The particular pattern to which I refer is Ms. Coulter's responses to the voter fraud allegations in Palm Beach, Florida. The thoughtful, largely apolitical and fortuitously named Huff's Crime Blog has taken a look at the trail of documents posted here and at BradBlog (which has an update), and added a few of his own. The "crime" is indeed minor, and if Ms. Coulter had simply responded with a "whoops, sorry" instead of calling election officials syphilitic and publicly humiliating a kid who asked a polite question (penultimate graf), I would be among those happy to skip this bit of nonsense. But it bothers me, and apparently it bothers Steve Huff as well.
What leftist, politically-oriented bloggers began to uncover months ago, apparent evidence that Ann Coulter had willfully fabricated information on at least one document issued by the state of Florida in order to be able to vote there, is now beginning to look less like a conspiracy against an easy-to-dislike conservative firebrand and more like a real, if relatively minor felony.... In and of itself, possible voter fraud doesn't add up to the kind of crime story that is of real interest to me.
But I have long viewed Coulter as a willful exponent of some of the very worst ideals present in conservative thought. I've never thought she represented a majority of people, thank God. My overall feelings for professed conservative republicans are based more on friendships I've had with individuals.
I feel like that by simply following a trail begun by people who are generally more liberal than I am I've uncovered what looks, at the least, like a consistent and publicly documented pattern of deception on the part of Ann Coulter.
Crimeblogging teaches anyone who tries to do it for a while a few basic precepts about bad behavior--one of those precepts is that it is very rare for "bad behavior" to exist in a vacuum. Some patterns of behavior, especially pathological patterns, they just tend to repeat.
Mr. Huff notes that the lefties "attacking" Ms. Coulter tend to do so in an obnoxious (my word, not his) manner that undercuts their argument. (BTW, that's a primary reason why I urge readers to keep their comments civil.) So he directs his post to conservatives:
If you consider yourself a conservative, click the thumbnails I've provided here. Ignore the rhetoric, whatever there is, both in my blog and at the blog I've linked the most for this entry. Look at the documents. Put them in photoshop, blow them up, look for problems. Make your own conclusion. Are you seeing a pattern of deception? Someone thumbing their nose at the government by ignoring laws that might be inconsequential or meaningless to her in her day-to-day life? If you are, in any way, then you will want to look at other things she's done, written, and said, and re-evaluate those.
There are smarter, more well-spoken, intelligent conservatives out there than Ann Coulter. People who are able to persuade, not infuriate, or alienate. I'm normally avoiding politics like the plague if I can, but I'm certain that there have to be people like that.
Though I doubt much in the way of real-world consequence may come out of Ann Coulter's funky voter registration form, perhaps this is a small signal that it is time for conservatives to re-examine not their views, but their rhetoric, and the people who are acting as a voice on their behalf. I don't know that the party is in trouble at mid-term elections, coming up. I'm not that politically savvy or astute. I keep hearing they (Republicans) are, though.
Yes, Ann's book may be selling well at the moment. But in the end, will she really say anything that truly matters? I feel like, after the research and reading that I did today, that it is time for her to at least be seen for what she is--a performer. Someone playing a role who has lost their understanding of what the audience values, what the audience feels. Coulter appears to be thumbing her nose at the rules and trying to get away with it, and after Watergate, the Republican Party I knew about was trying to get the hell away from that sort of thing. I come away from this one-off political entry hoping the state of Florida lets her know she doesn't get a pass, even if only on paper.
You can ignore everything I wrote. But look at the trail, the links. Start digging yourself, try to defend her if you can, using something other than Coulter's own ad hominem approach to debate, which is designed solely to keep the opponent off-balance when you really have no response.