My anticlimactic encounter with Ann Coulter

[Ignacio Upton]

This is a follow up to my previous thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=606022&mesg_id=606022

Anyway, as I said earlier, Ann Coulter spoke tonight at my college (Syracuse University.) In all honestly, the whole thing was EXACTLY like other DUers in the previous thread described it as. If you read a post in the other thread about jokes she made at Indiana University last month, half of what hse said was exactly the same. There was a protest against her outside the auditorium too, against her racist comments. Security was also pretty tight. There were a few cops and beefy-looking College Republican goons standing near the aisles, and when I was waiting in line, I was asked to unzip my jacket for security concerns (I guess they're worried about "Al Pieda" again.)
Upon Coulter entering the room, it was like evil manifested itself into a manwhore stepford wife (I should note, btw, that her hometown of New Canaan, CT is where they filmed that movie, so she's somewhat representative of the place...but only somewhat. It's a nice town and most people I've met from there are nice, but their political orientation is a little out of whack even for Fairfiel County where Greenwich and most of the other upper-class were actually colored with only a shade of pink.) Her jokes would honestly be funny if I was a Repub, but I'm not about to drop out of school, grow a mullet, and register at Free Republic or Protest Warrior and follow Michael Moore where ever he goes. In the pretentious way she was talking, she was a cross between Kim Catrall and Rush Limbaugh. She had A LOT of wingnuts there to support her, and also a lot of people to boo her. Unfortunately, I think that some of the protesters only helped her. For example when sehe was going into her "liberals accuse us of stifling freedom in America when they do so on campus against us" crap, when someone just shouted "shut the fuck up." There was also some random dude in the audience sarcastically clapping whenever she spoke (which was funny but lost its touch after a while.) There were some pretty funny questions asked against her too. One guy said something like: Ann, I think you're pretty attractive compared to most Republican women" while another guy asked her why the National Review dropped her column after 9/11 when she wrote her "kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" column. Coulter just responded by saying "I sell more books than they do." Harrdy harr, Ann :eyes: Another person sarcastically asked her if he could help support racial profiling by joining the College Republicans. "Some Federalist Society asshole was one of the first up and got to speak for like five minutes and even though she half-heartedly tried to cut him off he continued praising her and Bush for a while. Now, perhaps one of the dumbest replies she gave was to a person who asked her something like "what can conservatives do to help Upstate NY economically," to which she replied saying something like "I don't know much about economics. It's like asking me to change a carbureter, so I can't really give a response on economic questions." This was a good example of stupidity. Considering that I just did a Google search and came up with this little gem from 2002 in which she implicitly defends Enron:
http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/anncoulter/2002/01/24/162234.html
Now, I also remember reading that Time Magazine article about her last year in which they said her dad was a lawyer who represented corporations against unions. Now she's telling me that she can't answer an economic question? I've heard local Upstaters blame taxes and big government in general for the region's economic woes. I guess that judging by her past economic-related columns she really doesn't know what she's talking about!
Anyway, it was my turn to
Anyway, when my turn came, I tried to speak up on the issue of Congress cutting money in the student loan budget. here is a copy of what I wrote in advance of the assembly in case I stumbled while talking:

"Ann, my question for you is. Why do you support a President and Congress that passed and signed a record $12 billion cut in student loans, which will, for example, raise the monthly interest rate for Stafford loans from 4.7% to roughly 6.8% by this July? Why should SU students have the rug pulled from underneath them, especially at a time when this university is set to raise tuition by almost 6% for next year?"

Before saying that I said "Ann, I don't know what I dislike more about you. The fact that you're a Republican, or the fact that you went to Cornell" :D

Anyway, once I got around to the "...by this July" part, she tried interrupting me while I was talking, so I raised my voice and tried to finish my speech. I honestly don't remember 100% of what was going on. A few people in the audience that I asked afterward told me that she avoided my question, while others (the guy i asked was a total Freeper) said that she was saying "there are too many college students here," which was in reference to when she was commenting about the hecklers in general right before I spoke, and how students don't seem to be very smart these days. From what i remember, I think it was both, but I also remember a few fellow anti-Coulter people in the audience were shouting "answer the question," and part of the audience erupted briefly, both pro and anti-Coulter people briefly shouting. In the midst of it, I tried screaming out "why should Paris Hilton get a tax cut while financial aid is being cut!" to which no onecould really hear me. I then sat back down and about two or three people soke after me before the assembly ended. I'm not surprised that she interrupted me, but still. I wanted her to openly say something like "the government isn't your nanny. Pay for your own tuition if you can afford it," which is more or less likely what she believes, but unfortunately she just made some quip about "too many college students" while trying to cut me off. Anyway, I still think the fact that she cut me off while listening to dipshits from the Federalist Society for five minutes vindicates that she's full of shit. In hindsight, I think that asking another question like why she defended Timothy McVeigh and threatened the NYTimes would have been even more interesting.