Coulter on Obama: "It's shocking that ... he's probably going to be our next president, President Hussein"

On the February 13 edition of Fox News' Your World, right-wing pundit Ann Coulter repeatedly referred to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (IL) as "B. Hussein Obama" -- five times in all, within a span of less than 2 minutes -- once calling him "President Hussein." While discussing 2008 presidential candidates Obama and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ), Coulter said: "Forget the prediction aspect of this. Hillary Clinton would be more conservative than John McCain on illegal immigration, I think, on terrorism if there's a terrorist attack. Both B. Hussein Obama and John McCain, in the event of a terrorist attack, will go take a tour of Mecca. It's a very frightening time for America." After Coulter referred to Obama as "B. Hussein Obama" for the fifth time, host Neil Cavuto asked: "So, why do you keep saying the 'B. Hussein Obama'?" Coulter replied: "Well, that's his name." She added: "It's shocking that ... he's probably going to be our next president, President Hussein."

Coulter's appearance on Your World came less than a week after she delivered a speech to the Young America's Foundation, in which she also referred to Obama as "B. Hussein Obama," and asserted: "His strongest selling point is that he is one of the least dangerous people I know named Hussein." Coulter went on to say: "Other than that, Barack's really been kind of coasting on his record, since his first big accomplishment of being born half-black. I keep hearing people say, 'Oh, Obama could never be elected because he's half-black. You know, 'cause we're just such a racist country.' What are they talking about? He wouldn't be running for president if he weren't half-black. He'd be [Sen.] Dick Durbin [D-IL] with less experience."

Media Matters has documented numerous instances in which media figures highlighted Obama's middle name. In addition, Media Matters has noted Coulter's well-documented history of making anti-Muslim remarks:

• On the June 25, 2007, edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, discussing Obama's June 23, 2007, speech at a church in Hartford, Connecticut, co-host Alan Colmes asked Coulter if "[o]nly Republicans can talk in churches." Coulter responded: "No, but I do think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using 'hijack' and 'religion' in the same sentence." Colmes replied: "[I]n other words, you want to paint him as a terrorist by continuing ... to highlight that his middle name is Hussein?" Coulter then stated: "Just avoid those two together. ... Avoid 'hijack and 'religion.' " Coulter was referring to a line in Obama's speech: "But somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked."

• In her February 8, 2006, nationally syndicated column on the rash of violence linked to cartoons in European newspapers that satirized the Prophet Muhammad, Coulter suggested that Islam is "a car-burning cult" and wrote that Muslims have "a predilection for violence."

• In her February 3, 2005, column, after lauding the elections in Iraq as "one of the grandest events in the history of the world," Coulter cited reports of Iraqis celebrating in the streets on Election Day and added parenthetically: "Isn't it great to see Muslims celebrating something other than the slaughter of Americans?"

• In her April 28, 2004, column, titled "Arab Hijackers Now Eligible For Pre-Boarding," Coulter described her search for the airline that, post-September 11, has "engaged in the most egregious discrimination" against passengers who appeared to be Arab, Middle Eastern, or Muslim, "so [Coulter] could fly only that airline."

• Two days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Coulter wrote about Muslims: "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity." She was fired from the National Review Online in late 2001 for this comment. In her book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter (Crown Publishing Group, October 2004), Coulter also wrote: "I am often asked if I still think we should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity. The answer is: Now more than ever!" On the October 4, 2004, edition of Hannity & Colmes, in answer to Colmes' question -- "Would you like to convert these people all to Christianity?" -- Coulter said: "The ones that we haven't killed, yes."

From the February 13 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

CAVUTO: What do you see happening?

COULTER: Look, I'm not good at making predictions, and it's not a good season for making predictions, but you still have --

CAVUTO: But you're very good at reading numbers, Ann. I mean, you --

COULTER: I'm not as good --

CAVUTO: Unless something hellacious happens, he's the Republican nominee.

COULTER: Forget the prediction aspect of this. Hillary Clinton would be more conservative than John McCain on illegal immigration, I think, on terrorism if there's a terrorist attack. Both B. Hussein Obama and John McCain, in the event of a terrorist attack, will go take a tour of Mecca. It's a very frightening time for America, and the one thing that I think Americans can get out of this is the most important thing we have to do is repeal McCain-Feingold. The way -- if you look at it backwards and see how we ever got a president like Ronald Reagan, it's because he had a few millionaires funding his campaign to run for governor of California. I was sitting around with some of my --

CAVUTO: Instead of a single billionaire is what you're saying.

COULTER: Correct. Correct.

CAVUTO: All right, so --

COULTER: But still, you have a lot of people who aren't independently wealthy.

CAVUTO: But you know what's going to be difficult for someone like --

COULTER: Now we're limiting the pool.

CABUTO: All right, but for someone like you, Ann, it's got -- Obama's a slippery target, right? He's not as clear, focused, or --

COULTER; Well, because we -- he's like Chinese food. You hear the speech, "Ah, that was a great speech," and five minutes later, "What did he say?"

CAVUTO: But does that matter now?

COULTER: I don't -- are you trying to get me to make a prediction? I don't know. I think both he --

CAVUTO: I'm just saying it's going to be difficult -- you can easily --

COULTER: -- and John McCain would be a disaster.

CAVUTO: -- paint, and many conservatives have, that Hillary Clinton is evil and all of that, right? It's a tougher pitch to do with Obama, right?

COULTER: Oh, I don't think so. No, I don't think so at all. I think what Republicans have to look at is whether we're going to get blamed for it. I mean, at least --

CAVUTO: But will you -- you said you'd vote for Hillary --

COULTER: -- B. Hussein Obama would end up being --

CAVUTO: You said you'd vote for Hillary over McCain --

COULTER: I'm making no commitments on B. Hussein Obama.

CAVUTO: I see you're hedging. You're hedging.

COULTER: But, at least B. Hussein Obama would probably just be a Jimmy Carter, and four years, we pick up seats. With McCain, we'll get the same policies. We'll probably lose a lot of seats in the House and the Senate in the mid-term election. We'll lose a lot of seats in 2012. Then they get President B. Hussein Obama in there, and he has massive majorities in the House and the Senate.

CAVUTO: So, why do you keep saying the "B. Hussein Obama"?

COULTER: Well, that's his name.

CAVUTO: I know.

COULTER: It's shocking that -- that --

CAVUTO: It's also Barack Obama.

COULTER: -- that he's probably going to be our next president, President Hussein.

CAVUTO: Incredible.

COULTER: Oh, sorry. You tricked me into giving a prediction. I thought we were talking about steroids.

CAVUTO: Ann Coulter, always good seeing you.