GOP: THE PARTY OF ANN

With "Sicko," the Michael Moore expose on the U.S. healthcare Insurance system, hitting the cineplex screens this week, right-wing conservative talk has resurrected Moore as Satan incarnate and the Democrat (sic) Party as "The Party of Michael Moore." Why not? It's a classic. Associating someone or something with your rival, who you know your base will hate, works.

And while we're talking about hate: Ann Coulter.

No need to go through the plethora of Ann's detester d'object cred, but if I did, she is the comedienne who, after an appearance as featured speaker at a Republican conference where she referred to John Edwards as a "faggot," went on Fox News's "Hannity and Combs" to redefine the word not as a demeaning slang for gays, but a "schoolyard" term used by kids to humiliate other kids. See? See, how it becomes funny. Why liberals and 99.9% of West Hollywood didn't get the "joke" the way Ann meant it can probably be traced to their lack of getting beat up enough in the schoolyard.

And who can forget the other Coulter comedy classics such as "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building," "The Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it," or the fabulously hysterical take on the 9-11 widows, "I have never seen people enjoying their husband's death so much"?

This week the jokester, who had once suggested a sophisticated satirical gag where presidential candidate John Edwards, who had lost his 16-year-old son in a car-accident, had a bumper-sticker reading "Ask me about my dead son," advanced the rolling-in-the-aisles funny that Edwards be "killed in a terrorist assassination plot." Of course she prefaced it as similar to what Bill Maher said about Dick Cheney. And, of course, that was a lie.

It's high time and it would behoove the Democratic Party to not demean her "wit" as much as use it to define those who cherish it.

Who would ever question her draw power as a guest-staple throughout conservative-talk radio and the Fox News (sic) Network (tonight on independent Bill O'Reilly). They just love the girl and her "schoolyard" jokes." It's time to remind the voter that they do. Everyday. Every way.

From now on, when talking about the Republican Party or their candidates who refuse to call a hate-filled flame-thrower for what she is, the Democratic Party needs to Michael-Moore them and refer to the GOP as they have chosen to be...

THE PARTY OF ANN COULTER.

They deserve each other.

Award-winning TV Comedy Writer Steve Young is the author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" His next book, "The Power of Satire...The Secret Weapon That Can Win The 2008 Election For The Candidate Who Is Less Of A Joke Than The Other," threatens to be finished any day. www.greatfailure.com