Broken Clock Alarm: Ann Coulter on Republican pandering

Broken Clock Alarm may become a regular feature of this blog, noting those occasions when people who are almost invariably wrong on the issues manage to get something right. Ann Coulter certainly belongs in the "almost invariably wrong" category, and her antics on Twitter during the Republican debate Wednesday night only confirmed that status to many observers. She now finds herself accused of being anti-semitic because she grew exasperated with so many GOP candidates pandering to Jewish voters or, more likely, Jewish campaign donors like Sheldon Adelson. She seems to have been particularly irked by candidates' answer to the question: what will America look like after you become President? At least four candidates -- Christie, Cruz, Huckabee and Rubio -- mentioned Israel in their responses, presumably indicating that America would have more loyal relations with the Jewish State. It seems clear from reading Coulter's tweets that she didn't object to the idea of better American relations with Israel -- her Islamophobia is indisputable -- but did object to the subject coming up when candidates were supposed to describe how the U.S. would look different under a new Republican president. Throughout the evening, she tweeted her annoyance with what she perceived as cheap applause lines, e.g.: "How to get applause from GOP donors: 1) Pledge to start a war 2) Talk about job creators 3) Denounce abortion 4) Cite Reagan 5) Cite Israel." If her opinions were to be judged consistently across the board based on reactions to her comments on Israel, Coulter would stand accused of hating Ronald Reagan, favoring abortion, opposing war and being indifferent to job creation. She's accused of none of these things, however, which only goes to show how irrationally hypersensitive some people are to the very mention of Israel, or at least to any hint of anything less than unconditional American support for the Zionist Entity bordering on symbiosis. Merely to be bored by mandatory affirmations of support for Israel, as Coulter clearly was, renders you suspect. Maybe Coulter should be excused for being bored by a three-hour panel show passing for substantive debate, highlighted -- if that's the word -- by Jeb Bush pathetically demanding that Donald Trump apologize to his wife, by Carly Fiorina emerging as possibly the leading warmonger in the field while defending her tenure as Hewlett-Packard CEO from criticism that, for once from Trump, might be presumed knowledgeable, and by anti-vaccination hysteria taking the stage, despite attempts to refute it from the one candidate with medical expertise. Coulter has seemed a little crazy for a long time, but subjecting herself to the debate may have deranged her just a little further, to the point where she starts to make occasional sense, if only by accident.