An Apple Is Not an Orange

Conservatives are liars. There is little doubt of that anymore (if there ever was). Every once in a while, though, some Royalist will allow a bit of truth to slip out - usually unintentionally, and only when surrounded by like minded zealots. So it is no surprise that the screeching harpy who has launched a thousand Tory wet dreams exposed a bit more of the lordly class's true thinking than she expected when appearing at the latest incarnation of the Nuremburg Rally.

Let's be clear - Ann Coulter is not some marginal verbal bombthrower. She is not the Ward Churchill of the right. She is -- and has been for years -- the bottle-blonde painted face of the Royalist cause. She is a best-selling author, a Time magazine cover girl and the go-to person for the "Today Show" and "Good Morning America". When she speaks, as Andrew Sullivan makes plainly clear, "she truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism, especially among the young. " Those would be the same "young" who hooted in laughter and erupted in applause when she used a demeaning slur to describe a presidential candidate.

That she would leap with both feet into the gutter of political discourse is no surprise, of course. Coulter lives in that precinct, feeds in that precinct and makes all of her money there. She, after all, endorsed the assassination of both a sitting Supreme Court justice and a former president. No, the surprise is that Couler revealed so much about herself while spewing her venom. That she would use a derogatory term for a gay man when referring to a long-married father of three (John Edwards) makes it clear Coulter has some serious gender-identity issues.

So do all those "young" contemporary conservative activists her twisted slur aroused so vigorously.

It is only mildly surprising that three Royalist pretenders to the throne of King George would bother denouncing her performance. Of course, they did so with a demeanor of "more in sorrow than in anger". McCain says her words were "inappropriate". Guliani, who spends his spare time in women's clothing, used the same term. Romney, who once boasted of his pro-gay rights credentials, called the vicious attack on Edwards "offensive". All three are skilled, polished and veteran politicans. They know they can't allow the stain of Coulter to reach their hemlines if they have any chance of seeing their ambitions come to fruition.

A few Royalist blogs have followed suit, according to Slate:

" 'Ann Coulter doesn't speak for us,' harrumphed Red State. Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey wrote that 'such offensive language—and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it—is intolerable to us.' Newsbusters' Warner Todd Huston dubbed Coulter 'the H.L. Mencken of our times ... minus the intellect.'"

Huston's attitude toward Coulter could best be described as "praising with faint damnation". It is hardly an insult, after all, to be compared to Mencken and found wanting. But Huston's musings on the Coulter affair don't even focus on her wildly inappropriate behavior. Instead, he tries to ju jitsu the issue into an attack on the Royalist Right's favorite whipping boy, the Mainstream (or Liberal) Media. He compiles a few news clippings from Reuters, the New York Times and (seriously) a college newspaper. Based on this exhaustive research, Huston then draws himself up to his full height and bellows "Bias!"

Why? Because, he assures us, none of those august news organzations has said anything about that awful Bill Maher. And what, pray tell, should they be denouncing? This:

"I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow. " After making it clear he wasn't encouraging, or even wishing for, the assassination of the Vice President, Maher added: "I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That's a fact."

Shame on the Liberal Media, Huston intones, for not working themselves into a lather. The evidence is plain, he concludes: "No MSM reports of Maher wishing the VP were assassinated."

Except, of course, Maher did no such thing. (Perhaps that's why no reputable news organization reported on it, even while state-run media were flogging it incessantly.) Huston is lying, clumsily, in an attempt to cover his latter-day Mencken's tracks. He hails "every upstanding Conservative and GOP candidate [who] was falling all over themselves [sic] in compliance to denounce Coulter's remarks." Another lie. Upstanding conservatives Sean Hannity, Bill Bennett, Sam Brownback and Duncan Hunter have done no such thing. Upstanding conservative John Gibson is actually defending Coulter.

But in amongst all these lies, there is a bigger one -- one the Royalist faction uses at every opportunity. It's the lie of proportionality. By comparing Coulter's slur to Maher's comment, Huston is saying that they are equally inappropriate. They are not. Coulter deliberately disparaged a national politician with a bigotry-laced personal assault. Maher used a particularly disturbing "what if" scenario to comment on the results of the regime's policies.

That is not the biggest difference Huston tries to obscure with prevarication. Ann Coulter is a widely-known, widely-quoted, deeply revered celebrity icon of the Royalist cause. Bill Maher is a stand-up comic. Ann Coulter spilled her bile at the most prestigious gathering of Bush worshippers to be staged this year, and did so from the same stage the Imperial Regent himself bestrode. Bill Maher appeared on a late night cable TV comedy show.

They are different, not just in degree, but in kind. Huston, and Coulter, and the whole Royalist movement hope and pray you don't notice that.