At this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, columnist Ann Coulter did what she does best: rile people up with outrageous comments.

This time, she closed her speech with a joke about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, saying she would not talk about him because “it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot.”

While that may be true, Coulter may need more rehab for her sense of humor. Speech makers like her (and politicians) should be banned from lame attempts at humor like this.

Last year, John Kerry got in hot water for a botched joke that came out as an attack on troops in Iraq. Like Coulter’s, it wouldn’t have been funny even if properly delivered. Only trouble comes from bad jokes like these.

Problem is, trouble seems to be exactly what Coulter wanted.

Outrage and controversy breed publicity for her, and her best-selling books. Though her next book doesn’t come out until October, publicity is never bad. Coulter herself has said that she’s endured over fifteen “career-ending” incidents like this one. Yet as she says about Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, “you’re always there to put me on TV.”

Coulter has become famous and is opinionated, so people buy her books.

The opinions therein, often out from right field, have won her a place on the “news” circuit, where she can spew whatever she thinks might sell her more books.

Because people then buy those books, she becomes more famous and is invited on more shows.

Coulter’s career will only be over once she stops saying things that would end anybody else’s.

And so, Ann Coulter’s latest comments will only help her career. It puts her in the news, in blogs, and in people’s minds.

First she uses a gay slur. Democrats respond, calling for her to apologize. Newspapers drop her syndicated column. Coulter declines to apologize, saying the remark was just a playground-type insult. So far, the story has gone on for two weeks, and will certainly continue, for no reason.

Questions have been and will be raised about why she said it, what she meant, and about what a terrible person she is for saying it. But it’s all just a waste of time and space. Like her original comments.