This will probably be the shortest web log entry I ever write because, first, I am pressed for time at the moment and, second, the topic is easily and quickly dispatched. So here it goes:

Ann Coulter has nurtured a reputation as a confrontational, in-your-face conservative writer with a series of popular books and the sheer disputatiousness of her rhetoric. She can be snide, charming, rude and argumentative all in the same 5 minute interview. She has a huge fan base of readers who feel she is serving a valuable purpose for the conservative community by unabashedly calling out perceived hypocrisy and flaws in logic of the liberal side of the national debate. That’s fine by me and, as a conservative myself, I applaud her support for issues - such as education, immigration, and national defense - that are important to me and millions of other Americans.

However, over the past year or so, I believe Ms. Coulter has stepped too far outside the bounds of civil discourse and is now playing to the great "lowest common denominator" of her readership. She has done so by becoming the "Jerry Springer of commentators." In her latest column on Townhall.com, she makes several basic points that are exceedingly true (at least to the minds of her conservative readership) but does so in such a manner as to completely turn away those of us who prefer civil discourse to schoolyard brawls.

She asserts the following talking points:

1. 1. Teachers unions (NEA, AFT) are strong supporters of Democratic Party candidates.
2. 2. The American educational system is not cost-effective or proficient in turning out high-quality students. Though she primarily places the blame on teachers themselves, there are, to my mind, many reasons for this - government inefficiency, bureaucracy, lack of incentives, etc.
3. 3. The YouTube debate was a fairly circus-like forum for serious political discourse.

In the midst of making these relatively simple - and hardly refutable - points, she manages to spend a third of the article with personal insults on obesity, teacher misconduct with students. She also managed to attack all the individual Democratic participants or, at least, the frontrunners. Barack Obama’s multiethnicity was not excluded.

My point is simply that these are important issues for the American electorate and cannot be intelligently decided when one of the conservatives’ most prominent commentators spends her word count with cheap theatrics and verbal stunts that serve no purpose other than to alienate and incense moderate readers.

Ann Coulter is an intelligent, well-read and committed political analyst. Her recent venture into "Springer-ism" is not only self-defeating for making her points it will turn readers away from her scattered but logical key issues. Just as Michael Moore loses credibility by theatrics in his documentaries, Ms. Coulter, in my opinion, is losing readership among the very persons one would assume she wants to affect: the moderates who have not made up their minds.

In the midst of a crop-duster, spewing poisonous chemicals, it’s difficult to read the lettering on the side of the plane.