On the July 20 broadcast of his radio show, Independence Institute president Jon Caldara announced that right-wing pundit Ann Coulter “wants to do a weekly segment with us here on 850 KOA” at a time when other media outlets are dropping Coulter's syndicated column. Caldara said: “I'm sure that that will not happen each and every week, but she [Coulter] is good for her word.” Caldara added that he was “taking a week off next week” but that “the week after -- that's when we will pick up that nice little routine.”

In her latest book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, June 2006), Coulter presents “liberalism as the opposition party to God” [Page 22] and attacks widows of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks who have spoken out on political issues, calling them “self-obsessed” women acting “as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them,” and portraying them as “enjoying their husbands' deaths” [Page 103]. Since the release of Godless, as Media Matters for America has noted, Coulter has made numerous television appearances, including five appearances within three weeks on NBC and MSNBC shows, reiterating and expanding on her invectives against liberals and 9-11 widows.

Also, on July 2, the New York Post reported that plagiarism expert John Barrie, the CEO of a company that developed a “leading plagiarism-recognition system,” discovered “at least three instances of what he calls 'textbook plagiarism' ” in Godless. The Post reported that Barrie “also says he discovered verbatim lifts in Coulter's weekly column, which is syndicated to more than 100 newspapers, including the Fort Lauderdale (Florida) Sun-Sentinel and The Augusta (Georgia) Chronicle.”

Coulter has a history of leveling personal attacks, accusations of treason, and calls for violence against those with whom she disagrees. For instance, commenting on The New York Times' coverage of the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance and financial tracking programs, Coulter wrote in her July 12 syndicated column that she would "prefer a firing squad" for Times executive editor Bill Keller “if he were found guilty of treason.” That night, Coulter expanded on her comments during Caldara's 850 KOA radio show, The Jon Caldara Show:

COULTER: I'm just mentioning it because it's relevant to the topic at hand, The New York Times' treason. Thus, the aptly titled of my book -- title of my book is Treason. And do you think there is any possibility any action will be taken against The New York Times for something that could have gotten them executed, certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed?

An August 26, 2002, New York Observer article quoted Coulter as saying, “My only regret with [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” During his July 12 interview with Coulter, Caldara stated: “There are so many wonderful Coulter comments, but I think that one of my favorites of all time has got to be that your only regret was that Timothy McVeigh didn't hit the New York Times building.”

Other examples of Coulter's incendiary rhetoric include the following:

• Coulter has said that Rep. John P. Murtha (D-PA), a decorated combat veteran, is "[t]he reason soldiers invented 'fragging.' " Coulter later suggested the remark was one of her “best lines” and said that if Murtha “did get fragged, he'd finally deserve one of those Purple Hearts.” [Right Wing News, 6/14/06]

• Coulter has stated: “I'm not blaming the Democrats for 9-11 alone. I'm blaming them also for the Cole bombing, for the embassy bombings, for 20 years of attacks that have not been stopped.” [Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, 8/16/04]

• Coulter has said, “I think a baseball bat is the most effective way [to talk to liberals] these days.” [Fox News' DaySide, 10/6/04]

• Referring to former President Clinton's impeachment, Coulter wrote that the only relevant “debate” should have been “whether to impeach or assassinate” Clinton. [High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (Regnery, October 2002)]

• Coulter has suggested “putting rat poison in [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice [John Paul] Stevens's crème brûlée” [Hannity & Colmes, 7/7/06]

• Coulter has said, “When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that [American Taliban supporter] John Walker [Lindh] is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.” [Conservative Political Action Conference, 1/30/02-2/2/02]

Caldara's decision to make Coulter's appearance a “routine” on his show comes at a time when other news outlets are dropping Coulter's commentary. The Gazette of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, recently decided to stop publishing Coulter's syndicated column and The Shreveport Times [La.] is considering dropping her column as well. On July 21, the day after Caldara's announcement, The Augusta Chronicle also decided to drop Coulter's column:

... biting commentary is one thing. A personal attack is another -- such as when she slammed several 9-11 widows for backing Democrats and allegedly milking the tragedy for political purposes. That charge alone isn't necessarily unfair, but to suggest they were “enjoying” their husbands' deaths and calling them “witches” -- well, that's where stridency crosses a line.

Moreover, in the weeks since, Coulter herself had become the issue, rather than the topics she was writing about, which is an unhealthy circumstance for a journalist, even a columnist.

In the past, Coulter's offensive commentary has led to her dismissal as an MSNBC contributor (for insulting a Vietnam veteran), as a commentator for USA Today (for referring to the Democratic National Convention as the "Spawn of Satan convention" and for calling “all the American people that don't support” President Bush "traitors"), and as a contributing editor with National Review (following her September 13, 2001, response to the 9-11 terrorist attacks, in which she wrote of those “cheering and dancing right now”: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.”)

From the July 20 broadcast of 850 KOA's The Jon Caldara Show:

CALDARA: Ann Coulter was to join us tonight. I got a call late last -- just recently, saying “I can't I can't. Something came up. I'll make it up, I promise. I promise. Please don't hate me.” So, we will do it again. In fact, she and I have been talking; she wants to do a weekly segment with us here on 850 KOA. So, I'm sure that will not happen each and every week, but she's -- she's good for her word. So, she apologizes to you. But we can talk about her behind her back. And I'm going to be taking a week off next week. I will not be around. So, the week after -- that's when we will pick up that nice little routine.

From the July 12 broadcast of The Jon Caldara Show:

COULTER: I mean, for one thing, as I've mentioned here and there in a column, what is going to happen to The New York Times? As I wrote in this week's column, Ronald Reagan called Nixon after -- in December 1972; Nixon was president then, Reagan [California] governor. After Reagan had seen Walter Cronkite's report on CBS News on the Vietnam War, Reagan called Nixon to say, if these -- if this were World War II circumstances, CBS News would be prosecuted for treason. This quote is also in my book Treason, by the way. Can you imagine --

CALDARA: Do you have a book for sale? I didn't know that.

COULTER: No, this is one that isn't for sale, but it's a magnificent book. Well, it is for sale --

CALDARA: It is for sale.

COULTER: -- all my books are for sale. But it's not the book I'm supposed to be hawking right now --

CALDARA: Currently pimping, yes.

COULTER: -- I'm just mentioning it because it's relevant to the topic at hand -- The New York Times' treason. Thus, the aptly titled of my book -- title of my book is Treason. And do you think there's any possibility any action will be taken against The New York Times for something that could have gotten them executed -- certainly did get the Rosenbergs executed?

CALDARA: Of course not.

[...]

CALDARA: There are so many wonderful Coulter comments, but I think one of my favorites of all time has got to be that your only regret was that Timothy McVeigh didn't hit the New York Times building.

COULTER: Yes! Yes. And I --

CALDARA: I don't know why you're not getting prosecuted for that one in the press.

COULTER: Oh no, they bring it up all the time. But as I point out at the beginning of this week's column, a lot of people agreed with me. I didn't expect those people to be at The New York Times. But now we have The New York Times doing everything in its power to help the terrorists launch another terrorist attack on New York.