UPDATE:

Yes, I was at CPAC when Ann Coulter made her pathetic comments about “ragheads”. And I was going to post on it today – but it needs attention now.

The comment was not well received at CPAC and rightfully so. I am a conservative indepedent so Ann’s pathetic need of attention went over the line. I was reading a leftwing post about Bush’s ‘wetback’ AG and all I could think about was how un-American that comment was. Ann has forced me to distance myself from her. She is just anothered failed conservative who will spend many, many years trying to regain a fraction of the respect she once had. I cannot help it when people do terrible things. I can only point out they are wrong and should never be repeated. You can have sympathy for Ann for what she just sacrificed in the name of poor humor, but we cannot ignore it.

At CPAC there were lots of booths representing Muslim conservative and pro American Muslims. Ann spit in their face and drove off. To those who were insulted at here stupid comment, let me stand up and say she did not speak for me and my apologies to you for having to deal with it. You blew it Ann. Apologize and just be quiet for a while.

END UPDATE

My daughter is the chair of her school’s College Republicans and therefore goes to CPAC since it is right here in downtown DC. This year I planned to attend more, but last minute meetings kept me from attending until this afternoon. It was quite an interesting event.

When I got there my daughter took me down to the exhibition hall (I was not going to pay to attend a speech or two) where the first person I ran into (for the second time now) was the gracious La Shawn Barber. La Shawn is one class act and I could talk to her all day if I had the chance. During our discussions La Shawn suggested I go over to see if Glenn Reynolds was still around signing his book and to say hello. Why not?

I did. You know, it is tough to find people you never met face to face and only know ‘electronically’. I was fairly sure I knew who he was and asked where his book was to break the ice and introduce myself (as AJ Strata of course – need to keep the anonymity). The book must be doing really well since there were no more at his publisher’s booth. Glenn was running to a radio interview and graciously offered to hang around to sign a book if I wanted to get one at the Barnes & Knoble booth. That area was swamped getting ready for Michelle’s book signing so I told Glenn it was probably better to let him get on his way. I was happy to hear him recognize my blog – being less than a year old. So that was a bit of an ego boost.

I went back over to bloggers’ row and ran into the Ace of Spades and introduced myself. The wear and tear of blogging an event like CPAC was showing on all of them, and we have a major snow storm coming in tomorrow to make all their travel efforts that much more fun. After talking to Ace I decided I probably will not sign up to be on the row next year!

Ran into two lovely ladies on bloggers’ row, only one of which I got a card for: RightGirl from Girl On The Right. RightGirl is from (husshhh) Canada! She was just getting used to admitting this a bit more openly when I met her. Soon she will be yelling it from the rafters I would guess. It was interesting to get her views from liberal Canada and how being a conservative was not something to advertise much where she came from. (I think I may have found who the second lady was, and of course it would be Wonderwoman)

When introducing myself who should be standing next to me but Mr. Ankle Biting Pundit himself: Pat Hynes. We shook but he was wolfing down some dinner so we did not talk much right then. The ladies were very nice to chat with and gracious – since they had never heard of my blog before.

My daughter and I were waiting for Michelle Malkin’s book signing to slow down before Ann Coulter’s speech. My daughter had hoped to get a picture of me with Michelle before she went off to see Ann who was the person she wanted to see most today. It did not happen. Sure enough, everyone started to take their seats for Ann and the line to Michelle slowed down enough to give me an opportunity to say hello.

It was a pleasure to meet Michelle – even briefly – and thank her for all her links and comments. She claims she reads my blog everyday and I have no reason to doubt her. But let’s just say I hope she has other higher quality options on her daily list as well. When the NSA story was first breaking and I first noticed FISA Judge Robertson’s strangely quiet protest resignation, I wondered if he was really resigning because he was part of the leak. When I emailed Michelle with my post on this theory she responded back in email she had been thinking along the same lines. So had to mention to Michelle it looks like we were correct to be suspicious about Robertson’s motives given the recent Washington Post article. Anyway, that was the highlight of the afternoon being able to personally thank Michelle for all the links. I know she was a little suspicious at first about this older chap in line without a book or anything for a signature (who would blame her). Thankfully she seemed pleased to meet a fellow blogger once she learned it was little ‘ol me.

After meeting Michelle I went back and tracked down Pat from Ankle Biting Pundits and enjoyed some great time with him. He too went to chat with Michelle who seemed to be suffering a little writer’s cramp by this time. Pat was trying to beat this massive snow storm home tonight – all the best Pat!

After killing about as much time as I could waiting for my daughter to return from Coulter’s speech in the exhibition hall, I decided to get a beer and headed out of the exhibition hall. Too my surprise Senator Bill Frist and his entourage were heading into the hall. I attempted to step to one side so they could pass when Sen. Frist stopped to say hello to someone else. I waited there, just a few feet away from the Senator and a security agent until he started on his way again. Having grown up here in DC around these folks I simply wanted to give the Senator a ‘good job, Senator’ which I did – no pushing my name, etc. The Senator stopped, turned slightly and said sincerely ‘Thanks very much’. That is one class act. People are fawning for his attention and he gives serious attention to some unknown (and dressed down) guy in the hall. Hat tip to Frist.

Well, all I can say is it was interesting and fun going to CPAC and is something I will have to do again next year. Thanks to all the great people I had he honor to chat with today, it was a pleasure!