Controversial conservative author, icon and columnist Ann Coulter is in hot water again — and this time she’s accused of being anti-Semitic.

Coulter has been denounced before. In fact, most Americans are already free members of the Ann Coulter Outrage Of The Month Club, with a new edition of outrage usually shipped right around the time she has a new book coming out.

But this time you wonder if she’s going to recover as quickly because at issue is less bomb throwing — if you watch the video (below) it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to create controversy and even tries to clarify her comments after the commercial — than showing a fundamental attitude that many people who are Jewish (and who aren’t) will interpret as antisemitism.

Not all Jews will feel that way, of course. Her Jewish allies on the right will say they know she isn’t anti-Semitic, defend her, spin the words on the video (and the utter, visible consternation of the Jewish host that heard her say them). Why? Because she blasts liberals (whom they hate) and Democrats (whom they hate). So she needs to be defended and her comments need to be explained away (or, better yet, attack those who are criticizing her ).

The irony remains: this time Coulter truly did NOT seem to be trying to throw a bomb to sell books. She was just explaining what she felt — that Jews were not “perfect” and suggested that if they were they’d be Christians (like her).

What is likely to be Coulter’s authentic case of foot-in-mouth rather than her standard foot-shoved-up-someone’s-you-know-what came on CNBC

Appearing on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show, “The Big Idea,” on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren’t any Jewish people and that they needed to “perfect” themselves into — Christians.

It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn’t mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded “anti-Semitic.”

Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like “the head of Iran” and “wipe Israel off the Earth,” Coulter stated: “No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. … That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament.”

Deutsch told E&P’s sibling magazine, Adweek, today, “I was offended. And then, and this was interesting, she started to back off and seemed a little upset.”

Asked to gauge her reaction, Deutsch said, “I think she got frightened that maybe she had crossed a line, that this was maybe a faux pas of great proportions. I mean, did it show ignorance? Anti-Semitism? It wasn’t just one of those silly things.”

Readers are urged to watch the segment on the You Tube below and judge for themselves. Make sure you sit through the commercials and watch it through to the end.

Our view? She was not trying to whip up sales for a book but showed disdain for Jews — even though she insisted it wasn’t — that could further limit her audience and could impact her speaking appearances.

How bad is it? This bad:

The National Jewish Democratic Council launched on an online petition to CNN, Fox News, NBC, CBS and ABC urging them to no longer use her as a commentator. “While Ms. Coulter has her freedom of speech, you have the freedom to exercise better judgment,” the petition says. “You wouldn’t put people who claim Martians roam the earth to frequently comment on science. It is time to stop putting Ms. Coulter on the air to comment on politics, thus giving her free publicity and attention.”

Shmuel Rosner, U.S. correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, kills Coulter with snark in a post titled: ‘Is it okay for Ann Coulter to want all Jews to become Christian?”

Blogging can sometimes be a silly business. For example, when one has to deal with controversies over things that were said by commentator Ann Coulter. Nevertheless, people say she’s an influential celebrity, so we have to take her words seriously. I’ll try, but I have to warn you that it won’t be easy.

He then lists the various ways people react to Coulter.

How REALLY REALLY bad is it for Ann Coulter?

Bad enough that the lively Republican mega-blog Red State contains a post that says this:

With all the phony kerfuffle over the phony Limbaugh comments last week, here comes Ann Coulter with guns-a-blazing — basically sounding the al-Qaida line against infidels…only this time about Jews and Christianity.

I’m sure a lot of you are fans of her. But she basically needs to shut up and go away forever.

There’s more so here’s a big chunk:

She’s said that we should ponder murdering Supreme Court justices…wished that the 9/11 attackers had targeted the New York Times building rather than the WTC…and various other just dazzlingly odious things. Yes, I realize that usually she’s just trying to be irreverent and perversely humorous.

But there’s just nothing funny about these things. There’s nothing funny about a “we must convert you” mentality about religion in an age where we’re fighting people to the death who take that very outlook extremely seriously. There’s nothing funny about poisoning high officials’ desserts for political gain.

Every Republican candidate for office needs to denounce her, and right quick, and never have the slightest bit to do with her again. She’s gone too far — and it’s not the first time.

The problem:

It will never happen.

Already there are rumblings among some on the right from people who are trying to a) defend her, b) rationalize her comments, c) say she didn’t really mean what she said and point to her comments right after the commercial (which many Jews and her interviewer feel confirm her attitude).

If you think about it, this has been a catastrophic week for people on the far-right in America in terms of winning over people to their side.

First, there is a major political attack on a 12-year-old kid and his family because the boy dared to counter President George Bush’s speech on Bush’s children’s health care veto. The spectacle was denounced by Democrats, many independents and turned the stomachs of some non-lockstep Republicans.

Now you have Coulter saying that Jews — who do vote — need to be perfected and suggesting that the United States would be more Utopian if only Judaism didn’t exist.

The problem for the Republican Party: it is chasing away voters and, by 2008, could find that it has lost soccer moms (they have kids and are struggling with health care), chasing away Jews (will Coulter’s comments be condemned by GOPers and, if not, will the Democrats use a clip of her comments with her appearing before adoring Republican audiences or with GOP candidates or use them in fund-raising letters to Jewish voters?).

What will likely happen?

–Outrage will continue.

–She’ll still be on Fox News and pack conservative crowds in when she speaks.

–She’ll further explain it and Rush, Sean, Hannity, Mark and others will blast the “liberals” supposedly upset about this only because she is a conservative.

–Some conservative Jewish talk show hosts will defend her and this will be pointed to by her supporters and sympathetic weblogs. You might call this the Some Of My Best Friends Are Perceived As Bigots defense.

But if Maureen Dowd had said that about Jews? Or if Barbra Streisand had said that about Christians? Those who are defending and will defend Coulter would be screaming for their scalps on a plate. But they won’t when it comes to Coulter because she’s on their “team.”

Still, the bottom line is that this time Coulter did NOT throw a bomb.

She just spoke her mind (which showed what was inside of her).

Which was worse.

WATCH THE VIDEO AND MAKE UP YOUR OWN MIND:

BUT THAT’S JUST OUR VIEW. HERE’S A CROSS-SECTION OF SOME OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

–Mac’s Mind says Coulter is right:

Ann sure knows how to get a rise out of the left and moderates inbetween. Her latest happened during a interview with Donny Deutsch’s NOBOBY watches CNBC show “The Big Idea”. How anyone caught this show is anyone’s guess because outside the twenty or so they have in the audience I don’t think anyone else is watching. Nevertheless apparantly Deutsch, who has attacked the Christian right on numerous occassions tried to bate Coulter and she gave it back to him - and good.

…She is right, and the transcript shows that even attempted to clarify it but Deutsch wasn’t interested in that, neither are those who are making such a big deal out of it now.

But not to make the comparison to close let’s remember - that is those who actually read the Bible - that in his day they - the Jews referred to Jesus as an out of control radical, rabble rouser, drunk and illegitimate, a liar, etc, so if Ann gets in trouble by telling someone to the Gospel then she is in good company. They of course were wrong.

–David Bernstein:

Ann Coulter is taking a lot of flack for saying that Jews should convert to Christianity, and that they need to do so to be “perfected.” Some, including the talk show host who was interviewing her, suggest that her comments were anti-Semitic. I don’t think so, they reflected chauvinism about Christianity, not hostility to Jews. I’m sure Coulter would say that Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, and everybody else should also become Christians. It was the interviewer who, when Coulter suggested she’d like all Americans to be Christians, specifically asked about Jews.

….Americans who are in the public eye, as Coulter is, have learned that it’s polite not to declare the superiority of one’s religion, and the inferiority of one’s neighbors, publicly, which is a good policy for amicable interfaith relations. But Coulter is nothing if not blunt and impolite, so I see no reason to expect her to suddenly become Miss Manners when it comes to religion.

–Only Wonder Understands has a letter to its “Jewish cousins” which reads in part:

Please understand that Ann Coulter is a nut case and doesn’t represent Christianity by any stretch of the imagination.

We may disagree on our revelations from God, but you are still our cousins and deserve our respect.

Sorry for the foolishness of those who call themselves Christian and then fail to act like it.

–Donald Sensing (a GREAT conservative blogger, and a former military official who is also a clergyman) has comments that scream to be boldfaced:

Ann Coulter is probably the most religiously uninformed public figure I have ever heard of. I do not consider myself a “perfected Jew” as a Christian (I’m not a perfected anything), nor can I help but gagging at the idea Ann expressed … that Christianity is the “Federal Express” way to heaven compared to Judaism. Before Ann or any other Christian starts talking about “perfecting Jews,” they need to pay attention to perfecting Christians, for which there is very long way to go. Ann should spend some time here to start.

–Pomo Christian:

This whole thing is a contrived media offensive by the american political left. One more example in a long line of left-wing organizations trying to drum up contrived offenses by republicans so that they can force their voices off the stage and leave their shills unopposed in the media. It is a small skirmish in a larger war to silence the right and give themselves a chance at a successful political campaign.

–The Huffington Post’s Robert Elisberg:

Archaeologists today completed a major dig into Ann Coulter, hoping to discover the location of her soul. They returned without finding anything.

“We thought for sure we’d at least find a crumb of a soul,” said Dr. Philip Vanderly, leader of the expedition, “even if just in a lower extremity, but there was nothing. It was cavernous inside there. Just one big empty space.”

Yes, Ann Coulter has stepped into it big time. Hold on, it’s worth the wait.

–The Gil Meche Experience:

Ann has certainly got a backlash out of this one, and I’m sure she’ll find tangling with the tribe is much different than insulting some 9/11 widows. Just some advice bubelah: when your agent can’t seem to find the time to take your calls, maybe you should reconsider how perfect we are. Also, enjoy the boycott calls from your previously supportive Jewish pals. Seriously, see how far your support for Israel gets you now.

–Feministe has a post that needs to be read in full…with the best headline: “If Ann Coulter is a perfected Jew and the RNC is Heaven, then I’ll be happy to see you in Hell”

–Hot Air sees this as a left-versus-right issue:

You all would know better than I but that is, basically, what the New Testament says, isn’t it? She’s not talking about forcible conversion; she’s saying Christians believe the Judeo-Christian tradition is The Way and those who don’t follow the path all the way to the end aren’t quite where they need to be. (There are even Catholic prayers to this effect.) The word “perfected” is dicey insofar as it implies Christians’ superiority to Jews but she’s only referring to doctrinal superiority as far as I can see, which isn’t exactly a bombshell assertion coming from a Christian. Does the left really mean to suggest she thinks it’s Jews, uniquely, who need to be perfected but Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, etc. are all already co-equal with Christians spiritually? I take it she’d say we’re not even on the path at all and thus, unlike Jews, for the moment entirely unperfectable.

–Mere Rhetoric sees the reaction as coming from the Jewish and leftist blogs:

This week’s manufactured Media Matters scandal is now online. The Jewish blogs and Democratic organizations are all over it. And wow, it is totally…retarded. It combines the best elements of liberal sophistication: the banality of multiculturalist tolerance, the humorlessness of scolding identity politics, and the blubbering of righteous indignation. It’s the shallow beginning and the myopic end of the belief gap. Liberals take their own fashionable, spineless disattachment from the world - “believing too much in something is so unsophisticated.” They follow it to its logical conclusion of vapid multiculturalism, where asserting passionate belief is an attack on some incredibly fragile Other - “believing too much in something is intolerant.” And then when they have to deal with a normal, healthy person of faith, their self-righteous myopia triggers everything from shocked offense to a mindboggling inability to even understand what’s at stake.

–Considerettes:

If a Muslim were to tell me that I don’t know the true God, or if a Jew were to tell me that I worshipped a man who was dead and buried (and I have been told the latter, though by atheists), why would I be offended? If that’s what they truly believed then it is what it is. I take my religion seriously, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t tolerate it when someone else frames me within their beliefs. I can handle that without getting offended, and I would hazard a guess that most Christians could as well, contrary to the common stereotype.

--Daily Kos:

If you invite David Duke or a Stormfront spokesman on your network to talk about the inferiority of blacks or Jews or Latinos, you have made the choice to give those hatemongers a mountaintop from which to promote their bigotry. If you invite hacks on the air to reiterate, for the umpteenth consecutive time, a discredited conspiracy about “Aztlan”, you own that story. And if you invite Ann Coulter on the air to croak out statements of pure, unapologetic venom about other religions, other races, or other ideologies, it is your network that made the decision that a person known for making those statements was worthy of your audience.

Don’t give us this crap about pretending to be offended by her bigotry. If you were truly offended by her bigotry, you wouldn’t have returned her damn phone calls, much less hitched a microphone to her and placed her in front of a camera. In giving her an audience knowing full well what sorts of things she would say, you own her bigotry.

–John Aravosis:

Leave it to NBC, the Nothing But Coulter propaganda network, to again give Republican leader Ann Coulter a space to air her bigoted views. NBC always does this, they always have her on, regardless of who she attacks, who she insults, regardless of how bigoted she gets. NBC doesn’t care, they want to help Coulter sell books and get ratings, so they always have her back to spew her hate every time she gets a new book deal. They know what she’s going to say, but they put her on anyway - that means they endorse it, or at least have no problem with it. Well, this time Coulter says America would be a better place if we could just “fix” those pesky Jews and convert them all to Christianity.

–Into The Light:

But, not to worry. Coulter — ever the vigilant warrior — fought pluralism with stupidity: “Do you know what Christianity is? See, we believe your religion, but you have to obey. We have the fast track program.”

And, lest you fear that the newly out of the closet theologian Reverend Coulter stopped there….. no-sir-ee, she continues to inspire us with her soteriological acumen: “That’s what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we’re all sinners.”

Federal. Express.

At this point, I’m siding more with Deutsch. Did she REALLY just say that? In fact, Coulter, do YOU know what Christianity is? Who turned you loose?

–Tapped:
Shorter Ann Coulter: “Inside every Jew, there is a Christian trying to get out.”