B.A.A.C. Part 2

The Gilroy Girls

We had heard that it was going to be crowded , so we wanted to get in line early. We planned to get together for a quick meal with Quid 3 and another True Believer in Quid.  We ended up a little short of time at Burger Tex, a place reputed to have the best burgers in town.  It's run by Koreans and their specialty is Bulgogi Burgers, a spicy little concoction of shredded beef, soy sauce and other exotic ingredients.  It is well known that Quid 3, when she isn't translating scholarly tomes and proof-reading Quid Nimis, is a gourmande of the first order so we happily tagged along when she recommended the Bulgogi Burger.  It wasn't until we were about half-way through the extremely tasty repast that she remarked "Oh dear, I had forgotten how garlicky these are!"  Yes, well, what the explanatory sign doesn't tell you about the Bulgogi Burger  ingredients is that  for every 6 oz. burger, there is about a half pound of garlic mixed in.  More bad news: not a breath mint in sight and we were already behind sched.  Oh well.  At least we would be memorable.  When we network with the various folks who were also at the event this is what the "identify me" conversation will be:

"Hi, this is Quid. We met at the Ann Coulter event."
"Umm.. I met so many people.."
[Try Clothing:] "I was wearing a tie-dye caftan and royal blue cowboy boots."
"Umm... Doesn't ring a bell."
[Try identifying marks:] "I am 4'2" and have a heavy gold nose ring and "F*** Che" crudely tattooed on my knuckles."
"Sorry, can't place you."
" I reeked of garlic and you could smell me at twenty paces."
" Oh, yeah, I know who you are!"

The one thing to be said for smelling like garlic under these circumstances is that the Conservatives are way too polite to reveal that they are dying from the smell and the Leftists steer clear in the same way they avoid images of the cross, mirrors, and ruby-slippered girls armed with pails of water.

Tuesday Night Line Up

We have never found standing in line to be interesting- who does?- however, the folks at UT tried to break up the tedium at various times by periodically telling us what they wouldn't let us take into the auditorium.  After we had made two trips back to the car to return our bags and then our camera, we were chit-chatting with other Quidniki when Quid 2, who recognizes people, nudged us and said "That's a Protest Warrior!"  It wasn't just a Protest Warrior, it was The Protest Warrior and The Other Protest Warrior, the two guys that gained fame on Rush Limbaugh ~two years ago when he showed pictures of them and their signs at an anti-war rally in San Francisco.  It turns out they needed tickets.  We had no extras but we knew that our connection was somewhere in the crowd.  Sadly, we never found Ticket Guy so we weren't able to ingratiate ourselves too much with Kfir and Alan but happily, they got in anyway.

The Speech

Ann Coulter's speaking style is more of a series of punchy one-liners delivered rat-a-tat-tat than it is an actual speech.  If you have read her books, or listened to her on TV, you understand that her approach is to mine the deep and abiding anti-Americanism of the Left with extremely dry (the Gobi should be so dry) sarcasm.  This proves hard   for even some Conservatives to take but for the rest of us it is refreshing in its take-no-prisoners style.  And she hasn't just made a living  bashing liberals: she has worked professionally as a billing lawyer, as legal counsel for the Senate Education committee and as a lawyer/activist for habeas corpus reform.

The scene inside the auditorium was reminiscent of the David Horowitz speech, only bigger, and the ratio of Conservatives to Leftists was much larger.  Considering how liberal the campus is, this was a very good turnout by Conservative students and their supporters.  Coincidentally, we sat behind the emcees of the David Horowitz event.  The Leftists (some Anarchists, some Socialists, some Islamo-Fascists; little of this, little of that) still had their cheesy signs with the same disconnected, one-size-fits-most slogans. "Stop the New McCarthyism," "Down with the New McCarthyism," and, for good measure, "Bring Back the Old McCarthyism!"
OK, we made the last one up.  Still, we saw some hopeful signs, so to speak.  Someone had the brilliant idea to use colored posterboard this time so they got a 5-pack of Scotch Brand Posterboard Brites and we were treated to correctly spelled hackneyed slogans on Neon Green, Pink, Orange, and Yellow rather than just the dreary white.  We collected them after the speech as keepsakes.  It won't surprise anyone to learn that Leftists don't pick up after themselves, so they were just lying about.  Our favorite one was neon green with "Stop the New McCarthyism" scrawled across it and "International Socialist Organization" very neatly printed along the bottom.