Is Ann Coulter Biting the Hand

Ann Coulter remains an inspiration to media whores everywhere.

As unhappy as she is with the Republican primaries, she still figured out a way to get herself a lot of media attention by declaring on Fox that she would support Hillary before she voted for John McCain.

No, and if you're looking at substance rather than whether it's an R or D after his name, manifestly, if our's candidate than Hillary's going to be our girl, Sean, because she's more conservative than he is. I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism. I absolutely believe that.

Like most of Coulter's stuff, this is very clever. But there's a little honesty wrapped in Coulter's relentless cleverness. The clever part is that she got a nice little three-fer out of her Hillary endorsement. Of course, she managed to lash out at McCain and get some publicity for herself (need to sell that next book!). But Coulter also lashed out at Hillary by giving her an "Ann Coulter endorsement" that Coulter knows will hurt Hillary among Democrats.

Atta girl, Ann!

But Coulter's also being honest to the extent that she's always thought that Hillary would keep the troops in Iraq indefinitely.

I've heard her say that on right-wing radio.

Unlike most political pundits, Coulter tries to get under the surface of candidate statements to guess the direction a politician would take in office. On the one hand, Coulter basically sees McCain as an aggressive reform liberal than most Democrats despite his current nods to the right. On the other, she views Hillary as a steady imperialist who would stay in Iraq despite her stated policy of withdrawing American troops.

For Coulter, that makes Hillary a clear choice over McCain.

But being clever doesn't make Coulter right.

Hillary Clinton isn't any more of a steady imperialist than Dennis Kucinich. In 1998, the Clinton administration wanted to invade Iraq over Saddam's booting out the inspectors, but they desisted because they couldn't get any support for the adventure.

In 2002, she was in the ambivalent position of believing that Saddam Hussein deserved to be overthrown. But that wasn't her main thought. Sen. Clinton by then, Hillary preferred inspections and negotiations over invasion but also decided not to be identified with anti-war sentiment. Playing politics, she voted to authorize a war she really didn't want.

As president, Hillary would still much prefer negotiations over military conflict. That's exactly what people like Coulter hated about Bill Clinton's administration. Likewise, I think a Hillary administration would be a much steadier hand at negotiating than either Obama or the temperamental John McCain.