The Q & A
We didn't pick our seats, the other Quidniki did, ignoring our desire
to get way up high for a view of the obligatory shenanigans. We
had to crane our necks to see who was doing what and completely missed
the fellow who was pounced on by security for "obscene and lewd
gesticulations," as Quid 2 described it. This was fairly late in
the question and answer period. He had asked an extemely vulgar
question into the mike. We would like to inteject that we
at
Quid Nimis
are veterans of obscene phone calls and this was exactly that: the
blurting of vulgarities at the (female) object of his hatred, the hasty
'hang up' in the form of running back up the aisle of the auditorium
while gesticulating grandiosely (what ever happened to truth in
advertising, we ask?) He was hauled off so
abruptly that his co-religionists, seizing their moment, departed
en
masse, chanting and keening and ululating after the security guards and
their unzipped charge. Or maybe he wasn't unzipped. It was hard
to tell. That is, it was difficult to know for sure; ain't
nothing hard about this group.
[Relevant aside: the David
Horowitz emcees said that they were fascinated to find out what the ones
arrested in that fracas had in their bags: air horns, lots of Marksalot
black markers, cell phones, tattered, dog-eared copies of
The Woody
Guthrie Songbook, virginal, shrink-wrapped copies of the Webster Pocket
Dictionary,
Cliff Notes: Protesting For Dummies (Really!) and Claritin. Items not in evidence: grooming supplies and any self-written material with three syllable words.]
The question and answer period was dominated by the Leftists who
challenged Miss Coulter either by asking idiotic questions or by
ranting. The hosts had manned mikes so if someone didn't follow
the rules, the mike got turned off. The questions that elicited
the most interesting answers were generally from Conservatives, but
there was a (hostile) question about teaching that "fairy tale,
Creationism, in our Science classes." Ms. Coulter launched into a
diatribe about the alledged unassailability of the theory of evolution,
but ended up by saying that she didn't know what was going on in this
state but that she didn't think that the story of Adam and Eve should
be taught in Science textbooks. She had an interesting but subtle
point that we don't think she articulated very well, which is that there is a
difference between teaching the theory of evolution, which to many
Christians does not contradict the creation story, and Darwinism, which
is an insidiously anti-religious viewpoint that pervades Leftist
ideology.
Another memorable question came from a young woman who asked what
the
role of Conservative women was. Ms. Coulter responded very warmly
that beautiful, righteous young women like her (the questioner)
inspired their men to do heroic deeds in defense of their country, that
they are the great civilizers of men and that their role was the most
important in shaping society. This was a little startling because
of the obvious affection in Ms. Coulter's voice. The Leftist
reaction was hard to judge: disdainful but very muted, we think.
Kfir of the
Protest Warriors had his turn at the mike and got his
opportunity to ask Ms. Coulter to autograph his copy of
Time Magazine,
the one in which
Time incorrectly identified the PW spin-off group CommunistsforKerry
as a group protesting Ann Coulter. [Note to
Time: if you're
in a huge protest march and you suddenly come across a group whose
signs have correct spelling and seem to be much cleverer that the rest,
those are the Conservatives making fun of the Leftists]
Somewhere in the midst of the Q & A, Ms.Coulter talked about
her
faith in response to a question about her style. After that there
was a spate of completely predictable
questions about Jesus preaching love so wasn't she a hypocrite, yada
yada. This series included one of the truly comical moments of the
evening when Ms. Coulter
couldn't understand a British fellow who asked her if she thought her
speech "blessed people." When she finally had him spell
b-l-e-s-s-e-d she snapped back "No, but I don't intend it to" and
promptly pronounced that the strangest question she'd ever
gotten. What we were wondering was, since all of
these people were in line for the mike before the subject of her faith
came up, what were their original questions and how bad must those
questions have
been that they thought they would sound more intelligent playing "Jesus
Said Gotcha" with Ann Coulter? Anyway, throughout there was much
(middle) finger pointing and bodily function stuff. We were
reminded of that Robert Fulghum book
All I ever needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten and thought these folks are due for a refresher course or maybe some night school for their KGED.
There was in fact only one person who seemed truly scary, a man who
purported to be an Arab Christian who was in "solidarity with his
Muslim brothers." He and Ms. Coulter got into it a bit when she kept
asking him if he thought 9/11 was a good thing. He left in a huff
and things became much quieter in our immediate vicinity. It
turns out, Quid 2 had been tiffing with him for quite a while, telling
him to shut up and stuff.
There she goes, pissing off the Islamo-Fascist.
bbmoe