You know me. When it comes to a subject that gets my dander up, I beat it into the ground, take a break, and then beat it deeper into the ground. Call it my Achilles Heal as a blogger. Well, that and homonyms. I’m Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. I’m Joe Pesci in Casino. I’m Joe Pesci in Raging Bull until Deniro one-upped him.

I have to admit, this Ann Coulter thing is bringing out the Joe Pesci in me. Receiving 72 hours worth of mash-notes from Ann’s angered base will do that to a guy. But if you don’t want to read anymore about this particular topic, I understand. Click away. Be gone.

For those of you who remain, here’s a brief and hopefully minimally didactic history lesson on CPAC. The first CPAC was held in January of 1974. Conservatives were under siege; Spiro Agnew had resigned and Watergate threatened to engulf the administration. As most of you who are even cursorily familiar with American history probably know, things went downhill fast for Republicans in ’74. In the Summer, their president resigned. In November, they suffered arguably the worst ballot box rejection in the country’s history.

Among the attendees at that first CPAC was Ronald Reagan, who by that time had already become the living embodiment of conservativism. Taking a pass on the inaugural CPAC was President Nixon. It was just as well Nixon didn’t attend; he was extremely unpopular with conservatives for having broken faith with them repeatedly during his time in office. In his stead, Nixon sent as his emissary a young speech-writer with impeccable conservative credentials, a fellow named Pat Buchanan. Pat sought to assure the CPAC attendees that NIxon wanted to be more conservative, but the left “was coming over the walls.”

RONALD REAGAN MADE A HABIT OF attending CPAC conventions. So when he showed up in March of 1981 at that year’s CPAC, the only noteworthy thing about his appearance was that he was arriving as a sitting president. Relying on the conservative principles that he so skillfully articulated, Reagan had led the GOP out of the wilderness. Not only had he prevailed against Jimmy Carter the previous November, the party that he led reclaimed the Senate. During the first CPAC in 1974, such a delicious reversal of fortune was practically unimaginable.

The address Reagan gave to the ’81 CPAC was one of his most stirring speeches. Much of it remains timely and inspiring today:

Whatever history does finally say about our cause, it must say: The conservative movement in 20th century America held fast through hard and difficult years to its vision of the truth. And history must also say that our victory, when it was achieved, was not so much a victory of politics as it was a victory of ideas, not so much a victory for any one man or party as it was a victory for a set of principles -- principles that were protected and nourished by a few unselfish Americans through many grim and heartbreaking defeats…

We must hold out the exciting prospect of an orderly, compassionate, pluralistic society -- an archipelago of prospering communities and divergent institutions -- a place where a free and energetic people can work out their own destiny under God… There is, in America, a greatness and a tremendous heritage of idealism which is a reservoir of strength and goodness. It is ours if we will but tap it. And, because of this -- because that greatness is there -- there is need in America today for a reaffirmation of that goodness and a reformation of our greatness.

Fellow citizens, fellow conservatives, our time is now. Our moment has arrived. We stand together shoulder to shoulder in the thickest of the fight. If we carry the day and turn the tide, we can hope that as long as men speak of freedom and those who have protected it, they will remember us, and they will say, "Here were the brave and here their place of honor."

By way of comparison, here’s Ann Coulter on Friday addressing the same conference that was once graced by such nobility and brilliance:

I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.

Does it speak well of CPAC and the conservative movement that Ann Coulter now annually occupies the podium where Ronald Reagan once stood? And, for all you Coulter dead-enders out there, what do you think Ronald Reagan would have thought of her sentiment? Do you think the man who always wore his suit jacket in the Oval Office would have much sympathy for a speaker with so little respect for her surroundings?

What happened on Friday was conservatives got a black eye. All of us. Even the ones too blinkered to know it.

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