The following editorial appeared Tuesday in the Dallas Morning News.

By now, everybody’s familiar with Ann Coulter’s routine. She’s less a conservative pundit than a professional provocateur, a thrower of rhetorical bombs who flourishes because she’s unusually adept at deploying catty remarks and stylized obnoxiousness for right-wing fun and profit.

Last week – and not for the first time – Coulter went too far, calling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot.”

She delivered this insult not at a fraternity kegger but in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, one of the most important and influential conservative gatherings of this or any year. All major Republican presidential hopefuls, except John McCain, addressed the gathering, and Coulter was introduced by none other than Mitt Romney.

Though some of the thousands in the ballroom laughed and cheered her witless slur, GOP White House hopefuls quickly moved to denounce her.

And good for them. As we observed after the Edwards campaign hired two anti-Christian louts, legitimizing smashmouth vulgarity by associating it with mainstream politics only serves to “reduce discourse to contemptible, crude and deceptive attacks.”

It’s encouraging to see prominent conservatives, post-CPAC, treating Coulter not as a victim of political correctness but as an embarrassment. Michelle Malkin, hardly a shrinking violet, lamented on her blog, “With a single word, Coulter sullied the hard work of hundreds of CPAC participants and exhibitors and tarred the collective reputation of thousands of CPAC attendees.”

Using humor is fine, Malkin said, but Coulter’s is a “tired old shtick.”

There’s a place for political comedians, even those who aren’t funny but merely vicious. Liberal Bill Maher, who said over the weekend that Vice President Dick Cheney’s death would save lives, dwells in that place where insult is confused with insight.

So, too, should Ann Coulter, whose act is way past its sell-by date.

Any mainstream political movement or campaign that associates with trash-talkers like these deserves what it gets.