# Why I can't just laugh Ann Coulter off **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 8, 2005, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320 "2005-04-08T01:04:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/21 "2005-04-08T05:28:20Z")
> [@dnooman](#): > > Nice try retard. You mean _Bill Maher_? > He thinks she’s as much of a bitch as Satan intended her to be. Last time I saw Maher mention her, he was talking about how they were good friends. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/22 "2005-04-08T05:40:36Z")
> [@dnooman](#): > > Nice try retard. You mean _Bill Maher_? Jesus, WTF was that about? You’re calling someone a retard because they misspelled someone’s last name? Almost seems like the kind of reactionary asshole-ishness somebody like, say, Ann Coulter is guilty of. And, FTR, the last time COulter was on Maher’s show, he reprimanded Richard Belzer for interrupting her diatribe with insulting retorts, saying “I know you disagree with her, but she’s a friend of mine, so let her talk”, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/23 "2005-04-08T05:41:14Z")
I don’t mind what Ann Coulter says. There are crazy people all over the place. What disturbs me is that she has an audience. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/24 "2005-04-08T06:20:08Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Which is why there have been a grand total of three threads about her here in the last two months. Hell, you and milroyj probably get pitted nearly as often as she does. And for roughly the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/25 "2005-04-08T06:26:56Z")
I’m told she’s political or something. I can’t tell because when she talks, I just nod and picture her in black latex and leather bondage. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/26 "2005-04-08T08:52:10Z")
She’s fun. It’s deliberately exaggerated, hyperbole. She’s the slightly hysterical O’Rourke on speed. It isn’t meant to be taken as gods own gospel. Don’t be such bores. It’s all great fun. The difference between her and the lefts bullshit is the left actually mean it. You think Ward Churchill was snickering when he did the Eichmann thing? You think M. Moore was giggling when he said Americans were dumb as batshit? Susan _“The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone”_ Sontag didn’t mean every single word exactly as she said them? Noam Pol-Pot Chomsky. etc. etc. The truth is, when it comes to crazy hateful bile, nothing can touch you peace loving liberals. And the Bush=Hitler, Republican=Fascist, Israel=Nazis you see everywhere - many threads here on SDMB with just such comments. Uh? That isn’t hateful? In what way is Ann’s drivel worse than that? ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/27 "2005-04-08T10:24:06Z")
In defense of Susan Sontag, Noam Chomsky, and others, the _entire goddamn body_ of their work isn’t spiteful bile. They did not build entire careers out of ridiculing and slandering nearly half of the population of the United States, along with large sectors of the world at large. If anyone is being a bore, it’s her, not the people who are offended. As **Little Nemo** says, it’s not so much what she says (though that can be pretty offensive), it’s that she has an audience that thinks she’s right. And, if as you say she’s just kidding around, that she gets such joy out of pissing people off. Some things, such as the famed “kill their leaders, convert them to Christianity” statement, just don’t bear joking about. I mean, how would Americans feel if someone advocated invading the United States, killing our leaders, and converting the entire nation to, say, Wicca? She’s hardly upholding the American values she so vaunts if she’s suggested a mass, government funded conversion to Christianity. If she’s funny, she’s not very funny at all – hers is a ham-fisted, poorly executed, bullying, verbal slapstick, a form of humor that is ill-suited for the written word. Also, I don’t like her because of her shoddy writing and poor grasp of citation. She’s intellectually dishonest in her books, and that makes me sick. She is not talented or intelligent enough to actually make a splash, and so she must be a towering bitch-queen, a veritable political fishwife. The people who find her attractive just make my head spin. You think that whinnying, horse-faced harpy is attractive? Miss Bird-lips? No thank you. I’d rather fellate an actual horse than put my lips anywhere near the corrosive pussy juices of that harridan. Or, dear lord, change my name to Catherine the Great and make a historical myth reality. ---
**Author:** ![Icerigger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icerigger/32/432_2.png) [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/28 "2005-04-08T10:28:50Z")
“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.” “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” This is not hyperbole it is an outright call to kill your political opponents, liberals who amount to tens of millions of your fellow Americans. The very fact that she and the other right wing pundits have millions who agree with her is frightening. This country is falling into an abyss and I don’t know if anything can stop it. ---
**Author:** ![NutMagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@NutMagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NutMagnet)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/29 "2005-04-08T11:28:55Z")
**Icerigger** : > [@](#): > > 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." While I don’t necessarily agree with the thrust of this, I don’t read it as an “outright call to kill your political opponent”. And Walker isn’t a political opponent. Nor is McVeigh. They’re murderers. The Liberal left has to realize that they can be be killed just as easily as anyone else by nut-jobs like these, right-wing nut-jobs and garden-variety nut-jobs. If the death penalty isn’t invoked for these types of crimes, there will be more of them. ---
**Author:** ![Kantalooppi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a5b964/32.png) [@Kantalooppi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kantalooppi)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/30 "2005-04-08T12:00:10Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > If anything, Michael Moore is the left’s Rush Limbaugh. I personally cannot THINK of anyone as hateful as Coulter. MAYBE Ward Churchill, but just barely, and he ain’t that popular. Ted Rall. ---
**Author:** ![FordPrefect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e99b99/32.png) [@FordPrefect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordPrefect)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/31 "2005-04-08T12:49:23Z")
> [@Thank Ye Sai](#): > > … I can see it now " New rule people who swallow don’t get to claim moral superiority over Presidents." Maybe… But they should definitely be raised on pedestals and praised for all their swallowing goodness. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/32 "2005-04-08T13:00:39Z")
> [@Brutus](#): > > Without a Ann Coulter thread in the upper half of the front page of the Pit, it is quite possible that the world will come to an end. Seems as if you have about as much use for facts as Ass Coulter does. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/33 "2005-04-08T13:12:41Z")
I think Ann Coulter’s “jokes” are kinda like the kids in school who’d go up and give you a good solid punch in the arm. When you turned around and asked them what the hell they thought they were doing, maybe pullilng back a fist to give them a shot back, they’d say they were “Only joking. Don’t get your panties in a wad” or words to that effect. Well, they weren’t only joking. They wanted to see how you’d respond to getting hit. If you let them get away with such “jokes” they’d keep hitting you. Only joking, of course. If they figured they were about a micrometer away from getting their lights punched out, they’d stop. But only if. Same with Ann Coulter. We need to look that bitch in the eye and tell her we don’t think she’s funny and if she does it again, she’ll catch hell. And mean it. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/34 "2005-04-08T13:22:14Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Same with Ann Coulter. We need to look that bitch in the eye and tell her we don’t think she’s funny and if she does it again, she’ll catch hell. And mean it. Well I think she’s funny. Can I look her in the eye and say I think she’s funny and if she does it again I’ll laugh, please? ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/35 "2005-04-08T13:47:52Z")
**spectrum** , Ann Coulter, **Evil Captor** - different audience, otherwise much the same. The occasional good point buried in meters of spiteful bullshit. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Atticus\_Finch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ec9cab/32.png) [@Atticus\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atticus_Finch)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/36 "2005-04-08T14:12:54Z")
> [@NutMagnet](#): > > And Walker isn’t a political opponent. Nor is McVeigh. They’re murderers. > > The Liberal left has to realize that they can be be killed just as easily as anyone else by nut-jobs like these, right-wing nut-jobs and garden-variety nut-jobs. McVeigh is a right-winger, and it was never suggested by Coulter that he was a “political opponent”. Read her quote again - she’d be in favour of his actions if only he’d kill some broadsheet journalists. No argument that he’s a murderer, of course, but Walker Lindh isn’t. He was in the Taliban, which is morally reprehensible, but not illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/37 "2005-04-08T14:22:55Z")
> [@Atticus Finch](#): > > No argument that he’s a murderer, of course, but Walker Lindh isn’t. He was in the Taliban, which is morally reprehensible, but not illegal. Being sentenced to 20 years without parole is usually a good indicator you did something illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/38 "2005-04-08T14:25:35Z")
> [@NutMagnet](#): > > If the death penalty isn’t invoked for these types of crimes, there will be more of them. Do you think that McVeigh wasn’t completely aware of what the penalty would be once he was caught? Do you really think it would have stopped him? People who are willing to kill hundreds of people, including children, will not flinch at losing their own lives. They see it as dying for a cause. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/39 "2005-04-08T14:42:03Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > Do you think that McVeigh wasn’t completely aware of what the penalty would be once he was caught? > > Do you really think it would have stopped him? > > People who are willing to kill hundreds of people, including children, will not flinch at losing their own lives. They see it as dying for a cause. Yeah, but what about suicide bombers, huh? We need to send a clear message to them that if they carry out their destructive acts, the law might not be so kind to them. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320/40 "2005-04-08T15:11:42Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > She’s fun. It’s deliberately exaggerated, hyperbole. She’s the slightly hysterical O’Rourke on speed. It isn’t meant to be taken as gods own gospel. Don’t be such bores. It’s all great fun. > > The difference between her and the lefts bullshit is the left actually mean it. You think Ward Churchill was snickering when he did the Eichmann thing? You think M. Moore was giggling when he said Americans were dumb as batshit? Susan _“The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone”_ Sontag didn’t mean every single word exactly as she said them? Noam Pol-Pot Chomsky. etc. etc. The truth is, when it comes to crazy hateful bile, nothing can touch you peace loving liberals. And the Bush=Hitler, Republican=Fascist, Israel=Nazis you see everywhere - many threads here on SDMB with just such comments. Uh? That isn’t hateful? In what way is Ann’s drivel worse than that? How do you determine, precisely, that Anne Coulter is just wacky fun, but Susan Sontag was deadly earnest? I’m genuinely curious, because I’ve never seen any indication that she’s being the least bit tongue in cheek. And comparing her to P.J. O’Rourke is downright insulting to P.J. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-i-cant-just-laugh-ann-coulter-off/298320.md?page=3)