Coulter, Malkin Better Get Ready for Round 2

Meghan McCain drops the gloves again

The last time Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham took aim at Meghan McCain, things did not turn out well for them.

Ingraham especially embarrassed herself when she mocked McCain as a "plus-sized model".

The latest battle comes after Michelle Malkin identified McCain as a conservative commentator who needs to "shut up" during a live public online chat about her new book.

"So Michelle Malkin successfully rounds out the trifecta of extreme female conservative pundits, following Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter, who believe that I, and Republicans like me, need to shut up and get out of the party," McCain wrote on her blog. "Is this surprising? Not really, given my father’s complicated history with the extreme right of the GOP."

"What do Malkin and the other conservative pundits hope to accomplish by arguing that people 'like me' have no place within the Republican Party?" McCain asked. "And who exactly are people 'like me'? Young people? Moderate people? Young female people? People with tattoos who go to biker rallies?"

One could expect that Malkin, Coulter and Ingraham would probably answer that people like Meghan McCain (and her father, John) aren't sufficiently conservative for their meager tastes. Few people credit them with an understanding that conservatism only truly succeeds as a "big tent" movement, and that moderate conservatives like the McCains are key to making such a thing possible.

"The Republican Party should be a place for all kinds of people, and I hope my fellow moderates come to see that the party is the place for them, too," McCain continued.

As McCain rightly notes, the mass exodus that people like Malkin, Coulter and Ingraham advocate would only help the Democrats.

"If the party continues to demand that people leave, I guarantee you that they will," McCain noted. "If you tell people there is no place for them, they aren’t going to fight for their right to stay. They are going to rush into the open arms of the other team."

One can imagine that the Democrats would be more than happy to have John and Meghan McCain on their team, even if Michelle Malkin lacks the wisdom to see the benefit.

"The old conservatives of the past need to start accepting that this is a new era and I am a part of a new generation," McCain concludes. "I am as sick of the infighting as everyone else, but I would like to point out that I am not the one starting this fight or demanding that the other half of the party leave."

A Republican party with Meghan and John McCain is a stronger Republican party -- especially since John McCain has begun out-networking President Barack Obama.

If Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham can't recognize this, they'd better get the hell out of the way for people who can. One thing is for certain: Meghan McCain is not taking the slings and arrows of the extreme right-wing lying down.

She's dropping the gloves and fighting back.

Opportunism Defined

American left out to crucify someone -- and they've chosen Carrie Prejean

For anyone who ever bought the myth that only the right-wing in America delights in destroying people who provoke their ire, the events that continue to swirl around Carrie Prejean prove differently. In this event the bloodthirstiness of the American left is on full display, and it seems very much equal to the non-mythical bloodthirstiness of the American right.

The Huffington Post rather gleefully jumped on a recent revelation that Prejean has had breast implants.

These people have slipped so deeply into folly that they've even managed to make one of America's perrenial wrong clocks, Laura Ingraham, right about something.

Substituting for Bill O'Reilly on the O'Reilly Factor, Ingraham contronted feminist Gloria Feldt over the body image-oriented attacks on Prejean.

At issue was a segment of Keith Olbermann's Countdown in which a gay writer launched into a long tirade of personal and body-oriented attacks on Prejean.

"I am thinking to myself, where are the feminists?" Ingraham asked. "Are feminists not going to say, wait a second. You do not go there with a young woman."

"I think now she is fair game. She is now fair game because she is a national spokesperson for a group that opposes marriage equality," Feldt replied. She evidently failed to perceive the irony.

But Ingraham did.

"This is great!" Ingraham said. "A feminist is attacking a woman for how she looks. This is great. You guys have come full circle here in the United States of America. Now it is OK for feminists to ridicule women for the way they look."

Just as many American feminists threw thousands of pregnant teenagers under the bus in order to get at Sarah Palin through her daughter, many American feminists -- certainly not all and hopefully not even a majority of them -- are now throwing the thousands of women who are insecure enough about their body image to get breast implants under the bus.

But an even deeper irony seems to rest on the Miss California organization's inability to properly define "opportunism".

In an April 30 press release, Miss California spokespeople wrote: "We are deeply saddened Carrie Prejean has forgotten her platform of the Special Olympics, her commitment to all Californians, and solidified her legacy as one that goes beyond the right to voice her beliefs and instead reveals her opportunistic agenda."

They may want to double-check the meaning of opportunism.

Levelling charges of opportunism against Prejean suggests that she went looking for this controversy. Yet those familiar with the overall story know the truth is very different. Prejean didn't go out of her way to find an opportunity to voice her opinion on same-sex marriage.

Rather, she was asked that question by Perez Hilton, who was looking for an opportunity to politicize the Miss USA proceedings.

While no one is obligated to agree with Prejean's opinion -- this author has previously expressed his disagreement -- one at the very least has to respect the fact that Prejean chose to answer the question honestly. She gave her true opinion, and has since been unflinching and unrepentant about that.

Certainly, one could raise the argument that Prejean could have offered the same "no comment" answer as she has used to respond to questions about her breast implants. Then again, one also has to keep in mind that one of Hilton's complaints is that Prejean allegedly didn't answer the question.

As soon as Hilton asked that question, there was no way that Prejean could escape the onslaught of public attack she's been subject to ever since with her integrity intact. She could either lie about her opinion and escape unattacked, or tell the truth and endure it.

She chose to do the former, and history has since largely spoken for itself.

Now that their elected representatives are firmly in control of the country, the American left is out to absolutely destroy someone. They've chosen Carrie Prejean.