Coulter's Anti-Catholic Screed Against Santorum Revisited ... "Don't Vote for Santorum Because He's 'Too Catholic' "

I am revisiting my post from yesterday titled "Ann Coulter ... Anti-Catholic Bigot" because I believe an important point needs to be re-emphasized.

Since publishing my piece yesterday, I have received mostly agreement from other quarters of the blogosphere, but there have been a few who have accused me of "misconstruing" Coulter's commentary. These accusations have been along the lines of "Coulter's late father was Catholic" (yeah, so was Henry VIII's) or "All she's saying is that Catholicism and conservatism aren't the same thing" (Really? Is that ALL she was saying?).

One commenter at my original post made essentially these arguments in multiple comments here, here, and here. Because I believe this commenter and others are the ones who are TRULY trying to misconstrue and obfuscate the real meaning behind Coulter's commentary, I believe a response is necessary.

These folks seem to be trying to make someone sound reasonable who isn't particularly known for her reasonableness. Coulter is a bomb thrower and an iconoclast. She's not trying to make a reasoned argument here for why Santorum is less preferable to Romney. It's not her style. Never has been. She's throwing bombs at Santorum using one of the best weapons available to do so - bigotry.

All the pro-Coulter spin can't cover that basic fact. The basic fact that, in its essence, Coulter's screed comes down to this: "Don't vote for Santorum because he's 'too Catholic'."

I wonder why Coulter invoked Ted Kennedy, who has almost nothing in common with Santorum other than the fact that they were baptized into the Catholic Church as infants? Could it be because to many evangelicals (and I know because I was a Southern Baptist for the first 36 years of my life), the Kennedys in general, and Ted Kennedy in particular, represents everything that is allegedly "wrong" with the Catholic faith? I cannot tell you how many times during my years as an evangelical that I heard the Kennedy name invoked as a warning about the dangers of Catholicism. It rather seems to me that what Coulter has done with her comparison to Kennedy is to try to tar Santorum with guilt by association in the minds of evangelical voters who might be tempted to support Santorum over Romney.

Honestly, is there REALLY any other way to interpret this piece by Coulter? If so, then she certainly left open the possibility of the reading I (and others, I might add) have given to it. But the one thing you can say about Coulter is that she has NEVER had a problem making herself perfectly clear. And she's perfectly clear in stating here that Santorum is unacceptable because he is "too Catholic".