The sparkling wit of Ann Coulter

I highly approve of Romney's decision to be kind and gentle to the retard.
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) October 23, 2012

It's really something, isn't it?

More at Boing Boing

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http://goodsharer.com/ Aloisius

No, what is really something is that she got 2,299 retweets.

She really has channeled her inner Internet troll effectively though.
- http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair
  
  Retweeting that is the equivalent of putting your fingertip to your lip and going “tee-hee”
  - http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline
    
    never underestimate the fact that a non-trivial amount of the electorate agree with this person and their sentiments.
    mocking the enemy is not the same as defeating them.smugness has never won any election.
    - acerplatanoides
      
      Yeah, but they’re the trivial electorate. Attending to their vote requires a lot of…. compromise
      - abstract_reg
        
        To paraphrase: stupid people make stupid voters.
        There might be a problem with how a large portion of the American electorate seems to be the sort that would follow this woman off a cliff.
      - acerplatanoides
        
        I see a wide gulf between willful ignorance and stupidity. I’m not saying anyone is stupid.
      - Julian Willson
        
        So the question is, how can we get her to this cliff?
- http://twitter.com/jmtd Jonathan Dowland
  
  Bear in mind a retweet does not necessarily mean that the person retweeting agrees. It’s simply “my follows might find this interesting”. Boing boing has ‘retweeted’ it essentially, here, in article form. Yet that does not mean BB agrees with what she said.
- http://mordicai.livejournal.com Mordicai
  
  I just think she should have more respect for Paul Ryan. I mean, he’s a congressperson, for crying out loud!
  - acerplatanoides
    
    it’s the eddie munster costume
- regeya
  
  She’s always been a troll. She says outrageous things about liberals, vilifies liberals for saying the same things about conservatives, and sells books and gets TV appearances and speaking engagements out of it.
Nicky G

She’s just like Drudge and the rest of them — totally in it for the money and nothing else. They could not care less about “issues,” but they have tapped in to the sad reality that they can make a ridiculous amount of money basically projecting ignorance and vitriol. Says more about the state of the USA in general than it does about these individuals.
- http://www.facebook.com/leafdot Nicolas Dayton
  
  You might be right, but I still wonder about the psychology of such a person. The closest I’ve ever come to that “type” are some of the drug addicts I’ve known – in that they’re mostly motivated by one thing – and even they have redeeming qualities, at least in their rhetoric if not their actions. Coulter’s just pure hate; ego & id with no supervision. Or so she appears. I honestly don’t think that’s what she is – who could be? – but it’s hard to imagine any other picture.
  - http://twitter.com/Polackio Matt Popke
    
    The psychology is pretty easy to figure out honestly. It’s simple Pavlovian rewards. Every time she trolls a liberal she gets a ton of attention. It’s like a rat pushing a button for a food pellet. Repeat this for years and you get somebody who not only regularly spouts this kind of shit, but starts to sincerely believe it. After all, it’s worked for her so far.
    
    The comparison to drug addicts is apt, because her anti-social behavior has removed any trace of the person she may be. She has become her pathology the same way many addicts become reduced to simply addicts, with any trace of their former selves essentially buried under the drives of their addiction, only resurfacing when the addiction subsides.
    
    More than anything though, she’s basically the Alice Cooper of conservative editorial. Every time he pretended to bite a head off a bat on stage (or was that Ozzy? Who cares, honestly) it increased his notoriety and attracted more adolescents to his shows. They went precisely because they knew their parents hated it.
    
    The contemporary conservative movement is the same. They define themselves (however ridiculously) as the “opposition”. They invoke symbols like the Boston Tea Party and citizens militias in their names and activities. They identify themselves as the inheritors of America’s revolutionary spirit (in spite of the fact that the policies they support effectively create a caste society of effective slaves and their effective masters). Pissing off a bunch of “self-anointed pseudo-intellectual liberals in their ivory towers” is exactly what floats their boat. Every time we react to Ann Coulter’s trolling with anything other than disinterest, we’re effectively rewarding her and everyone who agrees with her.
    
    It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. They believe they are the rebels. When anyone with any degree of respect tells them they are children, it only confirms their own belief that they’re on the outside fighting for the people rather than on the inside fighting for the elite. It’s confirmation bias at its most extreme. Anything you do to try and convince them they’re wrong will only further server to convince them they’re right. The best we can hope for is to get to their kids before their myths get too firmly set in their brains.
    - BillStewart2012
      
      ”Alice Cooper” is just the right analogy. It’s an act, over-the-top fractally wrong, and if a sane liberal person can give a coherent reply to something she said, it’s because she’s having an off night and only amped it up to 10.5 instead of 11. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, who’s just loud and mean, Ann’s actually bright and creative and puts a lot of work into sounding that offensive. She isn’t nice, unlike Steven Colbert’s character, but I do occasionally enjoy how impossible it is to say how wrong some rant of hers is because you’re busy tripping over all the other wrong things in it.
      
      And it was Ozzy, not Alice, who didn’t realize that the bat somebody threw from the audience was real, not fake, but as he said, “Just one time you bite the head off a live bat on stage, and nobody ever lets you forget it.”
  - chaopoiesis
    
    >> but I still wonder about the psychology
    >> of such a person.
    
    The trick is to focus not on the psychology, but the training… U of Mich. law school. It gives her trolling that professional edge.
- slagmacg
  
  Agreed. The only thing keeping her book sales moving forward is her ability to say something even more offensive than she said in her previous book.
- Øyvind
  
  Well, to be fair, being in it for the money often IS the issue (or explicit goal) for these people, so in that sense, she does care about the issue.
- ChickieD
  
  I think people who crave attention the way an addict craves a drug at some point learn that being a real asshole is a good way to get it. I mean, hey, Ann Coulter got us talking about her, and most of us here could care less about her.
  - Prairieguy
    
    I know I could not.
- Quiche de Resistance
  
  It’s a bit; she’s making money while she can before being tossed in the bin.
  That said, I get the feeling she’d be a really fun date.
lesmanalim

Stop. feeding. the troll.
- niktemadur
  
  Amen. They wither and die without attention, don’t pay attention.
  Nothing to see here, move right along, go SF Giants!
  - Scott Slemmons
    
    Ignoring the troll may have worked a few years ago. It doesn’t anymore. Ignoring the modern hatemonger troll means you’re giving tacit approval for what they say. People like Coulter and Fred Phelps and the Klan *want* decent people to ignore them because that means no one will try to stop them.
    
    You don’t get rid of cockroaches by pretending they don’t exist. You have to go turn the kitchen light on bright, then start stomping.
    - knappa
      
      I disagree, I think Ann Coulter is primarily in it for the attention.
      - millie fink
        
        AND for the money that comes with attention.
        
        And maybe for some sort of bilious adrenaline rush too.
    - niktemadur
      
      Paying attention to hate-and-ignorance-mongers has only poisoned my emotions and raised my blood pressure, surely I’m not the only one.
      
      Stewart, Coulter, Maddow and Olbermann have had no effect on stopping them, as they’re preaching to a choir, just like the cynical hate-mongers who make money reaffirming bullshit narratives to those who actually believe that Obama is an inferior human being, because of the color of his skin, in this 2012.
      
      Glenn Beck’s disgusting little circus was yanked off the air not because of Stewart’s fantastic ridiculing of the little man, and not because of you and me not listening, but because many companies decided to not have their advertisement associated with such extreme content. Only the levers of power popped him out like a zit.
      
      But this matchstick cokebitch was on Bill Maher last week, wasn’t she?
      She gets the microphone, I refuse to listen. Why does she keep getting handed that goddamned microphone?
      - acerplatanoides
        
        Same reason Vick is a QB again.
      - abstract_reg
        
        You’re saying that Ann Coulter can get over 2,000 yards per season?
      - Scott Slemmons
        
        Beck was yanked off the air because his advertisers bailed on him… because viewers wrote them and demanded they stop advertising on his show.
        
        If they’d ignored Beck, he’d still be on the air, with all his advertisers, instead of a forgotten sideshow freak.
        
        You have to feed trolls. Hard. Through a wood chipper.
      - http://www.facebook.com/dave.maclachlan.3 Dave MacLachlan
        
        Thank you for my morning dose of laughter, re: wood chippers. :)
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Don’t forget to use the resultant slurry as fertilizer to grow crops for the poor.
    - acerplatanoides
      
      “It doesn’t anymore. Ignoring the modern hatemonger troll means you’re giving tacit approval for what they say.”
      
      Not actually. Maybe in Ann’s world.
    - abstract_reg
      
      Your analogy breaks down when I ask: How do we stomp on Ann Coulter?
      We can and should ignore her and focus on the rehabilitation of her minions.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Destroy the queen and the hive falls apart.
- dolo54
  
  Seriously, I made it a rule a long time ago not to read a goddamn word that idiot writes. Except now it’s on BB, so I couldn’t help it. Making any sort of comment about this sad excuse for a human just feeds her idiocracy.
Øyvind

Of course she would say that, since she, being a retard, is affected by it. I am of course here referring to the 21. century meaning of retard, not the disability meaning.
That said, should we really approve of Romney’s decision to be kind to retards like Ann Coulter? Her skeleton face scares me almost as much as the words coming out of her mouth.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones
  
  zomgz, your reference to skeletons is incredibly offensive, do you think all of us are insane rabble rousing regressives? do you think we are all thoughtless, reactive media whores with nothing to say but vague straw man vomit from some smarter blogger’s neocon website? i, sir, find you disgusting. (clack clack clack)
  - Øyvind
    
    Yes.
    In fact every skeleton I have ever seen on tv or heard on the radio (I’m sorry to say I haven’t met any in person) have without exception either been suspiciously quiet or spewing out inanities, often ending up with the attack on innocent bystanders in dark woods.
    The only difference between that and Ann Coulter is that she hasn’t yet attacked anyone physically, though I guess that is because she is still in the closet, and keeps the skin on.
    So yes, those things you said. Also, now I am afraid to walk in the woods with Ann Coulter.
    - L_Mariachi
      
      I’m sure you have met at least one skeleton, quite literally “in person.”
    - lutherblissett
      
      or as Ali G asked “why is all skeletons involved in evil stuff?”
    - abstract_reg
      
      If I’m not mistaken, you sir are just a skeleton yourself, with a nice outfit of meat on.
      - Øyvind
        
        You shut your mouth, that is slander! I don’t know who spread such malicious rumors, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Ann Coulter.
  - fergus1948
    
    Ann Coulter must be delighted to hear that in one short sentence she has managed to offend democrats, Obama, transgender people, people with learning disabilities and skeletons!
    This must be like Christmas to her!
IDaMan008

To paraphrase Mal from Firefly: my days of not taking Ann Coulter seriously are certainly coming to a middle.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1158459075 Billy Garrett

This woman is a fetid boil on the ass of humanity.
- voiceinthedistance
  
  I will see you the fetid boil on the ass of humanity and raise you some ooze.
  She is an oozing fetid boil on the ass of humanity.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Flugfrei-Jones/1403604860 Flugfrei Jones
    
    and no doubt the ooze is at least slightly explosive, making her a slightly explosive ooze-ing fetid boil on the ass of humanity. (and not at all a skeleton, because that is offensive)
    - cellocgw
      
      So you’re saying she’s a blob of Santorum?
http://twitter.com/talo0o0o0o0 talbo0o0

I’m still waiting for the day Ann Coulter unzips herself and out pops Andy Kaufman
- http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline
  
  thanks, this is the exact opposite of the mental image i needed first thing on a tuesday
  - L_Mariachi
    
    It would restore some modicum of faith in humanity. Also, Kaufman would be alive and Coulter a quickly fading fever dream. Both good things.
- acerplatanoides
  
  I think you just saved my morning with that image.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  Or Tony Clifton.
lsamsa

Ann…your ugliness from within has really taken its toll.
bruceburbank

I worked in talk radio for more than a decade (news, politics, sports, current issues) with some shock jock types. I can tell you that the vast majority of them didn’t actually believe most of the outlandish, ridiculous crap that came flying out of their mouths. They said it because they knew how to get a rise out of their audience; how to get their blood boiling. That’s all talk radio is and that’s all this is. It’s just bait to provoke the less-enlightened listeners who actually think the hosts believe what they say.

Please be enlightened, and please don’t take the bait.
- L_Mariachi
  
  You say that as if insincerity were a mitigating virtue. I’m not that concerned with one person’s vitriolic ignorant rancor, I’m concerned with the weak-minded legions that she influences and validates. Crazy person on the corner babbling about how everyone needs to, I dunno, kill their children before the aliens arrive from Planet X to enslave them, that’s mostly Crazy Person’s unfortunate problem. When person publishes bestselling books and is a constant face on TV news shows, regardless of her sincerity or sanity or lack thereof the damage done is not to her own credibility, it’s in the effect she has on her audience. A shock jock doesn’t get to go on the air and exhort his audience to “kill all the Jews!” and then simply walk it back with “Hey, come on, I was just fucking around, it’s my job as a shock jock.”
- Navin_Johnson
  
  A comedian I like has mentioned numerous times that a lot of them would shock-shill™* for Democrats (or anybody) in a second if offered a higher paycheck, or higher profile gig.
  
  *think I just invented a thing there…
http://www.facebook.com/mmarlett Mike Marlett

God, what was his kindness to Paul Ryan?
Daemonworks

I still get warm fuzzies when I think about the day when Ann was supposed to come up to Canada, but was informed that much of what comes out of her mouth would break our hate-speech laws…
- Sarah Gabriel
  
  HuffPpo article about the above:
  
  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/22/ann-coulter-told-to-watch_n_508406.html
- http://www.facebook.com/roger.strong.12 Roger Strong
  
  It’s worth mentioning that it was a private citizen who told her that, not the government. She DID come to Canada, was her usual self, and did not have any problem with hate speech laws.
  
  Those hate speech laws were new, but had already been tested in court, did badly, and were neutered.
  
  She later had an incident at another university where too many people showed up for the venue. The police recommended that she move the talk to a larger venue, but said that they would not stop her from holding it in the planned venue. Her own people cancelled the talk, and then declared that they had been censored.
bo1n6bo1n6

Every response my brain comes up with sinks to her level, so I will sit and wait for others to lash out at her and enjoy internet justice…
bzishi

She’s trolling. Obviously (in the best Professor Snape voice I can imagine).

But I do have to wonder if she felt any guilt by saying such a hateful comment. Or has she become so detached from reality that she felt it was justified? I mean, how can you say hurtful things every day without destroying yourself? I don’t believe in God or souls, but I do believe that she is pouring acid on some essential part of her humanity with such statements.
- Wild Rumpus
  
  “I do believe that she is pouring acid on some essential part of her humanity” …that’s assuming she’s human. I think she’s one of those David Icke lizard people, myself.
  - abstract_reg
    
    Lizard, skeleton, Andy Kaufman… make up your mind faceless mob of Boingboingers.
    - Navin_Johnson
      
      I’ve always thought she kind of looked like a certain character (and territorial army soldier…) on The Office (UK)
- IronEdithKidd
  
  ,She may be a sociopath. Which would mean she either does or doesn’t believe the BS dripping out of her mouth, and she has no conscious concept of that verbal diarrhea being capable of causing harm on any level to anyone, ever. It’s all, like, just her opinion, man. Or at least, that’s what her id tells her.
- regeya
  
  I think it’s a combination of professional trolling, and genuinely feeling that anyone who is not Republican isn’t human.
sam1148

She has to up her game to remain valid and sell books and get on TV.

This must be very difficult for her, as the modern GOP has become so filled with the same type of noise..and it’s difficult to tell where satire and reality starts in mainstream GOP.

In the past she’s made outlandish statements to get on TV, book deals, talk shows and show off her quick wit. etc…now her outlandish statements are policy for GOP; sorry Ann…you’re not needed anymore. Bye, Bye.

(Frankly, I don’t really think she gave the retard statement a second thought, much like someone would use the “N” word saying they’re not racist — but then again..she may up her game and start using “N***er to sell books in the south).
http://www.KladniFigures.com/ Scooter Jackson

Here’s hoping Mama Bear Palin comes after her for using the “r-word”. That’s a publicity catfight I’d pay to see. Them two slandering each other, on every outlet possible and for a few straight weeks, is a win for everyone.
http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios

Why give this person ANY publicity? I honestly hadn’t heard her name mentioned in a couple of years and was just fine with that.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  But 100,000,000 Americans have heard her and pay attention to what she says. And vote.
PhosPhorious

Isn’t she being defensive here? She obviously thinks that Romney lost the debate and is rationalizing it. Republicans don’t respect “kind and gentle” which is why she had to lash out.

Obama handed Romney his ass on foreign policy and Coulter knows it.
- dlovely
  
  or Mitt took the high road and wasn’t pulled back into the Syrian discussion like Obama wanted. The average person doesn’t care about foreign policy nearly as much as the economic downturn in America and they will vote that way come November. One and done, Obama, it was nice knowing ya…
  - Snig
    
    Of course if they cared about the economic downturn, why would people vote for reinstitution of the Bush economic policies and his misguided foreign policies that led to the Bush downturn?
  - PhosPhorious
    
    You also seem to think that Romney had his ass handed to him, which is why you change the subject to the economy. The debate was about foreign policy.
    
    It’s “taking the high road” to not talk about foreign policy during a foreign policy debate?
    
    Mitt was flattened last night. And conservatives know it.
  - http://www.facebook.com/dave.maclachlan.3 Dave MacLachlan
    
    “Economic downturn”. You keep using those words. I do not think they mean what you think they mean.
    
    An “economic downturn” is what we just went through during Bush’s last term, where the country was hemorrhaging jobs to the tune of 800,000 a month. Last I checked, that has drastically improved since Obama’s been in office. Are we back where we were before the free fall? Nope.
    
    Romney “took the high road” because his advisers told him to ratchet back his previous babbling in an effort to appear reasonable for a change. Since the debate was supposed to be about foreign policy, side-stepping Syria and Libya was a neat trick.
  - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
    
    Face it dlovely, the only thing keeping Romney polls up are people who make more money from a tight race than they do from an honest one.
    
    Unless the Republican voter suppression campaigns are more successful than they ever have been in the past Obama is getting a second term.
  - http://www.youtube.com/user/Freethinkersanon Christopher
    
    Is that you, Ms. Coulter?
  - wysinwyg
    
    Wow, tough to tell whether this is a troll. Well done if so.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  Americans at large don’t respect “kind and gentle”. That’s been one of Democrat’s biggest mistakes all along.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

What a lovely woman. A national treasure.
acerplatanoides

She’s still bitter about that house landing on her sister.
- http://www.facebook.com/dave.maclachlan.3 Dave MacLachlan
  
  There was a lot of hostility at the reading of the will. She’d been promised those shoes.
  - welcomeabored
    
    Nevermind those silly slippers, how did the will divvy up the flying monkeys? A woman could go places with monkeys as minions.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I can make accidents happen too.
Kevin Pierce

Let’s wait 2 weeks and find out how she feels about Romney’s loss to “the retard”.
Aaron H

Ann Coulter is a very well paid troll.
James Baldwin

She is simply playing a role. She is an actress, a clown, akin to a professional wrestler playing the villain. Half of what she says is intended to shock and awe.
- acerplatanoides
  
  well, that would explain the massive pointy shoes.
  
  But no, she is not a Colbert.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Comedy doesn’t have to satire. It doesn’t even need to be funny.
    - acerplatanoides
      
      Was Tokyo Rose a comedian?
      - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
        
        Not that I recall.
    - Ipo
      
      Yes it does. It has to be humorous or intend to be amusing by inducing laughter.
      Or else it is another thing.
- Tess
  
  I suppose that means we should somehow be okay with this? I’m not sure what’s better: saying hateful shit you believe in or pretending you believe in it for money.
  
  Well, yes I am. Give me horrific integrity any day.
  - welcomeabored
    
    I’m going to go with ‘none of the above’. What worries me is that other people believe they believe it, and that’s all they want – a true believer they can follow. They’re swayed by the illusion of conviction and the lazyness of their ‘faith’. I shudder to think how many voters vote their party every election.
http://www.facebook.com/durkee.david David Durkee

Where is Sarah Palin’s righteous indignation?
John Verne

I love how she speaks of herself in the third person.
http://twitter.com/BKImbecile Brooklyn Imbecile

Coulter is the Bill Maher of the right. And keep in mind, Ann & Bill are friends. They both found the niche of partisan commentary and make a lot of money doing so. She’s just an entertainer, just not for you.
- acerplatanoides
  
  She definitely turns herself up to eleven, but even at one that schtick is repellant.
- http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson
  
  There is a big difference in that Maher is actually funny (he IS a professional comedian), where as Coulter is basically a bomb-thrower out to demonize liberals; her books are little more than long talking points based on selective use of information to make it easy for idiots to argue with their neighbors.
- Tess
  
  “Just an entertainer” for someone that lots of people actually believe and who encourages hate?
  
  I’m totally going to go out there and advocate violence against blond white straight women. It’s not hate, it’s entertainment, so you should all be okay with it!
  
  **sigh**
- Mitchell Glaser
  
  I think the idea that Coulter and Maher are equivalent is indeed imbecilic.
RepublicansSuckIt

Oh Ann, was Romney kind to you…?
pupdog

What a wonderful land the USA is – in lots of places, these sorts of comments, or Tagg Romney’s threatening to punch the President would land you in a nice dank prison. Hell, Russia sends you to the gulag for singing…
http://slinberg.com/ Steve Linberg

And now you’re talking about her. There’s no bad publicity. You think this reaction isn’t exactly what she wanted?

Every second spent on people like her is a second you’ll never get back. Just stop.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  Don’t look an it’ll go away strategy?
  
  Unfortunately with stuff like this, and our modern connected world, it’s more like: “Don’t look and they’ll have exponentially replicated by lunchtime”.
  
  Shoot it down early, people like social proof, ignoring it just gives the advantage to her supporters.
  
  The game has changed, Steve.
  - http://slinberg.com/ Steve Linberg
    
    I don’t think the game has changed. There are just more people than ever playing the wrong way.
    
    The only way to deal with trolls is to ignore them. They want attention. There is no bad kind of attention for them.
    - http://twitter.com/fossilfuels Funk Daddy
      
      When she crosses the lines that many people observe, the best outcome is that she gets the attention she does.
      
      Because when that happens, she has invoked her cowardly escapist act. She disavows any suggestion that she is serious, or a commentator/pundit/columnist/politician and demands she is just a comedian exercising her 1st amendment.
      
      And that is the best message that her followers can hear to end any particular episode.
      
      I mean, should people ignore it when someone who is provided the ability to broadcast advises that the NYTimes building & staff should be bombed, that a sitting Supreme Court Justice should have rat poison added to their food, that Muslims are ragheads and America should kill them or convert them to Christianity, and a stack of other shit stupid statements? Not call her on it?
      
      Why not?, she’s a coward and will capitulate. Not this time, because that is tame by her standards, she didn’t suggest anyone should be killed.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  You know who else was ignored by reasonable people?
  - http://slinberg.com/ Steve Linberg
    
    Morton Downey Jr? Actually, he was, wasn’t he? Where is he now? Right, he fell into obscurity when he lost his audience, he died ten years ago, and nobody noticed.
http://twitter.com/chrisjimson chris jimson

Does Coulter think this tweet will help the Romney campaign? I’m sure there’s a word for someone who thinks that way, like “imbecile” or “moron”, but more derogatory . . . what could it be?

(Seriously though, her tweet is tacit admission that Obama wiped the floor with Mitt.)
http://twitter.com/BaldyBombshell :):

I advise the Paul Anka strategy. Just don’t look. All Ann Coulter wants is attention, and congratulations, you’re giving it to her.
MertvayaRuka

Oh yes, when I was younger and constantly bullied and harassed, completely ignoring them absolutely worked for me. They eventually stopped bothering me and entirely vanished.

Nope, wait, that’s complete bullshit. I never got a bully to leave me alone by ignoring them and pretending they didn’t exist. I did it by standing up to them and by standing up for anyone else who wasn’t able to do so themselves instead of just being happy it wasn’t happening to me. I didn’t pursue them. I didn’t start fights with them. I didn’t belittle or victim-blame anyone who didn’t choose to do what I did. I defended myself and others. Bullies like Coulter live on victims who are helpless or marginalized and ignoring them is really easy if you’re not the main target. It’s convenient. Telling yourself (and more importantly, anyone who will listen) you’re better than them by not engaging them is a conceit; if you’re not constantly spewing slurs at the marginalized and openly calling for violence against people based on nothing more than political or philosophical disagreement you are all ready by default better than them and nobody owes you a fucking cookie for that.
- http://slinberg.com/ Steve Linberg
  
  Trolls and bullies are completely different. Trolls just say stupid things to provoke a reaction. Bullies try to cause real, usually physical, harm. Ann Coulter is a troll, not a bully. Unless she starts throwing punches or making actionable threats, it’s a mistake to conflate the two. Yes, you can ignore her. If everybody did, she WOULD go away.
  - MertvayaRuka
    
    Welcome to the information age, where today’s sophisticated bullies don’t need to cause real, physical harm to their victims by their own hand. Now they can either incite other people to cause that harm (and disavow any involvement) or they can drive their targets to self-harm and/or suicide. Yes I could ignore her. I don’t. Because it’s a silly fucking idea. Because ignoring her and the rest of her ilk doesn’t magically vanish the millions of people who buy their books, attend their public appearances and believe every single fucking thing they say as if it were holy writ. She and the rest of the screaming heads like Hannity, Savage, Breitbart, etc. do not exist because of the suffering of their victims but because of the adulation of their fans. You might as well be trying to stop a house fire by ignoring the knocked-over candle that ignited it.
    - http://slinberg.com/ Steve Linberg
      
      Clearly we disagree, but don’t think that Ann Coulter isn’t squealing with glee over all the attention her comments are getting. You’re giving her exactly what she wants.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        Do you have anything new to add? Because you’ve said the same thing four times now.
  - Ipo
    
    Trolls are one set, bullies are another.
    Ann Schicklgruber-Coulter is in the intersecting set.
http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby

I don’t know who this person is, but they’re clearly a tool on at least 2… maybe 3 levels.
- Felton / Moderator
  
  I envy you.
http://www.facebook.com/aelfscine Jon Bakos

She’s found a niche of being blindly hateful, but there’s only so far one can go with that. There’s a point where you just can’t get *angrier*. A year from now, is every post of hers just going to be FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK? And yes, she’s definitely no longer a part of civilized discourse, much like Glenn Beck.
- Navin_Johnson
  
  She’s not angry, she’s trying to generate interest in her failing brand. This was calculated like every other “outrageous” thing she says when people start to forget about her. Anything to get her name out there. Last time it was how “ugly” all the women at the DNC were.
UncaScrooge

“The problem with the discourse deal is capitalism. You can make a lot of money by being an assassin. It doesn’t matter: right wing or left wing. You go in and you’re a hater – radio, cable, in print, whatever – you can get paid. And there’s a people who do that. And they go in, they don’t even believe half the stuff they say. … Capitalism drives that. There are people – Americans – who want to hear hate.”

– Bill O’Reilly, during a moment of clarity.
http://www.cdllife.com/ Andrew S.

I guess I just don’t understand what’s actually incredibly insulting about what she said. It just sounds like a third grader trying out a snappy comeback. And like bullying third graders, she relies completely on drawing attention. Why give it to her over something as incredibly innocuous as this? Rational people toward the political middle don’t get upset when things like this are said. Why pretend?
- Navin_Johnson
  
  What’s so rational about the political middle?
  - http://www.cdllife.com/ Andrew S.
    
    The way I portray the political middle would be people that don’t have knee-jerk reactions to something obviously designed to energize a polarized base of political thought.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I guess I just don’t understand what’s actually incredibly insulting about what she said.
  
  Well, you’re clearly of subnormal intelligence.
  
  I trust that you won’t find my observation insulting.
  - http://www.cdllife.com/ Andrew S.
    
    How would I? You don’t know me. As well, would anyone actually confuse President Obama with someone who’s retarded? It’s a weak insult, based on nothing factual. Who would fall for that type of sentiment? It’s merely designed to elicit a reaction, and when you fall into some argument based on a term that only resonates with people who hold blunt ideals, you’re automatically pulled down to that level, forced to argue your way through their biases.
    All of this is just noise designed to keep Coulter in headlines. Would you seriously fall for that obvious ploy?
Guest

Mommy whats a Coultard?
http://www.facebook.com/fritterfae Eric Riley

My favorite memory of Ann Coulter was the pie in the face moment at some college where she spoke. There was a resultant FARK headline that read something like: Two college students give Ann Coulter pie in the face, did not realize she needed to be cast back into the fires of Mount Doom to unmake her.
Scott R

It’s all show; she does this sort of thing to shock. I can’t tell if she believes any of the tripe she spouts. She’s not simply a nutcase, she’s a performer who says nutty stuff in order to make a lot of money.
Al_Packer

OK, look at the sheer number of comments here. Even on BoingBoing she gets the attention she craves.
http://www.zazzle.com/InfinitudeTortoises* An Infinitude of Tortoises

Anntsy: She-Wolf of the Republicanistical Reich

I am the very model of the modern antiliberal,
Bloviating bile inimical, miasmal, and criminal.
Knuckle-dragging neocons deem me something of an oracle,
Though educated people find my arguments rhetorical;
In skewering straw men I’m both relentless and fanatical;
My use of attribution, though, is somewhat problematical.
For grieving 9/11 widows I heap nothing but abuse,
And I pray those wimpy liberals will be hanging from a noose.
I am vicious, rude, malicious, crude, and … well, it continues on from there, but you get the idea….
ChickieD

http://specialolympicsblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/an-open-letter-to-ann-coulter/

A very nice response from the Special Olympics global messenger.
http://twitter.com/rosefox Rose Fox

Please be aware of how offensive “Mann Coulter” and the like are to trans* women and those of us who care about them. Some women are assigned “male” at birth; some women have penises. Those are societal and biological facts and it’s incredibly rude to use them as the basis of insults. Insulting a woman by saying she’s trans* is no more or less than saying that transness is inherently bad. If you care about feminism and women’s rights, have some respect for trans* women too.
holdingrabbits

Everyone should play nice, but I still don’t understand this issue.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000444450214 Genre Slur

“You’re born naked — the rest is drag.” — RuPaul Charles.
Can I get an Amen up in here?!
Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet

Well put, very clear and direct.
abstract_reg

Totally agree. The strange thing is that Ann Coulter also doesn’t have any understanding of the inherent discrimination in insults. Thus using “retard” as an insult which is deeply offensive to many people and their families.
Also, if the media decides to ignore everything Ann Coulter says from this moment on, I wouldn’t mind at all.
http://www.facebook.com/phil.culmer Phil Culmer

Amen!
http://profiles.google.com/maurice.reeves Maurice Reeves

Amen!
awjt

A-women!
foobar

Ramen!
Al_Packer

Hameneggs
Antinous / Moderator

Shrieking at someone, “You’re not a real woman!” is not only rude, but laden with transphobic, homophobic and sexist scorn. You’re taking someone else’s normal state of being and hurling it as an insult. It also has about as much political sophistication as calling Obama a Muslim because you don’t like his politics.
Rachael Hoffman-Dachelet

Now, can you rephrase it about the insult “retard” and send it on to Ann Coulter?
cellocgw

You’re absolutely right, but in this case I submit that if one has the chance to say it straight to Coulter’s face, it’d be about as deep an insult (in her own “bubble” world) as anything you could come up with. The rest of us folk would recognize it as a total pwning a’ la Colbert.
foobar

No, it’s just crass.
http://www.gyrofrog.com/ Gyrofrog

They (the media) seem to have done just that. I fairly much go out of my way to ignore pundits, but Ann seems to have dropped off the radar, after Glenn Beck went to the top of the totem pole a couple of years ago. And now it seems even Glenn’s not up there anymore.

Again, this is speaking as someone who doesn’t follow what she says or does, and occasionally -now, less often – sees her name go by in the news.
Guest

Tell it to Barak “Special Olympics” Obama.
gamophyte

She just was on the view because of a book she wrote. Or the same book she always writes.
Antinous / Moderator

Maybe it’s because I just re-watched Pink Flamingos, but I imagine Ms. Coulter wiping her ass with our e-mails while laughing maniacally.