No love for Coulter at UConn

Conservative pinhead Ann Coulter made an appearance at UConn last night and lets just say that her reception wasn't all that supportive.

From the New York Newsday

Conservative columnist Ann Coulter gave up trying to finish a speech at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night when boos and jeers from the audience became overwhelming.

Coulter cut off the talk after 15 minutes and instead held a half-hour question-and-answer session.

"I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter told the 2,600 people at Jorgensen Auditorium.

Coulter's appearance prompted protests from several groups, including Students Against Hate and the Puerto Rican/Latin American Cultural Center. They criticized her for spreading a message of hate and intolerance.

Nearly 100 students gathered inside the Student Union for a rally against Coulter. About a half-dozen people held protest signs outside the auditorium.

After a book signing following her appearance, Coulter called the audience's reaction "typical."

Coulter, originally from New Canaan, Conn., has a history of bashing Democrats in best-selling books, frequent television appearances and speeches. Harding University in Arkansas dropped her from its lecture series in September, citing her abrasive image.

Last April, the president of the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota denounced a speech on the campus by Coulter, calling it hateful. In October 2004, University of Arizona police arrested two men who ran on stage and threw custard pies at Coulter; one of the pies glanced off her shoulder.

In her speech at UConn, Coulter called Bill Clinton an "executive buffoon" who won the presidency only because Ross Perot took 19 percent of the vote. She called California Sen. Barbara Boxer a good candidate for the Democrats because "she is a woman and she's learning disabled."

During the question-and-answer session, someone asked Coulter if she really was against a woman's right to vote.

"Not having women vote is a joke," she said, reversing comments she has previously made.

Eric Knudsen, a 19-year-old sophomore journalism and social welfare major at UConn, didn't attend the speech.

"We encourage diverse opinion at UConn, but this is blatant hate speech," said Knudsen, head of Students Against Hate.

Diverse opinion is one thing but this is a person who makes a living on doing hate speech on college campuses and it's a joke. Why would anyone give this person a dime to hear her run her mouth is beyond me but I guess there's a sucker born every minute and this minute belongs to the College Republicans who paid 10,000+ to bring this idiot to their campus.

Parents, just remember, this is how your college tuition money is being spent and just in case you don't know who Coulter is, here are some of her more famous quotes:

(September 13, 2001) - "Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now."

[...]

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."

(January 2002)-"When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."

and my favorite:

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building." (Ann Coulter in a New York Observer interview, 8/20/2002)

Now I say again, why would anyone pay to have a person like this come and talk to college students?

People like Coulter make a living by saying outrageous remarks that are only designed to bring attention to themselves and adds nothing to the political discussion and the way Coulter and people like her make their living by giving speeches at colleges and books tours is simply a disgrace.

If the College Republicans at UConn wanted a conservative that could generate a meaningful discussion, why not host someone who has intellegence like William Buckley or or someone who can make a their case minus the outrageous remarks like Andrew Sullivan. These people can make their viewpoint without all the name calling and kneejerking and although I might disagree with them on some points, I completely respect their opinion as they are honest and insightful.

Pundits and speakers in the category of Coulter are purposely dishonest simply to generate attention to themselves and make a buck and could care less about the truth.

How are liberal and conservatives ever to find common ground when we have bombthrowers like Coulter out there fanning the flames with her rhetoric and nonsense?

UPDATE: CNN is conducting an online poll in which they ask who is stupider: Ann Coulter or the jeering UConn students. Here are the reuslts as of 1:25 P.M.:http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif


UPDATE 2: For those who like video, here's a report of the event from Fox 61.

An eleven minute speech for 16,000? Doesn't seem like much of a bargin...