On people stupider than I

Okay, so you've asked for it in comments, and I do take requests (unlike a certain band which will remain nameless; when you come out for your encore and I shout "15 Stories," you play "15 Stories," dammit). The best requests, really, are the ones that are easy to satisfy, and Ann Coulter stupidity is always a sure bet.

Her most recent act of near-criminal asshattery occurred at UConn, where she managed to get about 15 minutes of her speech out before being overwhelmed with boos, jeers, and chants of, "You suck! You suck!" "I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Coulter said.

Which explains all those appearances on "Hannity & Colmes."

The problem with getting pissed at Ann for this, though, is that this about par for her deeply stupid course. It's not like she, say, called for a terrorist attack on the New York Times building, or advocated converting and/or killing all Muslims in the Middle East, or even proposed the death penalty for the guys who pied her at the University of Arizona. She's only guilty of making her usual stupid, intolerant, hate-filled rant, and of not recognizing when she's actually one of the "stupider" people in the room.

No, what makes me just laugh and laugh is the reaction by Coulter's flying monkeys, leaping to her defense at the slightest sign that someone might not approve of her message. My favorite one was The Conservative Voice, which declared that "Student Protesters Deny Ann Coulter Free Speech."

Maybe I'm just more sensitive to the whole First Amendment thing because I'm a journalist; it's important to know exactly what my rights are as far as freedom of speech and freedom of the press are concerned. I'm far from a constitutional scholar, but I do know for certain one thing about the aforementioned rights: they cannot be taken away by the government. Except under certain specific circumstances, the government can't keep me from expressing what I want to express.

A bunch of students at UConn aren't the government. They're a bunch of private citizens who think, and rightly so, that Ann Coulter is the most toxic and overexposed (and least talented) of the current crop of conservative commentators, and who shouted her the hell down. Buttercup, if you can't hold your own against a bunch of noisy college students, you're really not the cast-iron bitch that you make yourself out to be. Where's the backbone, honey? When met with opposition, do you seriously have nothing better to say than, "But - but - but - Shut up! You're stupid!"

She did actually say more than just that. She also said, "We're having a question and answer right now with the little crybabies."

Crybabies?! They're stupid, and they're crybabies? This coming from a woman who won't appear in public without her bodyguard for fear of airborne pastry reprisals, who couldn't even finish her speech because the nasty, mean ol' liberals were hurting her fee-fees, and she's throwing around words like crybabies? Christ in a rowboat.

The problem with Ann Coulter is that picking on her just isn't fun anymore. Once upon a time, she could be counted on to say the most venemous things, to incite the most rabid hatred, to spew the most outrageous lies without blinking. Conservatives thought she was the hot blonde who spoke her mind, liberals thought she was the poorly disguised plum-smuggler who said ridiculous, racist, sexist things because she thought it would make boys like her. Parsing her hate-filled, inane columns and speeches was like a magical treasurehunt of stupidity. The worst that could be said about her was that she was low-hanging fruit.

Now she's not any fun. Her schtick is old. Her hateful invective has been overshadowed by that of Pat Robertson, her aimless hysteria has been taken up by Alaskan senator Ted Stevens and "Mean Jean" Schmidt, Michelle Malkin has her for racism and sexism, and her basic lack of logic and poor writing skills can be matched by any conservative writer mocked by Sadly, No! or World O'Crap. She is an '86 IROC Camaro in a land of Shelby GT500s; once the inarguable shit, she is now old, rusted, underpowered, outdated, trashy and begging to be put up on blocks.

This is probably my farewell to Ann Coulter. Girlfriend has jumped the shark. Why UConn was willing to pay her $16,000 to come out and speak, I don't know; they had to have realized that her keg of outrageous and controversial statements was well and truly tapped and that they'd be shelling out for dregs like "stupider" and "crybaby." If she starts getting interesting again, if she goes back on her meds and gets downgraded from "raving loon" to "conservative shrill," I might just revisit her. Until then, I'll just leave her sitting on the floor in her darkened living room, licking a cheeseburger, chain-smoking Parliament menthols, muttering "Stupid crybabies, they'll get theirs" so softly that only her bodyguard can hear.