I've said a number of vicious things about Ann Coulter through the years and I'm proud of each and every one of them. In the end, though, I don't take her very seriously because I think that she doesn't want to be taken seriously. She wants to get rich by inflaming the passions of people who aren't especially good at independent thinking. She's little more than a stand-up comic and not a very good one at that.Nor do I think that she's - as the swinish press tags her - especially conservative. She cynically plays to the intellectual cheap seats in the same way that Michael Moore does on the left. I don't think Moore or Coulter believe in anything so much as the power of the almighty dollar.
Unlike the hyper-stupid left that was outraged by her visit to Canada this week, I wrote about her "perfecting the Jews" comment the week she made it.
Of course, those are all my opinions, which you're free to disagree with and a number of you have over the years. If, like me, you don't like her, you shouldn't participate in making her rich and leave it at that. Advocating the right of free speech for everyone except those you disagree with is a logically tricky proposition, and it tends to make you look as bad or worse than Coulter herself is.
But that's pretty much what happened this week in Canada, which already isn't famous for supporting free speech rights. Coulter, who has a fairly long history of badmouthing this country, has been given a sword by the very people who would silence her.
It all started when the provost of the University of Ottawa, where she was scheduled to speak, cryptically cautioned her about Canada's hate speech laws. Last night, before her presentation was to begin, the event was cancelled by police due to "security concerns." There were a number of angry protesters, several of whom were supportive of "Israel Apartheid Week," outside the venue.
Here's something that more folks should consider: The silencing of speech always says more about the person doing the silencing than it does about the speaker. That's just as true of the leftist idiots at the University of Ottawa as it is of the Tea Party morons who shout down congressmen at those useless town hall meetings. It never reflects well on the person abridging someone else's rights.
There's no shortage of things that come out of Ms. Coulter's mouth that make her - and by extension, Republicans - look bad, as her appearance at CPAC a few years ago proved. If the left enjoys painting conservatives as intolerant assholes, Ann is about the best friend they could have. If liberals were smart, they would have allowed her to repeatedly say dumb things that prove their point and perhaps persuaded people to their point of view. But liberals aren't very smart.
By shutting Coulter's event down last night, they proved that they, not her, are intolerant and fearful of debate. By "winning," they defeated themselves in the battle for public opinion. Very few sensible people are inclined to take an angry mob to their bosom.
The reactionaries on the left have won a battle that puts winning the war even further out of their reach. They proved yet again what strategic assests mindless liberals are for conservatives. They've managed to do what few dreamed possible: They've made Ann Coulter a sympathetic figure to people who don't like her.
Since I'm not in the business of giving liberals advice, I'll leave it at that.
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