Ann Coulter splits IU's crowd
'Ms. Right' draws supporters, protesters
http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.ph...4257&adid=news
By Adam Aasen | Indiana Daily Student | Friday, February 24, 2006
Conservative author Ann Coulter drew a large crowd to the IU Auditorium Thursday night. More than 2,500 of the auditorium's 3,200 seats were full, but that number dwindled throughout her speech as many students were ejected for disruptions and others simply walked out after certain comments.
Coulter, author of such books as "How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)" and "Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right," gave a speech titled "Liberals Are Wrong About Everything."
The speech drew many dissenters and it didn't take long for public outbursts to occur. Within the first two minutes of her speech, one student yelled out to Coulter, "Go back to Germany," to which another student responded with obscenities. The two got involved in a heated altercation and four officers had to remove the students from the event.
But the police response to this initial incident didn't mean the rest of the speech would go uninterrupted. More than 10 times, Coulter stopped speaking -- sometimes for more than a few minutes -- to wait for protesters to be removed. She often commented that the ushers weren't doing their jobs properly and that the event was poorly organized.
"You are paying me to give a speech," she said. "I mean, if you don't want me to keep talking, that's fine, but I think I'll just do the speech. Hopefully, the idiot liberals will be out of here by the second half of the speech.
"You guys are doing a great job." she said sarcastically later to auditorium ushers. "I guess they did hire Democrats as ushers."
When her speech could actually be heard over both cheers and boos, Coulter touched on a string of topics about her views of liberal inadequacies. She claimed liberals "hate God and hate America," and that there is no hope for the Democratic Party, citing a 25-year reign of Republican dominance.
"It's time for someone (in the Democratic Party) to say, let's start over," she said.
She took shots at several notable liberals, including former presidential candidates Howard Dean and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., and filmmaker Michael Moore. She said that Democrats often try to appear moderate, but she thinks they fail in that regard.
"If the Democrats want to stay in the middle of the road, why do they keep sticking with Teddy Kennedy?" she said. "Didn't he have some trouble staying in the middle of the road?"
She attacked the "liberal media," saying she thought CBS anchor Dan Rather's resignation was "one down, 16 to go." She did, however, say there was a need for stations such as "Air America," which she claims has only 200 listeners.
"We need these liberal talk radio shows to keep the tinfoil-hat types busy while we run the country, democratize the Middle East and secure our borders," she said.
Coulter raised some controversy in her speech when she said that Democrats don't want democracy to succeed in Iraq. She said, "They don't think the little brown boys could handle democracy," to which students responded, "We don't tolerate racism here. Go back to Germany."
Coulter even made comments about the physical appearances of those who were removed.
"Another attractive Democrat," she said as junior Sean Hall, a man wearing a blonde wig, white sheet and a sign that said "Coultergeist" was removed.
"I think we should have saved the ushers some time and just removed all the ugly people," she said.
During her question-and-answer session, Coulter responded to both fans and protesters. One comment that drew strong audience reactions came from a young man who asked her if she didn't like Democrats, wouldn't it just be better to have a dictatorship? Coulter responded with a jab at the way the student talked.
"You don't want the Republicans in power, does that mean you want a dictatorship, gay boy?" she said.
IU College Republicans President Shane Kennedy defended Coulter's comments by stressing that the speech was for entertainment and attendees should have expected Coulter to say controversial comments.
"I think the guy could have been more respectful to her," he said. "I mean, we already know that she was going to be controversial and she was just saying what people were thinking. If you are going to talk like you are gay, then Ann Coulter is going to call you gay. Of course, she said it in a spiteful tone, but it was expected."
Union Board, which brought Coulter for the event, wished not to comment on any of the content of her speech.
Another student asked Coulter what she was doing better than extremist Democrats, to which she responded, "selling more books."
Coulter made a few comments about both IU and Indiana. She said students at Harvard listen to her comments and ask questions later. One student yelled out, "We're not Harvard," to which she responded, "Yeah, you can't come up with questions."
Coulter also praised Republican Indiana Congressman Mike Pence and said she would support him for president. She also said she doesn't hate Democratic Indiana Senator Evan Bayh as much as other Democrats.
"Evan Bayh isn't as insane as other Democrats," she said. "But he certainly isn't as good as the worst Republican."
Even though many students were removed from the event and Coulter questioned the security, Union Board President Brad Allen said he was impressed with how everything went.
"I think she had a different idea of how the security was going to be," he said. "I think the security did a great job and we kept things under control."
Students were split on the crowd reactions. Kennedy said he thought that the event was moderate. Others complained throughout the speech about interruptions and students yelling profanities.
"I thought it was very immature," freshman Andrea Knapp said. "They should have let her talk. It was embarrassing."
Others found Coulter's speech to be offensive.
"She was just rude," sophomore Elana Kanter said. "From the 'brown boy' comment to calling that guy 'gay boy,' she was really rude. It was uncalled for."
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Partridge
