Coulter the Crackpot

Ann Coulter has been on quite a tear the past few days. On July 12, she used her syndicated column to respond to “Melanie Morgan's assertion that if New York Times executive editor Bill Keller were convicted of treason she ‘would have no problem with him being sent to the gas chamber’” by writing, charmingly, “I prefer a firing squad, but I'm open to a debate on the method of execution." Later that day, she appeared on The Jon Caldara Show in Denver and, referring to the “Times' decision to report on the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program and a Treasury Department program designed to track international financial transactions for terrorist activity,” accused the Times of having done "something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed."

Two days after this day chock full o’ eliminationist rhetoric, a letter arrived in the mail room of the Times containing white power and a copy of the Times’ editorial that defended their reporting, emblazoned with an X.

Today, Editor & Publisher reports that Coulter has claimed to be the author of the letter.

According to a published report, Ann Coulter has (in jest, we assume) claimed to have sent that mysterious white powder to The New York Times.

Reporter Jacob Bernstein, in a "Memo Pad" item in today's Women's Wear Daily, wrote that he received a message from a New York Times source saying that Friday's powder mailing -- which included an Xed-out Times editorial and what ended up being corn starch -- "makes all of Ann Coulter's comments a little less funny. I wonder if she considers herself at all responsible when lunatics read her columns and she says that we should be killed."

…"Memo Pad" sent an e-mail to Coulter's AOL account and according to Bernstein, received a reply claiming that she was the sender of the mysterious powder.

"'So glad to hear that The New York Times got my letter and that your friend at the Times thinks I'm funny,' she wrote back. 'Good luck in journalism and please send me your home address so we can stay in touch, too.’”

Heinous, awful bitch.

Yesterday, Keith Olbermann anointed Ann Coulter his Worst Person in the World, advising her "one day, somebody at the Times, probably some guy in the mail room, is going to get hurt and it'll be on your conscience — if you have one."

Clearly, she doesn’t.

Meanwhile, Jill points out that Coulter “just confessed to a crime,” and says, wisely, “Book 'er, Danno.”