My favorite conservative commentator 

This was bound to get ugly. Some genius had the idea to bring Ann Coulter and Al Franken together, and have 'em engage in some good ole-fashioned debatin'. [You'll have to register if you want to read the whole story, but in the interest of, uh, fair use, I've put some of the better bits below.] According to the Hartford Courant, Ann and Al went at it, with comic results:

The evening's tone was set early when Roberts asked which political figure each would most like to be. Coulter said she would answer with who she believed had the most fun. Her response: Sen. Joseph McCarthy, because he got to remove "communist spies from the government."

That elicited loud booing from the sold-out audience, that made its political leanings obvious with frequent applause and jeers.

Franken's response: "Hitler."

As I recall, Coulter is a big fan of Senator McCarthy. And really, Joe was just misunderstood. His fanatical hunt for communists? Perfectly justified! All those Hollywood actors and directors sure were subversive!

Then, moderator Sam Roberts queried Coulter about the war in Iraq:


Roberts: Do you think the Bush administration did anything wrong in regard to the war in Iraq?

Coulter: "When we won the war in a few weeks with amazingly few casualties, all the liberals had to complain about was some broken pottery. Any college student who was ever forced to gaze at Mesopotamian pottery was relieved."


Allright Ann, I'll give you this one. I'm also glad nothing besides some Mesopotamian pottery has gotten broken since President Bush said the war was over last May.

After Coulter's puzzling response, he asked her what she thought about gay marriage:


"Have they [the Massachusetts Supreme Court] read the Constitution? It's a short document. It doesn't say anything in there about gay marriage. We need to get them looking for Osama Bin Laden, because if they can find gay marriage in that document, maybe they can find him."

Wow, once again, Ann is right! The Constitution doesn't say anything about gay marriage! Which, obviously, means that the country can pass a law banning it, because marriage clearly isn't a civil right. The Constitution doesn't say anything about machine guns, either. Can we ban those too?

Franken got his digs in, too:

Franken, who is Jewish, put his own anti-Coulter spin on the topic of gay marriage: "This whole Christian thing is weird to me. In the Bible it says it's an abomination to eat pork, and there are also instructions on how to sell daughters into slavery, which maybe I can ask for your advice on, Ann."

Oh, snap! Franken then countered Coulter's assertion that liberals are a bunch of stinkin' liars with an attack on that most sacred part of a woman's identity: her age. But Coulter was nimble, and responded with the trusty rhetorical trick of changing the argument:

"That's not the important question," Coulter said. "The important question is how tall are you?"

Franken: "Five foot eight."

Coulter: "No you're not."

Franken: "Yes, I am. It's on my driver's license."

Now, Al, God bless you, but it's not like my drivers' license is completely accurate. That said, I sure would have loved to witness this debate. If there is one thing I can count on with Ann Coulter, it's that the discussion will consistently devolve into liberal-baiting and insulting. To be fair, Franken was a great foil who equally enjoys baiting conservatives, but Coulter is particularly vindictive and, well, bitchy about it.

Coulter and I have a history. Before she got wildly popular, she had a syndicated column which was carried in the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, and she wrote a lovely piece that suggested racial profiling was the way to go for airport security. Needless to say, I was appalled at the particularly snobbish nature of that and her later columns, so I dashed off an angry refutation which was published in the newspaper. Ever since then, Ann Coulter has been persona non grata in my intellectual household. I wouldn't expect myself to be "fair and balanced" while discussing her. But, anyway, there you go. Ann and Al, friends for-eva!