Many Conservatives Were Shocked By Ann Coulter

I was going to blog about Romney’s recent flip-flops on the minimum wage issue and bilingual education — flip-flop #36 and #37, but when I saw Ann Coulter’s recent column praising RomneyCare, I have to admit, I just lost it. She called RomneyCare “free-market” and claims it’s a “conservative” approach to health care. Apparently, the individual mandate is something we conservatives should all run out into the streets and start celebrating. I was shocked.

One of her arguments seems to be that a number of conservative politicians and the Heritage Foundation originally supported RomneyCare and therefore, that makes it conservative. While that be true, that doesn’t make it conservative. A few years back I surveyed all the conservative think tanks and free market groups that work on health care and aside from Heritage, every one of them condemned RomneyCare, including the Beacon Hill Institute, Massachusett’s leading free market think tank.

I was in attendance when the Heritage Foundation sent a representative to Grover’s Norquist’s weekly Wednesday meeting downtown D.C. and addressed over 60 free market leaders about the virtues of Romneycare. Let me assure everyone, the presentation was not well received. Contrary to what Coulter implies, the vast majority of free market thinkers and groups have opposed RomneyCare from the beginning.

Moreover, RomneyCare has been a disaster. Premiums have skyrocketed, many insurance providers have left the state, and health care choices have become increasingly limited. Everything we conservatives have predicted would happen with ObamaCare is now happening in Massachusetts.

Coulter’s other argument is that because the individual mandate is being carried out at the state and not the Federal level, as with ObamaCare, it’s ok for conservatives to support it. What? So, in other words, if a state quadrupled tax rates or banned all guns, then conservatives should support that as a proper expression of federalism? Giving more power to the government to control our choices is NOT conservative, whether it’s carried out at the Federal or state level.

While I love her books, I think Coulter has finally lost her mind. Regarding Romney, Coulter’s support for Romney extends back at least five years; indeed she has a long record of sanitizing Romney’s record in both her columns and media appearances. Both in 2008 and in 2012, Coulter repeatedly insisted, “Romney should be our nominee because he is manifestly the best candidate.” Moreover, she doesn’t appear to be concerned in the least with the long history of how RINO presidential nominees have so disillusioned the conservative GOP base, they almost always lose to the Democratic nominee.

I think there must be something else going on here that everyone is missing. She has a girl crush on Romney that has blinded her to reality.

This became obvious to me when at the March 2007, Conservative Political Action Conference she had a backstage conversation with Romney. Unaware she was being videotaped, her conversation sounded embarrassingly like a star-struck little girl: “You have great answers on everything. The Reagan position on abortion is brilliant. … No, they don’t understand; we hate these liberal atheists. You can’t get these sectarian wars going with us. We’re all Christians. … You’re SO wonderful.”

Pathetic. One can watch this exchange on You tube:

The exchange is revealing not only due to Coulter’s idolizing of Romney, but it also demonstrates her ignorance on a number of issues. She’s was complimenting Romney for comparing his abortion flip-flop to Reagan’s alleged switch on this issue. However, this is disingenuous as the two situations have little in common. Reagan supported a pro-abortion bill in 1967, but later apologized for doing so, saying he was misled on the bill and then, while President, wrote an entire book on the sanctity of life.

In contrast, Romney spent a career promoting abortion and was the author of a health insurance plan that massively subsidizes abortion. He also appropriated funds for a Planned Parenthood clinic, allowed Planned Parenthood to dominate sex-ed policy in Massachusetts schools, appointed pro-abortion judges, opposed efforts to save Terri Schiavo and advocated certain forms of stem-cell research — and all this occurred after his alleged pro-life “conversion.” Nor has Romney ever written or spoken on the evils of abortion as Reagan did.

The conversation also reveals that Coulter regards Mormonism is just another Christian denomination. However, as any theologian will attest, Mormonism simply doesn’t share the fundamental doctrines that all Christian denominations have in common. While Mormons share many of the same values Christians do, they are not considered Christians due to a view of Christ that is simply not compatible with the Bible.

After the CPAC video went viral, this writer had a number of exchanges with Coulter about Romney that confirmed how her hero-worship of Romney had seriously compromised her objectivity. For example, she wrote, “The only issue on which Romney had changed his position was abortion,” and on another occasion wrote that “Romney governed as a pro-lifer.” One has to be willfully ignorant to make such statements.

Indeed, in 2007 Coulter received a copy of the The Mitt Romney Deception report produced by Massachusett’s leading pro-family group, MassResistance. The report documented at least a dozen flip-flops covering virtually every key issue. Coulter did receive the report, since she responded, “Excellent — Thank you.”

This writer then sent her a message detailing Romney’s long history of supporting abortion and Planned Parenthood-style “have-sex-with-anyone-anytime” sex education curricula. She responded by saying, “I looked up the claims of the first article that Romney dissed family groups on sex education, and it’s completely wrong.”

But it was Coulter who was wrong. Romney, during his gubernatorial campaign, announced his support for Planned Parenthood’s “comprehensive sex-ed” approach and as Governor, never opposed the various radical sex-ed bills proposed by the Planned Parenthood crowd. Nor did Romney ever have a problem with schools passing out condoms, stating that, “If the community feels that condom distribution is a helpful thing, then that community should be able to do that.” Incredibly, Romney even personally contributed $10,000 to a radical, anti-abstinence, group call the AIDs Action Committee.

Coulter then argued to this writer that Romney was pro-life because he vetoed a bill requiring all private hospitals to provide the abortion pill for rape victims. She got that wrong as well. Not only did the legislature notify Romney in advance that his symbolic veto would be overridden, but a few days later, he reversed his position and said ”I think, in my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals [referring to private hospitals] to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape.”

Moreover, after the bill became law, Gov. Romney could have used his executive power to exempt private Catholic hospitals from complying, but he refused to do so, even though the Catholic Church begged him to intervene based on existing religious conscience protection statutes on the books. Romney’s action, or lack thereof, led to an unprecedented assault on freedom of religion.

Regarding the landmark Goodridge homosexual marriage decision, Coulter sent messages to the effect she believed Romney acted properly, but once again, she is ignorant of the basic facts regarding this case. The court did NOT order Romney to initiate gay marriage, and indeed, the Massachusetts Constitution specifically reserves the right to determine marriage policy to the legislative branch. And the legislative branch refused to change the marriage statutes, which, to this day, remain focused on male/female marriage. Romney unilaterally, and without any legislative authority, ordered justices of the peace to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. Over a dozen constitutional scholars have stated that Romney improperly implemented what was clearly an unconstitutional decision.

When radio talk-show host Steve Deace of WHO radio interviewed Coulter and started to discuss Romney’s role in implementing same-sex marriage, Coulter went ballistic, screaming, “That’s a lie … it’s a bald-faced incompetent lie. … This is equivalent to the 9/11 Tower-7 conspiracy. … I’m sick of talking to your crazy anti-Romney fanatics.” Since then, Coulter has joined the board of GOProud, a pro-gay marriage group, which has led many observers to view her pro-Romney bias in a different light.

In yet another email to this author, Coulter attached an article supposedly illustrating how Romney was conservative on immigration issues, adding that any allegation Romney supported amnesty for illegal aliens “is a bald-faced lie.” But Romney was a supporter of the McCain amnesty plan, calling it “reasonable” and defended it at length in a Boston Globe article.

On taxes, this author sent Coulter a list of taxes Romney had raised; she responded by claiming, “not according to Cato …” referring to the libertarian Cato Institute. But Cato said that Romney’s claim to have not raised taxes was “mostly a myth. His first budget included no general tax increases but did include a $500 million increase in various fees. He later proposed $140 in business tax hikes through the closing of ‘loopholes’ in the tax code.” Whoops.

The Cato Institute added, “If you consider the massive costs to taxpayers that his universal health-care plan will inflict once he’s left office, Romney’s tenure is clearly not a triumph of small-government activism.”

It is difficult to understand how Coulter can be so effective exposing liberalism in her books and columns, but then be so blinded regarding Romney’s liberalism. But Romney is not the only RINO politician she has tried to portray as a conservative. For the last two years she’s been singing the praises of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at every opportunity and at one point, was urging him to run for President. In a Fox News interview when she said she now wanted Romney to be president, she said, “I remain in love with Chris Christie.”

But as any New Jersey conservative activist will attest, Christie isn’t a conservative and never has been. He ran his gubernatorial race as a moderate and won by defeating two conservatives. On the issue of gun control, global warming, immigration, gay rights, taxes, and many other issues, he’s a RINO. But apparently, Coulter thinks he’s a conservative because he talks tough to the media during press conferences. What a standard.

Coulter loves to rip liberals up for not having their facts straight but when it comes to certain male politicians, she allows her crushes to get in the way of reality.

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