Topic category:  Other/General

Ann Coulter is conservative, Christian, clever, caustic and comical (not necessarily in that order).

Apologies are not Ann's strong suit, but Ann just issued an apology of sorts for not making it crystal clear sooner that she believes that Mitt Romney should become the Republican presidential nominee and then the next President.

Ann dedicated her latest column to Republicans supporting either John McCain or Mike Huckabee: "Assuming any actual Republicans are voting for McCain -- or for liberals' new favorite candidate for us, Mike Huckabee -- this column is for you."

Then, the apology of sorts:

"I've been casually taking swipes at Mitt Romney for the past year based on the assumption that, in the end, Republicans would choose him as our nominee. My thinking was that Romney would be our nominee because he is manifestly the best candidate.

"I had no idea that Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire planned to do absolutely zero research on the candidates and vote on the basis of random impulses."

Embarrassed by her lack of foresight, Ann chided such Republican voters: "Dear Republicans: Please do one-tenth as much research before casting a vote in a presidential election as you do before buying a new car."

That said, Ann lauded Mitt (and pointed out that those who had read her books should have known that Mitt was the best of the Republican presidential aspirants):

"One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain.

"This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): Never take advice from your political enemies.

"Turn on any cable news show right now, and you will see Democratic pundits attacking Romney, calling him a 'flip-flopper,' and heaping praise on McCain and Huckleberry -- almost as if they were reading some sort of 'talking points.'

"Doesn't that raise the tiniest suspicions in any of you? Are you too busy boning up on Consumer Reports' reviews of microwave ovens to spend one day thinking about who should be the next leader of the free world? Are you familiar with our 'no exchange/no return' policy on presidential candidates? Voting for McCain because he was a POW a quarter-century ago or Huckabee because he was a Baptist preacher is like buying a new car because you like the color.

"The candidate Republicans should be clamoring for is the one liberals are feverishly denouncing. That is Mitt Romney by a landslide."

As usual, Ann's right on the merits.

Ann then advocated the Rich test: support the Republican condemned by New York Times columnist Frank Rich (Romney), not Rich's favorite Republican (Huckabee).

Ann:

"Rich treated Mel Gibson's movie 'The Passion of the Christ' as if it were a Leni Riefenstahl Nazi propaganda film. (On a whim, I checked to see if Rich had actually compared Gibson to Riefenstahl in one of his many 'Passion' reviews and yes, of course he had.)

"Curiously, however, Huckabee's Christianity doesn't bother Rich. In column after column, Rich hails Huckabee as the only legitimate leader of the Republican Party. This is like a girl in high school who hates you telling you your hair looks great."

Think about it!

For good measure, Ann ardently addressed and rambunctiously rebutted the often made, yet unscrutinized 'flip-flopper" charge against Mitt.

Ann:

"Liberals claim to be enraged at Romney for being a 'flip-flopper.' I've looked and looked, and the only issue I can find that Romney has 'flipped' on is abortion. When running for office in Massachusetts -- or, for short, 'the Soviet Union' -- Romney said that Massachusetts was a pro-choice state and that he would not seek to change laws on abortion.

"Romney's first race was against Sen. Teddy Kennedy -- whom he came closer to beating than any Republican ever had. If Romney needed to quote 'The Communist Manifesto' to take out that corpulent drunk, all men of good will would owe him a debt of gratitude.

"Even when Romney was claiming to support Roe v. Wade, he won the endorsement of Massachusetts Citizens for Life -- a group I trust more than the editorial board of The New York Times. Romney's Democratic opponents always won the endorsements of the very same pro-choice groups now attacking him as a 'flip-flopper.'

"After his term as governor, NARAL Pro-Choice America assailed Romney, saying: '(A)s governor he initially expressed pro-choice beliefs but had a generally anti-choice record. His position on choice has changed. His position is now anti-choice.'

"Pro-abortion groups like the Republican Majority for Choice -- the evil doppelganger to my own group, Democratic Majority for Life -- are now running videos attacking Romney for 'flip-flopping' on abortion.

"Of all the Republican candidates for president, Romney and Rudy Giuliani are the only ones who had to be elected in pro-choice districts. Romney governed as a pro-lifer and has been viciously attacked by pro-abortion groups.

"By contrast, Giuliani cleverly avoids the heinous 'flip-flopper' label by continuing to embrace baby-killing. (Rudy flip-flops only on trivial matters like illegal immigration and his own marital vows.)"

Very well put!

And, of course, flipping from wrong to right is to be applauded, not assaulted. See, for example, the life of St. Paul, especially the part about what happened to him on the road to Damascus.

Ann is Ann, however, so it's not a shock that she saw fit to describe Mormonism as "a wacky religion."

But Ann knows that Mitt is running for Commander-in-Chief, not Pastor-in-Chief, and that Mitt himself shares the basic American values.

Ann's compelling conclusion:

"At worst, Romney will turn out to be a moderate Republican -- a high-IQ, articulate, moral, wildly successful, moderate Republican. Of the top five Republican candidates for president, Romney is the only one who hasn't dumped his first wife (as well as the second, in the case of Giuliani) -- except Huckabee. And unlike Huckabee, Romney doesn't have a son who hanged a dog at summer camp. So there won't be any intern issues and there won't be any Billy Carter issues.

"It's also possible that Romney will turn out to be a conservative Republican -- at least more conservative than he was as governor of Massachusetts. Whatever problems Romney's Mormonism gives voters, remember: Bill Clinton came in third in heavily Mormon Utah in 1992."

It would have been much better if Ann had endorsed Mitt, say, last Christmas, more than a week before the Iowa caucus.

But, better late than never.

Michael J. Gaynor

Biography - Michael J. Gaynor

Michael J. Gaynor has been practicing law in New York since 1973. A former partner at Fulton, Duncombe & Rowe and Gaynor & Bass, he is a solo practitioner admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts and an Association of the Bar of the City of New York member.

Gaynor graduated magna cum laude, with Honors in Social Science, from Hofstra University's New College, and received his J.D. degree from St. John's Law School, where he won the American Jurisprudence Award in Evidence and served as an editor of the Law Review and the St. Thomas More Institute for Legal Research. He wrote on the Pentagon Papers case for the Review and obscenity law for The Catholic Lawyer and edited the Law Review's commentary on significant developments in New York law.

The day after graduating, Gaynor joined the Fulton firm, where he focused on litigation and corporate law. In 1997 Gaynor and Emily Bass formed Gaynor & Bass and then conducted a general legal practice, emphasizing litigation, and represented corporations, individuals and a New York City labor union. Notably, Gaynor & Bass prevailed in the Second Circuit in a seminal copyright infringement case, Tasini v. New York Times, against newspaper and magazine publishers and Lexis-Nexis. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, 7 to 2, holding that the copyrights of freelance writers had been infringed when their work was put online without permission or compensation.

Gaynor currently contributes regularly to www.MichNews.com, www.RenewAmerica.com, www.WebCommentary.com, www.PostChronicle.com and www.therealitycheck.org and has contributed to many other websites. He has written extensively on political and religious issues, notably the Terry Schiavo case, the Duke "no rape" case, ACORN and canon law, and appeared as a guest on television and radio. He was acknowledged in Until Proven Innocent, by Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, and Culture of Corruption, by Michelle Malkin. He appeared on "Your World With Cavuto" to promote an eBay boycott that he initiated and "The World Over With Raymond Arroyo" (EWTN) to discuss the legal implications of the Schiavo case. On October 22, 2008, Gaynor was the first to report that The New York Times had killed an Obama/ACORN expose on which a Times reporter had been working with ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief.

Gaynor's email address is gaynormike@aol.com.