NEW YORK ? Ann Coulter has been a reliable name for years among people who plan TV news shows ? a blond conservative who has made a living lobbing verbal bombs.

But after her use of a gay slur about Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards this month during remarks to the Conservative Political Action Conference, some are wondering whether her shelf life is expiring.

Many were angered by her use of the word faggot. Coulter later said she considered it a "schoolyard taunt."

She said it was a joke about Grey?s Anatomy actor Isaiah Washington saying he would seek counseling after using the word to refer to a fellow actor.

At least four daily newspapers have dropped Coulter as a columnist, citing her comment about Edwards.

Head-turning remarks are hardly anything new for the author of Godless: The Church of Liberalism and How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).In Godless last year, she wrote of World Trade Center widows: "I?ve never seen people enjoying their husbands? deaths so much."

"It?s a world of ?Are you talking about me? Are you talking about me?? " said Steve Friedman, executive producer of The Early Show on CBS. "And eventually you have to get more and more outrageous to be talked about. One day you cross the line and become persona non grata. I think she?s getting close."

Friedman has no plans to book Coulter on his show but said he had no plans even before her comment about Edwards.

Some people on NBC?s Today show didn?t want to see Coulter before she was booked to talk about Godless last summer, said Jim Bell, the show?s executive producer.

He overruled them. Having only certain points of view would make for a bland program, he said.

But Bell said last week that Coulter?s legitimate points of view are beginning to get lost in the noise of being outlandish.

"She sometimes goes out of her way to push some buttons and tends to generate more heat than light."

Several conservatives criticized Coulter for her latest slur. Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the Media Research Center, said some conservatives envy the attention she gets and dislike how she distracts from legitimate arguments.

"If you got the sense that she was saying things you thought she believed, it would help," he said.

Still, Graham said it would be "outrageous" if Coulter is blacklisted by networks but Bill Maher isn?t. The HBO comic angered some recently by suggesting more people would live if an assassination attempt against Vice President Dick Cheney were successful.

The liberal organization Media Matters for America, which has long campaigned against Coulter, hopes this is a "defining moment" that causes TV networks to turn their backs on her, said spokesman Karl Frisch.