I'm sure a lot of you were wondering what happened to Ann Coulter this election season. The right has trotted her out to wage culture wars reliably ever since 1998. But she hardly was visible at all this year.

Well, if you happen to be one of those lost souls who belongs to the Conservative Book Club, then you received one of these e-mails in your Inbox this week from Coulter.

[Click here to see the full letter.]

As you can see, it's a letter that starts out by teeing off the emerging right-wing meme attempting to blame Barack Obama for the current economic meltdown, mostly by noting that Wall Street firms donated more heavily to Obama's campaign than to John McCain's:

If you've been wondering why the financial industry is in meltdown -- and taking your 401(k) or investment portfolio down with it -- now you know.

Let's face it: The former frat boys who populate Wall Street today understand economics as well as the pinko professors whose courses they snored through.

Now, it's true that Democrats were heavily preferred by Wall Street campaign donors this year, but that has far more to do with their historic preference for lining up behind the perceived likely winners of a given election season. And even a blind pig -- or a right-wing pundit -- could sense before the season even started that the Republican brand was giving off the distinct odor of fetid slop.

But if those same Wall Street pinko-educated frat boys are as ignorant of economics this year as Coulter claims, then wouldn't they have been equally so in 2000 and 2004, when they gave heavily instead to Coulter's then-preferred candidate, George W. Bush? Something doesn't exactly add up here.

That's all just throat-clearing, though, for Coulter's main pitch: She's selling you a financial newsletter written by a fellow named Mark Skousen, whose PhD in economics seems to impress Coulter mightily (if only she gave as much credence to people who actually won the Nobel Prize in economics).

Three years ago, Skousen was selling the same scam through the Heritage Foundation, promising super-hot stock tips if only you subscribed to his pricey investment newsletter. No word on how that hot tech stock actually did -- but I'd wager it performed about as well the return on assisting former Nigerian prime ministers.

Skousen, however, is not just your average "conservative economist." He actually is an adherent of the same far-right school of "libertarian" economics as Ron Paul: he advocates a return to the gold standard, the dismantling of the IRS and the Federal Reserve, and most of the other conspiratorial nonsense that accompanies these theories. Like Paul, he's a devotee of the Ludwig Van Mises Institute, which promotes much of this malarkey, and he's likewise actually a Bircherite in libertarian clothing. Indeed, Paul was one of the headliners at Skousen's "FreedomFest" earlier this year in Las Vegas.

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(Michael's head line made me laugh. BREAKING NEWS! THERE WILL BE NO ELECTRICITY IF OBAMA IS ELECTED! Sean Hannity)

Usually Coulter would have been littering our air waves for weeks now, but she has just suddenly appeared. C&Ler Kevin emails:

Democrats celebrate (high gas prices). Coulter thinks that "liberals" want us to live like the "Indians" and live in huts and yurts.

And the right wing nutbloggers are trying to say that the MSM has hidden Obama's January interview from the public, but that's a lie also as Lee Ward of Wizbang Blue emails me and says:

The interview was publicly released last January - and I wrote about it at that time including an embedded video. The notion that it was "hidden" and only recently discovered is a bald-faced lie.

And the idea that Obama would try to destroy the coal industry is ludicrous. By the way, I guess McCain wants to destroy it too. Hannity's producers have been pairing her up these last few days as the right is in "smear mode panic" against Obama with former Democratic pollster Pat Caddell for Jimmy Carter. Pat usually just backs Hannity whenever there's a new smear against Obama. And he's made a living out of doing just that since 2004 at least.
Who is Pat Caddell?

Pat Caddell, a FOX News Channel contributor and onetime pollster for former President Jimmy Carter, has made the rounds on cable television this campaign season, apparently being booked as a counterbalance to Republican pundits. But on almost every occasion, Caddell has attacked the Kerry-Edwards '04 campaign and the Democratic Party, reinforcing Republican pundits' attacks rather than refuting them.

An MMFA LexisNexis search revealed that Caddell has made 20 primetime appearances on cable news networks in 2004, including 16 appearances on FOX News Channel and four on MSNBC; three of Caddell's appearances on FOX occurred in the first half of September. In eight separate appearances on the FOX News Channel in 2004, Caddell -- identified as a "FOX News contributor," "Democratic strategist," "Democratic pollster," or "former Democratic strategist" -- appeared opposite Republican pundits. But on almost every occasion, he issued harsh attacks on Senator John Kerry and other Democrats...read on

November 02, 2008 C-SPAN

The Huffington Post:

The annual Gridiron dinner occurred this past weekend in Washington D.C., and while the main focus was on the entertainment, here's a tidbit we were struck by in the Washington Post's "Reliable Source" column: Ann Coulter attended the event with Bob Novak -- as his date. The Prince and Princess of Darkness? Sounds like a match!

No word on whether the couple was espied holding hands, or gazing into each others' eyes, or making a mad dash for the backseat of a cab. So, you'll just have to use your imagination.

We don't have a category for Ewww, so I chose torture instead. Can you imagine the dinner conversation? A nightcap perhaps? Novakula and Coultergeist sittin' in a tree... *shudder*

At least she's eating now.

Ann Coulter suffered a serious embarrassment over the weekend when her credit card was declined in Palm Beach. According to our spy, the nutty arch-conservative was caught at 9:45 p.m. Saturday night in the 10 Items or Less line at the local Publix when her card was rejected.

Ann Coulter speaks for the base of the GOP, but apparently organizers of the Conservative Political Action Committee have decided not to invite her to speak at this years convention. She was quite the hit last year with her derogatory comment about John Edwards, but all good things must come to an end. More from Think Progress:

On February 7-9, conservatives from around the country will gather in Washington, D.C. for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This year, one of the darlings of the far right’s oft-distasteful and unpleasant punditry will not be invited:

She’s always been outrageous, but when conservative Ann Coulter talked of 9/11 “rag heads” at the 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference and linked the slur “faggot” to Sen. John Edwards in a 2007 speech, CPAC’s organizers decided to cut her from the list of speakers at the February 7-9 conference expected to draw 6,000. Read on...

On YourWorld with Neil Cavuto yesterday, Ann Coulter continued to insist that she will support--and in fact, campaign for--Hillary Clinton, rather than hold her nose and support the ideologically impure John McCain.

I just find Coulter's hissy fit schadenfreude-licious, as I do Sean Hannity's and Rush Limbaugh's. The punditocracy is losing whatever is left of their sanity that John "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain could actually be the Republican nominee. Know why? Because it means that their base has tuned them out, turned them off and voted as they see fit, not as they've been told. By them. Any bigger indicator of the fact that their base is finding them irrelevant?

Oh and as a little aside, woman to....er, woman, the Goth make-up does you no favors, Ann. It might have worked in your early 20s (but not with that "Aryan from Darien" Connecticut accent), but now, not so much. Good to see you found something other than the black cocktail dress to wear, though. I'd call that progress, but I know how that word scares you.

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Which is another way of saying she really, really hates John McCain, suddenly the Über Liberal in the race to be President. All of which amused Alan Colmes immensely. I'm not sure what Senator Clinton would make of the proceedings or Coulter's endorsement.

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Friday night's Worst Person In The World Bronze award went to BillO for getting his butt whooped on his own comedy show (see The French Kiss) by fellow right wing hack, Bernard Goldberg, for not calling out Ann Coulter on her anti-semitic remarks. The Silver went to the DoD and the Gold went to the Cowardly Lion, Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt called Chris Matthews and Tim Russert "clowns" and said they ideologically damaged NBC because they once worked for Democratic politicians, then in the same interview said Diane Sawyer would make a great newscaster because she worked for...Richard Nixon.

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From Friday's show, perpetual champion Bill O'Reilly leads the pack of apologists for fascism and bigotry. 'Nuff said.

 C&Ler Bill S. sent me an email tip on 10/08 and said:

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She appeared on CNBC's Danny Deutch (sp?) "Big Idea" show and shared her warped view of Christianity vis a vis Judaism. As usual she says the most patently offensive statements and then pretends that they're "fact." Deutch didn't take kindly to her definition of Christians as "perfected Jews" or her urging Jews (such as Deutch, I believe) to "get perfected."

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

I had this at the beginning of the week, but couldn't get to it. Media Matters has the transcript...Her book is in the tank so you'd expect her to be idiotic, but her antisemitism really surprised Donny. And while Meridith Vieira finally says something this morning that needs to be said: Vieira: "So you're saying she should not be allowed on the air?" And admitted the media are all enablers: Vieira: "Of course we are. We're perpetuating it." She must have forgotten that The TODAY Show had Coulter on as an analyst last week. Meridith didn't even blink an eye when Coulter was giddy over the thought that Giuliani was crazy enough to bomb Iran. (transcript below the fold) Sarah Wheaton has a take.

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I try to avoid posts about right-wing clown Ann Coulter, but when someone says women shouldn’t vote, it's too good not to mention.

“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

“It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’”

Garance Franke-Ruta suggests, "I would like to see that quote, 'If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democratic president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, a personal fantasy of mine,' as the header on GOTV mailers along with pictures of Coulter and whichever candidates were stupid enough to associate themselves with her earlier in the year. I would like to see it on television ads."

bluegal:  On topic, while we sometimes think of the blogosphere as "male-dominated," thanks to Catherine Morgan at Informed Voters for today's list of over one hundred women blogging on politics, from both sides of the spectrum.  ahem.    

 The TODAY Show does it part to help make Coulter into some sort of "voice of reason" for Conservatives once again. They had her open up the show yesterday to be a really serious person and analyze why Christian Conservatives should or would vote for Rudy Giuliani.

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Coulter: ....and also he seems sort of crazy enough that he'd nuke Iran and that warms our hearts and at this point its been years since an ex-wife has appeared on Vagina Monologues

Vieira just giggles at the monologue joke and forgets that Coultergeist wants to Nuke a country. I know Meredith isn't that familiar with the interview role she plays yet, but why didn't she yell: "Nuke Iran, are you kidding me! What about all the innocent people that would die?"

I guess there's something that warms Annie's heart after all. Coulter does her best to say and use the words of...umm....Jerry Falwell to defend a vote from the Dobson faction for him. All their priorities don't matter as long as he attacks Iran...Good Lord...Why hasn't the TODAY show invited on the NY Times best selling author---Glenn Greenwald as an analyst? (And this despicable post about Glenn would be approved material for Coulter.) Maybe even Rachel Maddow might get a shot? I hardly ever see any Progressive voices on. Can we get a little balance, Mr. Oppenhiem? (see my post on this Weekly Standard columnist)

Email Noah.Oppenheim@nbcuni.com and  Phil.Griffin@nbcuni.com

Yeah I have to admit that my own personal blog is a declared "Coulter-free zone" but since this blog is called "Crooks and LIARS" it would be completely remiss to ban her here. This is classic. Here's just a few snippets of knowledge that you can learn from the "Scandal" writer, here "interviewed" by Neil Cavuto:1. Karl Rove is not to blame for ALL the stupid stuff Bush did.

2. QUOTE: "George Bush DID know how to tie his shoes and eat before Karl Rove--I'm sure they'll keep talking."

3. There are "three monumental disasters" of the Bush Administration. Harriet Miers is one but the Iraq War isn't.

Via Newshoggers:

I thought this case was dead in the water when Capt. Fogg told me her FBI ex-lover had intervened but Annie's little voting faux pas is not resolved yet. Fogg catches this item from the local news.

The Palm Beach Post reports today that FEC Case No. 07-211 is still alive and well and that Coulter is still under investigation. WPB campaign consultant Richard Giorgio has filed a complaint accusing her of false swearing and fraud to which Giorgio claims to have been an eye witness.

"This was willful. Anyone else would have been prosecuted."

Undoubtedly so and I have to remember how tens of thousands of people were turned away at the polls because they had been falsely added to the Felons list by the Florida Republican Machine. But this is a Red State and the law only applies to little people. Read more...

So you're sayin' there's a chance...