Note to corporate media: This is news, that's n-e-w-s.



The GOP presidential candidates have begun to weigh in over Ann Coulter's outrageously bigoted comments yesterday at the largest conservative conference of the year. Coulter was the putative keynote speaker of the entire event - her speech was the most widely anticipated of all, according to those who attended. Here's what McCain's camp (McCain didn't even attend the conference, yet they weighed in) and Romney's camp (he did attend) had to say, per the NYT blog, since the real media refuses to cover this story:

Democrats were not the only denouncing Ms. Coulter. “The comments were wildly inappropriate,” said Brian Jones, a spokesman for Senator John McCain, a Republican candidate for president who did not attend.



Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said: “It was an offensive remark. Governor Romney believes all people should be treated with dignity and respect....



....attendees said that Ms. Coulter not only spoke warmly about Mr. Romney but all but endorsed him. No word yet on whether the Romney campaign was taking the endorsement or, acceding to Mr. Dean’s demands that he “denounce her hateful remarks.

Kudos to McCain, and half a kudo to Romney. McCain has gone off the deep end in flip-flopping/sucking up to conservatives on social issues, the war, and more. But in this case, he repudiated Coulter even though he didn't even attend. As for Romney, whose "I'm pro-gay, no, I'm anti-gay" flip-flops make McCain look like Jerry Falwell, per the Times, Coulter all but endorsed him. Is Romney going to welcome that endorsement, or rebuke it, as he should?And just as importantly, now that Romney and McCain have weighed in, where are the other GOP candidates, and our own PFLAG parent Dick Cheney, who was also there? The following GOP candidates attended, what do they have to say about this outrageous bigotry?- Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee- Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO)- Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS)- Former Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA)And of course, Vice President Dick Cheney.PS Top NYT reporter Adam Nagourney is the one who writes today's blog post on the Times Web site about this episode. Nagourney says that "There’s some big fallout from the meeting in Washington of the Conservative Political Action Conference." Okay. Then if it's big fall out, New York Times, then how about permitting your premiere political writer to actually write about this story in the dead-tree version of the paper?