• Ann Coulter. PHOTO COURTESY GAGE SKIDMORE

Congressional candidate Maggie Brooks raised a few eyebrows recently when she attended a local luncheon where the keynote speaker was Conservative personality-assassin Ann Coulter. For my money, Coulter is the worst of the worst, a smug malignancy with a pathological thirst for glory.

Here are a couple of examples of Coulter’s “wisdom”:

On the 9/11 widows who were critical of the Bush administration:
"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband's deaths so much." (http://loop21.com/top-5-craziest-or-most-racist-ann-coulter-quotes)

The "backbone of the Democratic Party" is a "typical fat, implacable welfare recipient"— syndicated column 10/29/99. (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0111.coulterwisdom.html)

So when we had Brooks in the office last week, I asked how the Coulter visit fits in with her vision of a kinder, gentler Congress. She said that all she did was attend a luncheon and that she had nothing to do with bringing Coulter to Rochester.

“It was a fund-raiser for the local Republican Party,” Brooks said. “They didn’t ask my permission. I attended as a supporter of the party, not as a supporter of Ann Coulter. I don’t agree with everything she says.”

“I probably go to 10 to 12 luncheons a year where I absolutely disagree with the speaker and I never get to say so,” Brooks added. “And I don’t get beaten up for attending.”