An Endorsement Mitt Romney Didn't Really Need

On cue, all three major GOP candidates condemned Ann Coulter's comment about The Breck Girl.

WASHINGTON, March 3 — Three of the leading Republican presidential candidates on Saturday denounced one of their party’s best-known conservative commentators for using an antigay epithet when discussing a Democratic presidential contender at a gathering of conservatives here.

The remarks by Ann Coulter, an author who regularly speaks at conservative events, were sharply denounced by the candidates, Senator John McCain of Arizona, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. Their statements came after Democrats, gay rights groups and bloggers raised a storm of protest over the remarks.

Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference before an overflow crowd on Friday, Ms. Coulter said, “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”

The Edwards camp is playing up the whole innocent victim thing, though they clearly have an exaggerated sense of self worth:

Mr. Edwards’s aides responded with an e-mail message that attacked Ms. Coulter and urged supporters to donate to Mr. Edwards’s campaign. “John was singled out for a personal attack because the Republican establishment knows he poses the greatest threat to their power,” said his campaign manager, David E. Bonior. “Since they have nothing real to use against him, Coulter’s resorting to the classic right-wing strategy of riling up hate to smear a progressive champion.”

Yes, of course. A progressive "champion". And he also has his sights on some big bucks:

John Edwards' campaign, reacting to derogatory comments by conservative commentator Ann Coulter — she called the former North Carolina senator and presidential hopeful a "faggot" — is trying to turn it into a rallying point for fundraising, asking supporters to donate $100,000 in "Coulter Cash."

It was unclear from the statement on the Edwards campaign Web site what the money would exactly go to, but it did address the comments directly.

"We must show that inflaming prejudice to attack progressive leaders will only backfire," the site read.

As controversial as Coulter always has been, she's really stepped in it this time and has probably done permanent damage to her future as a conservative commentator. Her response wasn't exactly repentant:

Ms. Coulter, asked for a reaction to the Republican criticism, said in an e-mail message: “C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.”

Finally, Coulter didn't really do Mitt Romney any good:

At the conference, she said she was likely to support Mr. Romney.

I'll bet he's really excited about that today. As I said in an earlier post, Fox News will broadcast the second pilot episode of the 1/2 Hour News Hour tonight (10am EST), and that broadcast will feature an opening skit with Rush Limbaugh as the president and Ann Coulter as the veep. It was filmed several weeks ago. I'll predict right now that if the show is picked up for regular production, Coulter won't be part of it. In fact, I'm wondering if the opening skit will be part of the show tonight.