Conservative author Coulter spars with professor at RWU

BRISTOL -- Room 157 had the look and feel of a championship bout. The fans sat in cheering sections based on their favorite fighter. The diehards came looking for autographs. Others came to provide moral support.

This fight last night, on the Roger Williams University campus, was all about politics. Party politics.

It pitted one of the nation's most controversial and aggressive conservatives against the lone Democrat on the Barrington Town Council.

Ann Coulter -- a lawyer, author and popular TV talk-show commentator, who has made a career of attacking liberals with a venom that repulses some and inspires others -- was the clear heavyweight in this debate, sponsored by the Roger Williams College Republicans.

Facing her was June Speakman, an associate professor of political science, the head of the faculty union at Roger Williams, and a newly elected member of the Barrington Town Council.

Coulter, who has sparred with the likes of The Today Show's Katie Couric, whom she has called the "affable Eva Braun of daytime TV" -- said that Speakman was the first person who had ever agreed to debate her on a college campus.

The two debated the question, "Which political party is the party of the people?"

Coulter took the first shot. "If you define people as those who don't work for a living, then the Democrats are the party of the people," she said. "These are people who refuse to work, or they are actors."

She slammed the Democrats for portraying themselves as the party of the "little guy," when she said their average single donations dwarf that given by Republicans to candidates.

As evidence, she ticked off the top contributors to Al Gore's push for a recount in the disputed 2000 election -- a cadre of media and real-estate magnates from California and New York.

"This is the party of the people. Malibu and Manhattan," she said of the Democrats. ". . . They are the modern feudalists who believe that the country should be made up of idle liberals and their maids."

Her comments drew a round of cheers from the front seats of the audience, occupied by the College Republicans; the group had erupted in applause as soon as the tall, blonde Coulter entered the room.

Many of those wearing the club's blue T-shirts clutched digital cameras. One had a copy of Coulter's best-selling book, Slander. Another had a calendar of pictures from Ronald Reagan's ranch.

Republican congressional candidate Dave Rogers, who lost in his bid to unseat Patrick Kennedy, also attended the debate.

Speakman looked a little nervous as she took the podium to defend the Democratic party. The bespectacled professor, and self-proclaimed "ex-hippie," spoke of her liberal background with pride.

"I would have voted for Hillary Clinton if I lived in New York," said Speakman, as the crowd booed. "I am sorry."

"I contributed to Emily's List. I contribute to public television. I am not a traitor."

She disputed Coulter's assertion that the Democrats are the party of rich liberals, saying that not many members of the 48 percent of the electorate who voted for the party in the last election have maids. "Frankly," she said, "many of them might be maids."

The Democrats, Speakman said, believe in a government that helps people who cannot help themselves, including the sick, the children and the unemployed.

Speakman had her own fans, who packed the back rows of the auditorium and cheered her every point.

According to Michael Ardvini, a member of the College Republicans, someone torched one of the signs that the group put up announcing Coulter's appearance on campus. Ardvini said the club then had to take down the rest of the signs, because they were deemed a fire hazard.

Coulter, a staunch critic of the Clintons, the media and anything that she deems liberal, is a lightning rod for controversy -- much of which she invites, her critics say.

She was dropped from the conservative National Review after Sept. 11, when she wrote about Muslims, saying, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity," according to Newsday.

She accuses liberals of engaging in name-calling and nastiness that she says have soiled the political dialogue.

Democrats, Speakman said, believe in a government that helps people who cannot help themselves

Precisely -- because they do not really believe that ordinary people who are not members of the political, academic or media elite like themselves can really take care of themselves at all.

These "ruling elites" take a paternal interest in the rest of society. All they ask is that we sit back and allow them to decide what is for our own good, and of course, to give over to them all our wealth so they can better decide what and how much we each should have! Clinton expressed it so forthrightly when he opposed tax rebates because "the people" might not spend it on the right things. The ruling elite does not even trust us to spend our own money! I wonder how long they will trust us to vote the right way. You may think I exagerate, and so did I until I read something about Katie Couric blaming the voters for the "loss" of a Senate seat.

The sad thing is, the Republicans are not that far apart from the Democrats in their view of the incompetence of ordinary people. Both parties believe that the lives and affairs of ordinary citizens must be administered and regulated down to the smallest detail. How far we have come from the time when James Madison described the Constitution as resting "all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government."

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I arrived at Bristol, RI about 6:45 and went straight to the Feinstein Auditorium.

I found the Police and informed them of the shenanigans that were posted on the Democrat Underground thread, calling on people to go and disrupt the event, to try to discredit Ann, or cause her to somehow lose credibility through their show of disrespect.

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I also met several of the Young Republicans there, there was quite a few! I saw about 20 or so that were in attendance, all wearing their blue sweatshirts.

I sat up front to get a good view of the debate and spotted Ann coming in about 7:25, called out to her and smiled with the camera! She noticed me right away, smiled and waved enthusistically, but gave a genuine pout when told that the good Doctor Raoul was unable to attend, but, with the expression on her face, I can tell she was sending him her love at that very moment!

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The two women were introduced, and both had impressive resumes, but we all know who had the Freeper Seal of Approval.

Ann lead off the debate on the topic of WHICH PARTY IS THE PARTY OF THE PEOPLE, and she emphasized just a single aspect of recent history, and that was just who were the people were that were donating money to Algore and GWB during the 2000 election recount scandal caused by the Dems.

Annie pointed out clearly that the majority of the DEM money came from rich millionaires, people from Malibu and Manhattan, and one traitor from Georgia, Jane Fonda.

She emphasised that while the average amount donated to the GOP was $50, it was mostly common folk who sent in $20 donations, thousands of them, so much that GWB received more money than Gore, quite a bit more, and all from little blue haired ladies sendning in $20 bills.

Annie was later questioned on this, with one of the group of left wing students wanting to know how the $50 average came about if most people sent in $20!

Ann said it was quite simple, just add up the total of the money received, then divide by the number of donors. The student then repeated his request with a little more clarification, that if the average was $50, where was this $20 donation amount coming from? Ann explained it came from little old ladies and from other normal folk and wanted to know how a college student could not understand just what an average was!

The other speaker, Mrs Speakman, came clearly unprepared and clearly outclassed. She had no clue what to talk about, and had no fine points or zingers to make in her arguement, with the only point she made that brought any serious applause was when she said she did not want to send her sons or the college students in the room off to fight and die in our recent war.

Ann called them cowards for applauding her for that. Ann was right.

Someone also asked Mrs Speakman and Annie about Gun Control and if stiffer Gun Controls would have prevented the recent shooting in the DC area. Ann let them know the problems weren't guns in the hands of law abiding citizens, it was terrorists with guns in their hands that were the problem, She said, "We dont need Gun Control, we need Muslim Control". (Sometimes Annie is just shy...)

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Another thing the leftists tried to confront her on, was whether she herself would go fight if she was so for this war against the terrorists. She replied that she did not think that women belonged in the military, and that brought about many groans, calls of her being a hippocrite. Annie stiffened her lip and told them that if they wanted to play that way, then all those who do not pay taxes should not have the right to vote, for if while her opinion about war and her not going was not ok, then those who do not put income into society in the form of taxes should not have the privilege to cast ballots for those who want to give away government programs to those who do not pay taxes.

Ann and Mrs Speakman did mostly friendly conversational debating with Annie honestly giving her opponent plenty of room to respond, being very polite, both of them to each other.

One point Annie made that came back to her in the question time, was her trying to explain how the health care proposed by the Democrats was something that would deprive us of our choices in insurance and other health care concerns. She explained in detail how she has no problem in paying for her own medical bills, but would really like to find an insurance pool that catered to her singular concern: catastrophic health care, something we are all concerned with as far as being covered insurance wise, but Annie's concern was moreso on the financial aspects and what she saw as fair.

In an insurance pool, she explained, she is being charged premiums based on the needs of the pool, while she desired a singular cost based on her choice to have ONLY catastrophic care in her pool. Due to the other people in a general insurance pool, she is being forced to pay as a part of her premium, the costs that would go toward others who go to the doctor on much more repetitive basis, going when they do not really need to go, and because of the pool accounting, the costs of those repeated visits by some individuals, her costs are higher than should be.

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One female student heard all this, and mis-understodd Annie to have said: SOME PEOPLE SHOULD NOT HAVE HEALTH CARE.

This young woman totally missed the point of Ann's concern to be billed for only what she was looking for in insurance care, instead of having her costs go up to pay for all the others in her pool! .....

All in all, there was no contest, and Annie won hands down, feet up, and singing all the way, chalking up another lesson for the brain dead left wing students, causing them to actually exercise their brain cells for once.

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