After weeks of petitions, anticipation, debates and arguments, the infamous Ann Coulter brought views of conservative superiority to Northern’s campus this week.
Coulter spoke Monday night to over 1,000 spectators in the Vandament Arena about current political topics and problems facing America today.
One of the first topics Coulter addressed was President George W. Bush and how Americans’ viewpoints on conservative platforms are blurred in the eyes of the citizens.
“The biggest problem Republicans have this year is that Bush has been so successful in the War on Terrorism, we’ve completely forgot about the threat of international terrorism,” she said. “This happens to Republicans all the time; there’s a huge problem, we run on it, we solve it and then it goes away as an issue we can run on.”
Coulter said the reason most Americans are against the War on Terrorism is because receiving information about the progress of the war is difficult.
“It would be a little bit easier to track our progress in Iraq or against the state-less terrorists if the Pentagon would be a little bit more forthcoming about how many [terrorists] were killed,” she said. “For years, it was impossible to get that information; I tried looking. You just couldn’t get it. It was a more closely guarded secret than MSNBC’s viewership.
“Meanwhile, I could tell you the life stories of every general who has ever disagreed with George Bush’s Iraq Strategy. I can tell you their mother’s maiden name, their high school grades, I can tell you their favorite Spice Girl,” Coulter continued. “But, how many of the enemy have we deactivated? Sorry, that’s classified.”
Coulter said that once the information was released, it showed that there were 20,000 Al-Qaeda and Shia militants killed up until last summer, with 2,500 killed in the first six months of 2007.
She said that even after those facts were released the media only reported the negative aspects of the war.
“As strange as it sounds, it’s almost as if there is some kind of surge going on,” Coulter said. “You may have missed the news reports on how many of them we’re killing because all of the news reports [say] ‘How soon we are going to begin pulling out troops?’ How do we expect to win a war when the media won’t report our victories and keeps clamoring for a retreat?”
Regarding the current presidential race, Coulter said that none of the nominees are the best for the presidency, however, she will be voting for John McCain in the 2008 election.
“We have to start to thinking beyond this election,” she said. “Even if John McCain slips through, based on the idiotic things Obama’s been saying recently, John McCain could end up being the luckiest man in the world. The fact that he could be the last man standing shows that we have a total leadership problem with the Republican Party.”
Even though Coulter supports John McCain, she said that Hillary Clinton doesn’t seem as liberal as most Democrats.
“Our presidential candidates seem to be all Democrats. We have John McCain, Hillary Clinton and B. Hussein Obama. As frightening as it sounds, Hillary Clinton may be more conservative than John McCain,” she said. “Hillary at least, unlike McCain, is not hysterically against waterboarding. I mean, given the glint in her eyes, she might enjoy torturing the terrorists. And if you are still wondering about her position on torture, have you ever heard that woman give a speech? She ought to fly to Guantanamo to give the prisoners speeches. The terrorists will be begging to be waterboarded.”
There were accusations that soldiers treated prisoners in Guantanamo Bay poorly regarding their religious beliefs. However, Coulter said that this is fabricated and that Guantanamo Bay isn’t the terrible place that liberals make it out to be.
“Liberals believe in burning their draft cards, urinating on crucifixes, passing out condoms to 12-year-old girls without their parents’ consent, and God forbid we touch a prisoner in Guantanamo,” Coulter said. “You remember Guantanamo? It’s the all-inclusive tropical resort built for terrorists as a nice place to live while they wait for Americans to elect the next Democratic president.”
Coulter also discussed the disproved article in Newsweek about guards at Guantanamo flushing Korans down the toilet in front of prisoners.
“My first reaction was, ‘They’ve got fresh toilets at Guantanamo?'” she said. “What happened to latrines?
“But because of that false of that story, interrogators are required to wear plastic gloves when handling the Korans so as to not upset the little darlings,” she said. “The prisoners are required eight hours of sleep at night, three square meals a day, two hours of daily exercise, they can’t be put in cold rooms and they can’t have their mail opened. I’ve had worse service at a Holiday Inn Express.”
During the speech, approximately 75 spectators rose from their seats and paraded out of the arena, some making Communist gestures on the way. Coulter said she wasn’t affected by the protestors and doesn’t feel that she said hateful things.
“I didn’t even notice [the protesters]; I thought they were fans; they were cheering on the way out. I thought that was lovely,” she said. “Everyone thinks that if it’s conservative speech, it’s hate speech.”
