She's So Civil...

Working on an article about an upcoming debate between Bill Maher and Ann Coulter, New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff “attempted to interview” Coulter, e-mailing her a list of questions. In her response, which was written in all capital letters, Coulter called the paper the “Treason Times” and said that the Times’ editors should have been “executed for treason” for revealing the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program:

Do you consider yourself as speaking for the conservative movement, or just someone who has attracted many conservative fans? Something else?

I THINK I SPEAK FOR ALL AMERICANS WHO THINK NEWSPAPER EDITORS WHO PRINT THE DETAILS OF TOP-SECRET ANTI-TERRORIST INTELLIGENCE GATHERING PROGRAMS ON PAGE ONE IN WARTIME SHOULD BE EXECUTED FOR TREASON.

This isn’t the first time Coulter has wished for the death of people who work for the New York Times. In August 2002, Coulter told the New York Observer that her “only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”

No wonder Meghan McCain thinks that Coulter is “offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time.”

In a column for the Daily Beast today, Meghan McCain, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) daughter, attacks Ann Coulter as a potent symbol for why the Republican Party struggles to attract younger voters, slamming her for “perpetuat[ing] negative stereotypes about Republicans”:

To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter. I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time. […]

More so than my ideological differences with Ann Coulter, I don’t like her demeanor. I have never been a person who was attracted to hate or negativity. … Everything about her is extreme: her voice, her interview tactics, and especially the public statements she makes about liberals. Maybe her popularity stems from the fact that watching her is sometimes like watching a train wreck.

McCain writes, “[I]f figureheads like Ann Coulter are turning me off, then they are definitely turning off other members of my generation as well.”