don't agree with what Ann said this past weekend (or anything else she has ever done in her life except enjoy the Grateful Dead), but I felt myself inclined to agree that she would not be hurt by her actions.

Boy, was I wrong.

Just hours after we find out that her advertisers and those who advertise through her (knowingly or not) have gone fleeing from her very existence, we see that she has been condemned and silenced by a self admitted Republican and Conservative leaning newspaper in Pennsylvania.
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 editor added: "My primary objection to Coulter's antics are that they distract attention from the issues that are important -- the war in Iraq, immigration policy, spending policy, health care. Her schoolyard taunt of John Edwards is just so irrelevant to American life. I resent having to spend a moment dealing with it."

When asked about reader response so far, Schreiber said 16 people who contacted the New Era agree with the paper's decision and 12 oppose it. "One promised to cancel," he reported. "But even those who objected were polite, which makes my point. Readers want rational discussion, not name-calling."

Schreiber doesn't yet know who might replace Coulter in the New Era. "I've told a number of folks who e-mailed me in support of Coulter that I'd welcome their recommendations," he said. "But we're not at a loss for conservative columnists. There are lots of good ones out there."

In other fallout, several advertisers -- including Verizon -- withdrew ads from Coulter's Web site on Monday. "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."

AT&T also pulled ads, announcing: "Many of our ad placements -- particularly on the Internet -- are secured in bulk with placements made by third-party buyers with a goal of trying to reach the broadest audiences possible. We ask our media buyers to avoid sites that might generally be seen as offensive or polarizing to the public, which appears to be the case with this political Web site. Our ads have been withdrawn."
She should not be defended by anyone. Period.

2 Comments:

Blogger Karen Duncan said...

Jaimie, This and your last post are right on target. I've visited Lancaster County, PA. The folks there are conservative. And they are very religious. That's part of the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish country.

They are the values voters in Pennsylvania. And I guess they agree that hate isn't a family value.

Thanks for this in depth coverage.

9:44 PM  
Blogger mmc0412 said...

Hooray! My hometown newspaper. I'm not there anymore (I'm in Richmond), but my parents still are. Yes, Lancaster is conservative and religious (not all of us), but, we're not all Amish. Most are Republicans, but the comments on the blog on the newspaper's website lean Democrat. The Lancaster papers are funny. There's a morning paper (Intelligencer Journal) and an evening paper (New Era). The papers actually run out of the same office and both are owned by the richest family in the city (who also own the only TV station). I can't remember which way it goes, but I think the morning paper is suppsoed to be the Democratic tilt and the evening paper is supposed to be the Republican tilt (or vice versa). It's ridiculous that they have 2 papers, but try tearing either one away from my father and he'll pitch a fit. He thinks he's actually getting updated news in the evening.

Anyway, vile and hateful comments are not part of our Lancastrian make-up. I'm thrilled to see that my hometown newspaper is being a leader on boycotting Ann Coulter!

1:56 PM  

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