Posted on 11/23/2003 6:06:36 AM PST by Forgiven_Sinner
I think I know why so many liberals hate Ann Coulter. She plays by their rules
Ann is a friend of mine, an occasional drinking buddy, and frequent guest on my radio show. She was kind enough to acknowledge me at the beginning of her latest bestseller. I knew her back when she was hated by only a lot of liberals, not all of them.
So, it's been fun watching Boulder's reaction to her recent performance at the University of Colorado. I was in the packed house at Macky Auditorium and heard her message that the war against terrorists is justified and that racial profiling is an effective tool to find them. (Her reasoning isthat since all the terrorists that attacked us have been male Muslim extremists, maybe we should be looking for, well, male Muslim extremists.)
The real story isn't her talk. Coulter said pretty much what you'd expect her to say, in the way you'd expect her to say it. Her speech was full of cutting zingers about squishy liberals, some great one-liners, and broad-stroke statements on policy.
The story is about the intolerance of her viewpoints on the CU campus, in Boulder, and with liberals in general.
Agree with a speaker's politics or not, you'd think that a college campus would be a place for dialogue. Of course you'd be wrong. CU, like most institutions of higher learning, is a fortress of intolerance. Maybe you believe that Coulter herself is narrow-minded and her views dangerous, but whatever happened to, "I'll fight to the death for your right to say it?"
From the moment Coulter took to the lectern, the shouting began. At first I thought they were screaming "Louder" as if the sound system weren't turned up. But they were actually screaming "Liar!" Followed by, "Racist!" Followed by, "Nazi!" The crowd hurdled insults throughout the talk, stopping it when they could.
Shouting down and heckling seems to be acceptable to the left. At a debate in Denver some months back between columnist Molly Ivins and my colleague at 850 KOA, Mike Rosen, the same dynamic was in play. Rosen was yelled at by the liberals in the crowd, while conservatives just sat quietly and shook their heads in disapproval of Ivins.
The most embarrassing part of the Coulter talk was the Q&A. I was amazing by how few students could string a coherent sentence together. Other than a couple of fair questions — like, "If you support racial profiling for terrorism, what about for domestic crimes?" — the Question and Answer was just Insult and Answer.
Exactly what is the right answer to, "So, how fast does your broom go?" or, "When are you going to get barefoot and pregnant and make me a sandwich?"
Would a liberal be treated that way on campus? Never. When it comes to civility in political debate, there's a double standard. Liberals can shout down opponents, take over streets and buildings during protests and hurl insults. If conservatives did, it would only show how mean-spirited they are.
Interesting that every criticism of conservatives boils down to one of two claims. Conservatives are either mean or stupid. Conservatives are rarely just wrong.
Michael Moore can sand-bag his opponents at their homes with camera crews (as he did to Charlton Heston) and win an academy award for (laugh) a documentary. Al Franken wrote letters lying about a fake abstinence program to John Ashcroft and others while digging for their sexual histories. Then he calls conservatives liars!
It's fine for liberals to engage in name calling ("Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot") and conservatives do what they always do, sit politely can quietly shake their heads in disapproval. Coulter doesn't. She fires back with both barrels blazing. She gives as good as she gets. She uses name-calling, insults, and over-the-top arguments.
Welcome to a taste of your own medicine.
The criticism from liberals about bringing Coulter to campus sounds something like, "Oh, yes, it's fine to have a conservative voice, but that's the wrong conservative voice." Maybe, but that isn't your call. If that voice bothers you, perhaps that means it is the right voice. It seems liberals not only want to control the debate, they want approval power over both sides.
Every couple of years, CU brings a token conservative to campus. Years back it was Alan Keyes. Maybe if it weren't such a rare occasion, students could get a taste of ideological diversity and even a little practice in polite behavior.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Golden. He lives in Boulder and can be reached at JonCaldara@yahoo.com.
"When are you going to get barefoot and pregnant and make me a sandwich?"
My answer for her to say is: "When you grow up, when you become attractive, when you are able to support me as well as I can support myself, when you become a man."
Here is a good pic of Ann: 
A:A lot faster than Hillary's because of the power to weight ratio.
I agree.
I was wondering what she did say!
Me too...but 'they' would never let that happen.
"I shilled for dais, and I lost"
Horn's doctor says the 59 year old illusionist is makin
I really have to make sure that I'm fully awake before trying to tackle these things... of course, it does kinda make some wierd Jesse kind of sense, I guess (g)
Long beat as she looks at him, then:
"Uh...hon... do you think YOU could convince ANYONE to do even ONE of those things for you, much less ALL THREE simultainously"?
Love that! Hope that's what she said!
Pure projection.
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