I Spent the Night with Ann Coulter
By Nathan Shapiro This past Monday, the College Republicans executive board and I had the opportunity to go out to dinner with the scourge of Stony Brook, Ann Coulter. And surprisingly, I had a good time. I was originally against the College Republicans inviting Coulter to Stony Brook. Like many other conservatives, I may like much of Coulter’s politics but I don’t care for her attitude and how she expresses herself. But by bringing Coulter to campus, we had the occasion to judge Coulter from a firsthand account rather than by media interlopers. Coulter, far from being the queen of hate, is actually quite funny and charming in person. You might expect that she would be more outrageous in private with her follow conservatives, but I’ve heard more off-color jokes from the mouths of my liberal friends. Instead we spent dinner chatting about what a nice town Stony Brook is, about national politics, about the future of journalism and conservative reservations over John McCain. I wish there was more controversy to report on, but what this goes to show is that Coulter is a human being and not merely a talking head. She has a personality apart from her public reputation. Once you get to know Ann Coulter as a person you can actually like her. Stony Brook students were given the unique opportunity to see her directly and do just that, but unfortunately some students didn’t take advantage of it. Liberals who vilify Coulter could have used this chance to confront her about her comments and get answers because she was quite willing to give them. They could have finally asked her why she says such things, rather than speculate and condemn her. Isn’t the point of college to confront, challenge and debate differing viewpoints, even those we dislike? That’s what College Republicans offered us. Instead, to their own detriment and to that of the whole university atmosphere, there was an active movement by some to “ignore” Coulter. And for the sake of the political discourse of our country, I have to believe that the campus liberals that stayed away represented the crème de la crème of their movement on campus. Because if the caliber of their activists that did show up represents them accurately, they revealed themselves to be as intolerant as they claim Coulter to be. One questioner accused Coulter of being intolerant towards Islam, but then went on to show utter hypocrisy by insulting her religion (Christianity) by saying it was naturally violent for its biblical mention of stoning and declaring the basic tenet of her belief—the resurrection of Christ—to be “ludicrous.” Coulter simply dismissed the questioner’s assumptions as utterly inaccurate (Jesus actually stopped a stoning in John 8:7). For her part, Coulter admitted that she is not qualified to judge Islam and when she is criticizing it, she is speaking of those radicals who are committed to aiding terrorist networks. So not only did the students who stuck their heads in the sand miss something worthwhile, but those who did attend also would have benefited from having a sharp discussion about what she stands for. All the protestors hollering about what a waste of money Coulter was have no right to say so if they didn’t show up to make the most of it. After all, I gave her a chance and survived. |
... the conservative contingent on campus would have sat in the audience and thoughtfully and respectfully questioned him instead of calling for his head and yelling about how the university is pissing its money away bringing him to campus. And then they would have thanked SBU for bringing him to campus.
Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.
Nathan, you should be happy that people who hate her simply ignored Coulter, instead of doing something worse.
Sam Goldman
Ombudsman, Stony Brook Press
I Spent the Night with Ann Coulter
attributing people's negative reaction to coulter's vile comments to the media was less than candid, since people have ample opportunity to directly read her work and hear her talk, prior to her arrival at stony brook. and mr. shapiro's undeserved smugness in chastising "liberals"who didn't attend, is also absurd. does he believe that people have a duty or responsibility to listen to every nasty-mouthed, self-promoting crank who comes down the pike?
moreover, the revulsion that many people feel toward coulter crosses ideological lines, and if r. shapiro is unaware of this, then he ought to be better informed and, if he is aware of it, then it just another example of him being a little less than forthcoming in his editorial.
richard j. brenner