A reader writes:

I'm confused. Wasn't it Andrew Sullivan who declared Ms. Coulter to be nothing more than a "performance artist" who need not be taken seriously? I believe that, in July 2006, when Ms. Coulter referred to Al Gore as a "total fag," liberal commentators were aghast. But you dimissed her anti-gay hate as "high camp," a mere "vaudeville act." After all, it wasn't as if she used the word, "fag," in a perjorative way - it was just an inside joke, right?

Now comes Mr. Sullivan to declare Coulter the "standard bearer [of] the new Republicanism, one who "truly represents the heart and soul of contemporary conservative activism." Presumably that heart and soul includes hatred of homosexuals.

Well, which is it -- high camp vaudevillian or true face of the conservative movement?  And where does that leave you?

It's a fair point. I once called her a "drag queen posing as a fascist." But I didn't mean that as a compliment. My only response to my reader is that seeing her live in front of a young, cheering crowd made me feel a lot less complacent. Being a gay man in a crowd that cheers a woman denigrating someone for being a "faggot" is an educative experience. Seeing college kids line up to worship her tore me up. These kids deserve better. They're young and smart enough to be interested in conservatism - and this is what they are getting? From a stage where two presidential candidates just spoke? I guess I've been a bit of a smug ironist who just got mugged by conservative reality.