The American Conservative Union has answered the Conservative community's request to curb Coulter:

The American Conservative Union and the Conservative Political Action Conference today issued the following statement: The just completed 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference on March 1 – 3, 2007, was the largest in the 34 year history of the event, featuring 33 panels on a variety of public policy issues, 24 stand alone speakers including public officials, writers, student activists, media personalities and comedians. ACU, the event’s primary sponsor and CPAC strive to provide a platform and forum for a variety of differing views and personalities. ACU and CPAC do not condone or endorse every speaker or their comments at the conference. As such, ACU and CPAC leave it to our audience to determine whether comments are appropriate or not. “Ann Coulter is known for comments that can be both provocative and outrageous. That was certainly the case in her 2007 CPAC appearance and previous ones as well. But as a point of clarification, let me make it clear that ACU and CPAC do not condone or endorse the use of hate speech,” said David A. Keene, ACU Chairman.

So... look for Ann to be back in 2008...

Of all the things written yesterday our own Mary Katharine Ham penned by far the most thought provoking response to the matter. It's on the long side - but it reads fast and is the best example of cogent, conservative thinking, and how we should be framing the debate.

Calling Hugh, Dean, myself, and MKHam either "liberal weenies" or "pompous conservatives who eat their own" Mike Gallagher represented the knee-jerk hormonally driven 22 year old male response to the matter perfectly.

Michelle continued to speak out with reasoned logic and even deep respect to Ronald Reagan.

And Ann tried to spin her way out of the mess by...

    1. Pretending that only liberals got mad at her...
    2. Refusing to recognize that she had actually energized the voters of those she opposes...
    3. Refusing to acknowledge that it is actually true conservatives that ticked off...
    4. Claiming she wasn't insulting Edwards manhood...
    5. Insisting that "faggot" isn't a gay slur, but rather a childhood taunt...

(btw... that would have been the one childhood, playground taunt that would have gotten my mouth washed out with soap when I was little...)

And at the urging of my producers - I changed my daily PUNCH commentary to issue a summation of the damage Ann did to both those of us in the trenches, and to the message of the movement as a whole.

Having said, written, listened too just about everything that has been done on this issue. My official capacity to deal with any more Ann Coulter-ness has expired.

Back to the battles that matter!