PURE GOLD: ANN COULTER STILL WALKS AMONG US!

She has become the darling of the "Hate Party of America," a blonde dragon lady who sells venom at lucrative prices then slouches towards the nearest bank, laughing all the way.

Ann Coulter, a take-no-prisoners author of the far right, has converted her vitriol into huge capital gains by churning out best-selling (if often hysterical) books, writing mean-spirited columns, and making outrageous speeches before hate crowds that adore her.

She has had unkind words for Muslims, Jews and gays, but her fangs are mainly focused on Democrats and liberals, who from her vantage point are equally detestable.

She boasts about her religiosity but Christians like Pope John XXIII, Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King would not give her high marks.

She likes to shock. For example:

"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots."

And: "Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties, provided we're only talking about criminals."

She gets laughs from right-wing audiences when she tells them "I've decided to cut out of my speech where I say anything nice about Democrats."

While she insists she's no bigot, she uses a stiletto (heel) against Jews and Muslims, while ferociously attacking Bill Clinton, John Edwards, the N.Y. Times, a group of 9/11 widows, and American women in general for the way they vote, among many others.

Her critique of Jews begins with her conviction that "Jesus died for my sins," a view not commonly shared by the Hebrews. So she says on TV: "Jews need to be perfected," adding that America is a Christian nation and that Christians see themselves as "perfected Jews," accepting both the Old and New Testaments. The problem of course is that the stubborn Jews refuse to accept the New Testament.

Her religious fervor extends to her favorite enemies, the liberals. One of her seven best-sellers is titled: "Godless—the Church of Liberalism."

As for Muslims, she rants against "Islamo-Fascism," and calls for greater profiling: "If we could get Muslims to boycott our airlines, we could dispense with airline security altogether."

It is hard to believe she always means what she says. In discussing unfriendly Muslim countries she suggests "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

She wears a small cross—occasionally showing a bit of cleavage—but her bad taste reached its nadir in her attack on the "Jersey Girls," a widowed group whose husbands died on 9/11 and who came out in support of John Kerry for president in 2004. "I've never seen women enjoy their husbands' death so much," Coulter said. Incidentally, her biography indicates she has been engaged three times but never married. One suitor was Andy Stein, former Manhattan borough president. What a twosome!

The N.Y. Times is at the top of her hate list. She once expressed regret that "Timothy McVeigh didn't go to the N.Y. Times Building." That provoked some opposition, so she modified her position, adding that McVeigh should have acted after everyone had left the building "except the editors and reporters."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, she singled out John Edwards for special abuse, hinting before a conservative convention and later on TV that Edwards might be "a faggot," an irony in light of what followed. She always insisted no prejudice was intended.

Some papers dropped her column after that, but she picked up additional speaking engagements. Haters on the right should not be underestimated. She hadn't given up on Edwards, later suggesting that it would be satisfying if "he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot."

Whether facetious or not, she told the Guardian newspaper that America would be better off if women didn't have the vote. She explained that in every presidential election since 1950 "the Republicans would have won if only men voted."

Obama has not escaped her literary fangs. She dubbed his book, Dreams of My Father, "a dimestore Mein Kampf," and she insists on calling the president, " B. Hussein Obama." In her latest book, she chides Michelle and praises Cindy McCain.

While she frequently makes Madame DeFarge and Lady MacBeth look like wimps, she often seems like a whiner and false prophet. She complains regularly that she is a victim of the liberal media. She goes bananas when she doesn't get the coverage she thinks she deserves. She gets upset when asked about her age—she's in her 40's. She tried and failed to defeat moderate Republican Rep. Chris Shays of Connecticut because he wouldn't vote to impeach Clinton. (Shays did lose in the 2008 Democratic sweep.) And she predicted Hillary would never win a Senate seat because of Whitewater.

While she boasts about the high sales of her best-sellers, an asterisk should appear next to the claim. Democratic Underground points out that right-wing think tanks buy large quantities of her books for distribution to true believers.

In her latest political foray, she makes it clear that she wants to cleanse the Republican Party. Sens. Collins, Snowe and Spector, she insists, are not really Republicans. Those were the only three Republicans in Congress who voted for the stimulus package. At least she's consistent.