Very funny

Conservative writer and commentator Ann Coulter was heckled so badly at the Univ. of CT last night she had to stop the speech she was making.

STORRS, Conn. - 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.

That's the punch line. Mr. Knudsen wasn't even at the event but called it blatant hate speech. What Knudsen says is doubly funny to me. He says we encourage diverse opinion at UCONN. Apparently you don't Mr. Knudsen or you'd have welcomed Ms. Coulter instead of criticizing her when you didn't even attend the event.

Just another example of what the 'real' definition of diversity is to some. I'm a conservative but Ann Coulter gets on my nerves. I've read two of her books and found them exhausting. She's free to her opinions as is Mr. Knudsen. I'm a great believer in free speech as I believed here. People can have and express their opinions no matter how outrageous some of them are(Of course I can give knucklehead awards to some of the loonier ones). That's what freedom of speech is. Hate speech is subjective, and its a slippery slope if we start trying to define it.

Hat tip- Ann Althouse
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